G&G Square Holes

glenn bradley

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There are a lot of pegs in the night stands I'm working on. I had to stop and touch up the motise chisel so I took a few shots.

A couple cones and a diamond plate touch up the chisel in just a few moments:

Mort-Chis-touch-up.jpg

Whack this thing to mark your territory:

Square-holes-mort-chis.jpg

Clean out with a 1/4" chisel to about 1/4" deep:

Square-holes-after-clean-ou.jpg

1/4" dowel goes through the tenon. 5/16" ebony plug goes in the square hole.
 
Yeah, works pretty neat, huh?

I have an old TaiChi 3/8" square chisel that I keep for just that purpose. The drill bit for it broke a long time ago, and just kept the chisel. That way, I don't batter up a 'good' mortising set when setting those square plugs.
 
Mortising

Hey Jim,
When I make my mortises I take a very sharp knife or chisel and cut around the area where the hole is going to be. I never thought of using a mortising chisel like this. Looks like this method would work better. What do you think? Thanks, Joe
 
Hey Jim,
When I make my mortises I take a very sharp knife or chisel and cut around the area where the hole is going to be. I never thought of using a mortising chisel like this. Looks like this method would work better. What do you think? Thanks, Joe

I've done it 'your way' many times, and it certainly works - it's also most likely the way that G&G did it originally, too.

The square chisel kinda takes the guesswork out of the process, though. It ensures that the mortise will be square, and not a parallelogram.

Even after tapping out the form with the square chisel, you still need a 'regular' mortising chisel to finish the job. The square chisel is really just a layout tool.
 
The square chisel is really just a layout tool.

Quite correct. It is a cheap-o. A $10 Grizzly if I remember right. I just need all the help I can get :thumb:. The pegs are still done oversize with a taper so really any irregularites get dealt with through tapping them in. This just helps me keep from having them twist CW or CCW whilst tapping away :rolleyes:.
 
Square peg

Thanks for the help guys, I just never looked at it like that, sounds good, Thanks again for the help, Joe
 
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