Woodworking

Spent the day practicing a through mortise before breaking actual pieces. Had a scrap cutoff of the maple to test on.

First attempt my layout was off by maybe 1/16" of an inch so when it broke through to the other side it caught the edge and blew out the backside.
Second one I paid a little closer attention and practiced using the mortise gauge a little more steady. It was going well until I chipped off the knife wall, wasn't paying attention and think I levered against it.
Third attempt went well and so moved on to the actual pieces and did all 4 of them.

Pretty happy with the results and they fit maybe a little too tight on the one test tenon I've cut. Would like to clean up the insides a bit and get better at not having them so rough. The last one was best, of course, since after 7 or 8 of the things my comfort level had grown. Went probably 3/4" of the way through the top so had less to punch through from the other side and that seemed to help the tear out going on in the mortise.

Tried to burnish the card scraper and just couldn't get it to scrape how I felt was right, not comparing it against YouTube instructions. Will try again but tomorrow is going to be mostly tenon cutting for these 4 mortise and seeing how the frame comes together. After all this work I am thinking of not doing the same joinery on the lower cross members and instead doing a bridal joint that I can pull off with a table saw, haha.

Moisture also slightly bowed my table top so would like to get it sealed up as well. But am kind of using it for my benchtop at the moment.

BrutulTM said:

Did you do it all with a chisel? Or did you drill out the middle first?

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All chisel. After messing up the first couple I contemplated drilling it out on the press but decided that would defeat the purpose.

I have an older set from Amazon that I've been using and learning how to sharpen and maintain. It is making me consider a nicer Narex mortise chisel but it isn't like the cheap chisel is holding me back hah.

Soygen said:

I have an old stanley chisel and a set of harbor freight ones. I'm trying not to buy any good chisels until I'm actually decent at using these piece of shit ones. Vast majority of my projects have been with power tool/table saw/etc.

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I bought a combo Trend diamond stone and honing guide and that's what I've used to learn on my cheap chisels and one stanley #4. Noticed today that the corner of my 1/2" was chipped, probably from the mortises yesterday, so re did it to 30 degree b/c it came out of the set at 35. Was trying (and failing) to clean up the shoulders on the tenons I was doing today and grabbed the 3/4" one to use. Man, I thought these were sharp out of the box but had not ever compared side by side the difference. Even with my zero skill at this it was night and day the sharpness of the 1/2".

Forgot to take pictures today of the dry fit. Not happy with the tenon shoulders. Spent forever trying to get them planed correctly. They're a millimeter out but it makes such a huge difference sitting flush with the mortise. Going to try a bit more tomorrow. Will take some pics and maybe try to glue it up. I'm thinking 9 degrees isn't bad enough to just clamp directly otherwise I'll rig up something.

Captain Suave said:

Not sure in which dimension you're having problems with the shoulders, but an important joinery hack is to remember that your parts only need to be dead flush at the visible perimeter of the joints. You can undercut the faces of the shoulders by a degree or two to give yourself slack and everything will be that much easier to put together. Getting totally square/parallel/straight stock and marking is finnicky enough without having to also get all the non-visible surfaces perfect.

With your sharpening gear be sure to also use a leather strop. Super cheap, and a few strokes ever few minutes of chiseling will do wonders for keeping your work crisp. It'll even protect your chisels because you won't be driving force into a blunted or rolled cutting edge.

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I had just finished that article on Fine Woodworking about undercutting. It will definitely help. Basically was trying to get them perfectly flat all the way around. Will give it a shot tomorrow. Thanks!

Did you spline the mitre or anything for strength?

Also really like the finish. What’d you go with? I picked up some keda aniline dye to try out instead of a normal stain. Trying to see if I can get something similar to that brown’ish.