Hand Chopping A Mortise Tutorial

A man true to his word. Thanks Stefang.
Great photo’s and post…

-- "Even small steps makes a distance." (Shawn Phillips, musician)

My pleasure notottoman. I changed one wrong picture out. It was the results of the 3rd cut. I hope you find it useful.

-- Mike, American in Norway

stefang. what about the sides of the mortise. Do you pare them out with a chisel? I assume they need to be smooth but that they won’t be just from chopping right? Just wondering. I’ve never cut a mortise by hand before. thanks for the tutorial.

EDIT: I think i missed it the first time. sounds like paring is not necessary.

Nice demo! I am sure some LJs who have never done this before will benefit from the step by step. I know it was a mystery to me the first time I did it.

Hey HokieMojo. If you do it well enough you will not have to shave the sides. This requires keeping the chisel square to the hole. Sometimes while chopping I get a little off square and then the sides need a little paring.

-- Mike, American in Norway

good blog

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com

Thanks, Mike. This was a pretty informative blog. You demonstrated the mortising technique well.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Thanks Mike,

I have never made a mortise of any kind, so this was very useful. Nice to know you really don’t have to have a machine.

I am chugging away on my benchtop downdraft table. Meaning, you set it on or clamp it to a bench. Down to pegging screw holes, filling some nail holes, and then the finishing. Hopefully will be able to apply finish tomorrow, display Sunday, but don’t hold your breath. Worked about 4 hours, but then my eternal infernal back infirmity gets the best of me and I have to rest. Born with the problem, but age has made it worse. Did get all the holes drilled, most of the screws pegged, and the panels with holes edge routed. This is classified a utilitariian project, and I want it to be sturdy, durable, and flexible. Built from plywood, some leftovers, some oak salvage for spreaders.

Now I am just hanging out baby sitting my bird…............

-- Jim, Anchorage Alaska

The main question I have about this is, how do you gauge the depth of the mortise while chiseling? It looks like you’re going as deep as you want on the first and second cuts, and then the rest are all referenced off those, I just wanted to be sure that’s how you’re doing it.

Thanks Mike! Got to try this.

-- Make every day the best day of your life. Chips, Mississippi

Thanks for the great show and tell.

-- Doug, New Mexico.......the only stupid question is one that is never asked!........don't fix it, if it ain't broke!

Thanks for the positive comments all.

Jimi I didn’t pre-plan the depth on this one. I forgot to mention that you can mark the depth on your chisel with a piece of masking tape. Sorry, I was a little frustrated and hurried yesterday and I see now that I missed some details.

-- Mike, American in Norway

No worries, I think we got the gist of it :)

Nice job Mike!! Sorry to be late, I was shooting a match in Oregon over the weekend.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

BTW, Any one interested in hand mortising can find mortising chisels on ebay. They’re on there all the tiime.

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

Thanks Bob. Good tip the mortise chisels available on ebay. I see you are active in the shooting world. The Norwegians are very active in this sport. A short time ago we hosted the Norwegian championships here in our little community of 13,000. A Norwegian just won an international title, but I’m not sure which nations were competing as I don’t really follow the sport. They always have the national competition on TV here in Norway. I went shooting with a friend at work once back in 1981 to a competition range. We used rifles they had there. I was amazed at how heavy they were, much heavier than an M1 for example and I found it very uncomfortable. I was raised with 30/30 lever action rifles which I feel a lot more at home with.

-- Mike, American in Norway

I just shoot old style single shots and black powder. I don’t follow the other sports, too many of them to keep track of:-)

-- Debt is nothing more than the 21st Century's form of slavery.

Thank you so much for this blog Stefang.I have been wanting to try doing something like this for awhile now and had no real idea how to get started.Great write up and pictures.

-- Dustygirl..Hastings,Ontario.. How much wood can 1 gal chuck if 1 gal can't cut wood?

Thanks Mike, I plan to make a pair of bed rails 80” X 6” X 4/4, using hard maple. I need to mortise the ends of the rails so the steel inserts for the hooks will be flush with end of the rails. Because the rails are long I will follow your method to make the mortises. The depth of my mortise is only 1/4” but the sides need to be very square to provide support for the steel inserts.

-- Ed.....nothing is but thinking makes it so.