How do you make your Mortises?

How do you cut your Mortises

  • Old School, Mortise Chisel only!

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Drill the holes and clean up with a chisel.

    Votes: 6 10.2%
  • I use a mortising attachment on my drill press.

    Votes: 5 8.5%
  • I use a mortising machine.

    Votes: 28 47.5%
  • I use a router/router based jig

    Votes: 15 25.4%
  • Other (Please describe)

    Votes: 5 8.5%

  • Total voters
    59
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I use all of the above methods, depends on the job, time constraints and location. ie; if I 'm on location , I won't have my morticer by me [ too big and heavy to carry :rolleyes:] if its a couple small ones I'll get the hand tools out.Then again if I'm on site work and have loads to bash out then I'll switch too a router and machine them.

there u have it

hth
karl
 
Up until a couple of weeks ago, I did them by hand for only a few mortises. If I had a run of them, I used my Powermatic 701 mortiser (modified with a cross slide vise).
But I found a great deal on an unused Leigh FMT Pro on CL. Since I got it, I've done about 50 mortises with matching tenons for a couple of sideboards and a hutch. It was so fast, precise and easy, that it'll be hard to go back to my old ways. Even for just a couple of M&Ts, I'll reach for the Leigh FMT.
I do a lot of through tenon joinery, so I plan on getting the square tenon templates for the FMT and square up the mortises with my chisels.
 
Some people use an end mill in a slot mortiser - a bit that cuts either as you plunge in or sideways, like some plunge router bits. Generally you plunge at each end, then move sideways to clean out.

Other people use a bit that only cuts sideways, with two or four points, that looks like a birds mouth (and generally can cut either clockwise or counterclockwise - right or left rotation). Therefore you move left and right in the slot as you gradually cut deeper.

birdsmouth.jpg


The results I get with the birdsmouth bits is outstandingly smooth; some of the results I have seen with end mills is somewhat ragged.
 
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