Chopping Mortices?

[Skip J.]

I recommend looking at Kees van der Heiden's video. Even though he is a beginner, he has a much better grasp of technique than Sellers. We have used mortise chisels for at least 400 years, probably millennia.
Kees mortising

Thanks for that Warren! And also Kees is one of us...
There was no part of the process start to finish that was left out, I really enjoyed it.

[Bibliophile 13]

Two schools of thought on hand-chopped mortises:

One is Sellers' method, in which you start at one end of the mortise and move progressively toward the other end in small steps, then turn around and work your way back. It works.

The other is to start in the middle of the mortise. Chop a little V in the middle. Then reverse the mortise chisel with every chop, working your way back toward the ends at the same time. This method is favored by Peter Follansbee and others. It works.

Either one works. I prefer Sellers' method because I'm not constantly pulling the chisel out of the mortise and repositioning it. OTOH, I think that with Follansbee's method, the bottom of the mortise is a little easier to clean up. Either way, for mortises more than about 1.5" deep, it's a lot easier to just cut a through-mortise, working from both sides. Chopping a really deep mortise by hand is annoying.

Pick one method, practice a lot, and master it.

[barryvabeach]

Another method is to cut a small stop just in from on end, then starting at the other end use the chisel bevel down, and held at a low angle to the work, and push it trying to lift a moderately thin shaving all the way to the end where you cut the stop.  If you do it right, you have lifted a chip that is 1/16 thick, nearly the entire length of the mortise, which is exactly the width of the chisel.  It make it much easier to register the chisel for the rest of the steps.

[AgGEM]

Another method is to cut a small stop just in from on end, then starting at the other end use the chisel bevel down, and held at a low angle to the work, and push it trying to lift a moderately thin shaving all the way to the end where you cut the stop.  If you do it right, you have lifted a chip that is 1/16 thick, nearly the entire length of the mortise, which is exactly the width of the chisel.  It make it much easier to register the chisel for the rest of the steps.

Thank you for that tip!
Ag

[Bob Rozaieski]

I did a video back in 2013 for an online extra that I did for an article I wrote for Pop Wood. You can find it here

https://youtu.be/JMX6ADXc2vk

Here's the mating tenon
https://youtu.be/ET7_i1MrdRY

[Adnick]

Bob:
Great video, in fact I miss your YouTube videos, you have a natural teaching style with the talent to back up the subject matter...

Marc Adams has a different style, and even though I don't subscribe to his method I do always carefully cut out a shallow mortise very carefully as if I'm cutting the show side of a through mortise. Marc's video is still very good, just not my method.

Andy