I want to make a wedged through tenon. The mortise is 1/4" wide by 3/4"
long, and the thickness of the piece is about 1/2".

I had no trouble chopping the basic through mortise with a 1/4" motrise
chisel. Just like a regular mortise, except I kept going :-) The
problem is how to cut the angled ends? I tried just paring the square
ends with my chisel, but the result was a mess. Any hints for how best
to do this?

Roy Smith wrote in message ...

I want to make a wedged through tenon. The mortise is 1/4" wide by 3/4"
long, and the thickness of the piece is about 1/2".

I had no trouble chopping the basic through mortise with a 1/4" motrise
chisel. Just like a regular mortise, except I kept going :-) The
problem is how to cut the angled ends? I tried just paring the square
ends with my chisel, but the result was a mess. Any hints for how best
to do this?

I don't have much experience with this, but I found that if you
take a scrap block and cut it at the angle you want for the mortise,
you can then clamp it to the workpiece and use it as a chisel guide.
Scribe lines where you want the new ends of the mortise to be, and
clamp your guide on that line. That way you can pare until the chisel
"bottoms out" on the guide and you're done.

I think I stole the idea from Ian Kirby.


Chuck Vance

In article ,
(Conan the Librarian) wrote:
I don't have much experience with this, but I found that if you
take a scrap block and cut it at the angle you want for the mortise,
you can then clamp it to the workpiece and use it as a chisel guide.
Scribe lines where you want the new ends of the mortise to be, and
clamp your guide on that line. That way you can pare until the chisel
"bottoms out" on the guide and you're done.

Sounds reasonable, thanks.

Did you do the paring with the same chisel used to chop the main body of
the mortise, or did you switch to something lighter like a bevel-edge
chisel for that part of the operation?

What kind of angle did you use? I'm guessing an 8:1 slope, just like on
a dovetail, would be about right.

Roy Smith wrote in message ...

[snip of using guide block to pare angles on through wedged-mortises]

Sounds reasonable, thanks.

You're welcome.

Did you do the paring with the same chisel used to chop the main body of
the mortise, or did you switch to something lighter like a bevel-edge
chisel for that part of the operation?

IIRC, I switched to a bevel-edge chisel with a lower angle for
paring. And it was smaller than the width of the mortise so I had
some room to use a slicing cut.

What kind of angle did you use? I'm guessing an 8:1 slope, just like on
a dovetail, would be about right.

Yeah, I think it was about 8:1.

Since this sounds like your first attempt at doing these, I might
as well toss out a couple of potential "gotchas": To reduce the odds
of splitting the tenon piece when driving the wedge, drill a hole
that's slightly larger than the kerf at its base. And stop your kerf
~1/4" from the shoulder. (Also, choose nice striaght-grained wood for
the tenon piece.) When doing double wedges, make sure each wedge is
driven home with the angled face towards the end of the mortise/tenon.
Otherwise, you risk splitting the wood or actually locking the joint
without having it seat all the way to the shoulder of the tenon. (The
latter is what happened to me on a mallet.)


Chuck Vance

(Conan the Librarian) wrote:
Since this sounds like your first attempt at doing these

Actually, it's my second. My first attempt was a total disaster. I'm
hoping to improve on that this time around :-)

I might
as well toss out a couple of potential "gotchas": To reduce the odds
of splitting the tenon piece when driving the wedge, drill a hole
that's slightly larger than the kerf at its base. And stop your kerf
~1/4" from the shoulder. (Also, choose nice striaght-grained wood for
the tenon piece.) When doing double wedges, make sure each wedge is
driven home with the angled face towards the end of the mortise/tenon.
Otherwise, you risk splitting the wood or actually locking the joint
without having it seat all the way to the shoulder of the tenon. (The
latter is what happened to me on a mallet.)

Thanks again for the suggestions.

I'm not sure if you mean the tenon as it extends through the mortise or not.
If that is the case, a hand plane will do a good job of making everything
flush.
On through mortises, I learned to mark both sides of the mortise before
chopping. This marking is done with a utility knife in order to define the
edges, The mortise is chopped halfway through the piece and then finished
from the other side.
A mortise chisel is fine, but these mortises can be chopped with a bevel
edge chisel. You take smaller chunks out as you go, but this lends itself to
producing a cleaner mortise. Of course, you can take smaller cuts with a
mortise chisel as well. :-)

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
I want to make a wedged through tenon. The mortise is 1/4" wide by 3/4"
long, and the thickness of the piece is about 1/2".

I had no trouble chopping the basic through mortise with a 1/4" motrise
chisel. Just like a regular mortise, except I kept going :-) The
problem is how to cut the angled ends? I tried just paring the square
ends with my chisel, but the result was a mess. Any hints for how best
to do this?

Roy,

I just read your post again, and I may have mis-read it before. If you are
talking about a through tenon that sticks through the wood and extends above
the wood a small amount and you want to bevel the four edges of the tenon,
use a file. a single cut or double cut mill ******* file will suffice. You
can also polish the end grain with the file.

Sorry that I missed the thrust of your post, but I tend to be a little dense
at times. :-)

"Lowell Holmes" wrote in message
...
I'm not sure if you mean the tenon as it extends through the mortise or
not.
If that is the case, a hand plane will do a good job of making everything
flush.
On through mortises, I learned to mark both sides of the mortise before
chopping. This marking is done with a utility knife in order to define the
edges, The mortise is chopped halfway through the piece and then finished
from the other side.
A mortise chisel is fine, but these mortises can be chopped with a bevel
edge chisel. You take smaller chunks out as you go, but this lends itself
to
producing a cleaner mortise. Of course, you can take smaller cuts with a
mortise chisel as well. :-)

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
I want to make a wedged through tenon. The mortise is 1/4" wide by 3/4"
long, and the thickness of the piece is about 1/2".

I had no trouble chopping the basic through mortise with a 1/4" motrise
chisel. Just like a regular mortise, except I kept going :-) The
problem is how to cut the angled ends? I tried just paring the square
ends with my chisel, but the result was a mess. Any hints for how best
to do this?