woodworking in an apartment

Tenons for Angled Mortises

When last we spoke, I was walking through my process for laying out and cutting angled, rectilinear mortises through a slab top to make low benches and other staked leg furniture without the need for large boring bits and round tenon cutters.

At the end, I promised to discuss my process for cutting the tenons, so here we go.

For most applications, a bare faced tenon (i.e., with one shoulder) is more than sufficient for these types of compound angled joints. The legs splay outward (sometimes as much as 10-15 degrees), so gravity is trying to spread the legs apart, especially where splay (outward angle) is greater than rake (front to back angle. This spreading puts most of the force is on a single shoulder oriented to the outside of the slab in the direction of the play. And tight fitting joint (wedged to fill any gaps lengthwise will more than carry any load in the rake direction). No need for a second shoulder.

I have one more mortise to cut.

For compound angle legs, I start by measuring the overall length of the tenon I’ll need. I like to measure from the back inside corner to the front outside corner (ie, diagonally across the joint), then add 1/4 inch or so per 1 inch of tenon thickness. This leaves enough tenon proud of the top of the slab to trim it fully flush after glue up. When in doubt, add another 1/4 inch. Mark the tenon width like you would any other tenon.

Now mark the splay angle on one side of the leg using a marking knife. This is really important: the splay angle should slope downward and away from the flat of the tenon. As shown below.

Ignore that second mark on the top. After initial marking, I noticed a defect to cut around and had to invert the board.

Now it’s time to mark the rake angle (if you have one). This is where having two bevel gauges really helps. The rake angle slopes downward from the side of the leg that faces the midpoint of the slab lengthwise (or, it slopes upward from the side of the leg that faces the end of the slab). If you’re having trouble visualizing it, it will be painfully clear the first time you mess it up and the corner of tenon shoulder digs into the underside of the slab top.

I’m only using a 1 degree angle on this, but I think you can still see it slope right to left here.

Then carry the splay angle line around the other side of the leg, being careful to orient your bevel gauge so the splay angles are parallel (even if one is lower on the leg than the other). Now it’s time to cut the mortise.

I like to start with the shoulder cut, using a small crosscut saw. If all goes well, it should come off the saw at the correct angle. If not, more on that later. Then rip down the tenon length (although you could split it too, like any other tenon). Because ever one of these mortises will be different, be sure to leave the line so you can pare down later.

Both of these were good right off the saw.

As someone who started woodworking in the golden age of Paul Sellers, I refine all of my tenons with a router plane. For these, though, be careful and take very small bites (i) to ensure the tenon isn’t too thin (there really isn’t a good way to wedge that) and (ii) to avoid tearing the grain (especially in open pore woods like ash and red oak). Any undulation in the tenon face will show when you flush the tenon to the slab top.

After a quick test fit, it’s likely one of your shoulders won’t seat perfectly. I sawed at the wrong angle on one of the legs and ended up with the gap below. Now, this would probably be fine (the other side of the tenon actually seated quite well and the rake angle was spot on. But for a low workbench or a footstool that will see heavy loads, or if you need to fix a wonky rake angle, here is my process.

This is actually going to be a coffee table, so I could have left it alone.

If you have a good flush cut saw (most likely a low set Japanese pull saw or dedicated flush trim saw), you can very gently and carefully saw away flush with the slab top and you’ll be done. If, like me, your flush trim saw plate is thinner than the gap you’re trying to overcome, it may just be worth remarking the splay and rake angles and paring down with a chisel. As long as you left your leg stock overlong, either approach will work. Even if you screw it up a few times.

Now repeat three more times (or as many times as legs you have). You’ll quickly notice that the diagonal legs are identical (other than tenon thickness, probably, since that depends on the mortise). So if you screw up a leg by cutting the angled shoulder wrong, don’t necessarily throw it out or recut it. It will be useful for the opposite set of diagonal legs you haven’t done yet.

I’ve got one mortise and one leg left to go on this new project (an entirely too beefy coffee table made of 8/4 white ash that will also be a large stepstool in a pinch), and will post pictures when it’s done.

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Exciting Times

Hello, everyone! It’s July 2024 and things are weird, generally. The Mets, despite being a pretty shaky team, are in the playoff hunt. The world is on literal and figurative fire. And I have a new workshop.

Complete with shop cat!

More on that soon.

But today I’d like to revisit something I’ve talked about previously: rectangular tenons on low benches. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the traditional Chinese workbench. And in the past I’ve showed off several versions of a sawbench or sitting bench that use angled, rectangular tenons. But today, I’d like to do a deeper dive on how I lay out the angled mortises. Because if you lay them out correctly, it’s tough (but not impossible) to screw things up.

By definition, for any angled mortise, the mortise hole on the top of the slab is in a different position than the mortise hole on the bottom of the slab. Unless you want a super tippy bench, the top of the mortise hole should closer to the center line than the bottom of the mortise hole. And if it’s a compound angle, the mortise hole on the top of the slab will be closer to the midpoint of the slab than the bottom of the mortise hold (which will be closer to the end of the slab). This means that since the mortise (and the corresponding tenon) is a three dimensional object, there will be a portion of the entire mortise is completely vertical. Making angled tenons is, essentially, just strategically relieving the wood around that vertical mortise.

Take a look at the below image, which shows the layout for the mortise on the top of the slab. The greyed out area is the entirely vertical part of the mortise. The unshaded boxes between the other knife lines are the extants of the angled mortise. You’ll see that on the top of the slab, the mortise angles inward. In this case, because of the compound angle, it’s both inward toward the center line and inward toward the mid point of the slab.

The end of the slab is to the right.

Compare that to the underside of the slab (shown below). The vertical part of the mortise is greyed out again. Because the legs are angled both forward and out, the mortise angles outward (both outward from the center line of the slab [and toward the edges of the slab] and outward from the mid point of the slab [toward the end]).

End of the slab also to the right.

One more note: when laying out, I find it helps to carry your lines down the sides of the slab. This also can show the vertical parts of the mortise more clearly and make sure that is accurately carried around the edge.

I also use a trigonometry calculator to figure where to start the mortise on the top of the slab so the legs don’t stick out too much beyond the plan of the slab itself. For most slabs in the 10-12″ range, the mortise on the top side of the slab should be centered around 2.5″ away from the center line.

This just lays out the forward rake.

So what is my preferred method for cutting these angled mortises?

First, I would bore out the vertical part of the mortise with a brace and bit and then pare roughly to the lines. Second, set up a bevel gauge and chop down the angles until I get pretty close. Finally, use a block of wood as a paring guide to refine the mortise until the angle is perfect. Then cut the tenon to fit each mortise, as there will likely be some slight variance in mortise width (and the wedge will take care of any variance in mortise length).

What are some other viable techniques? If you go the chisel only route (i.e., no boring it out first, which is the traditional method), I would still recommend chopping the vertical mortise first. Then you can pare it down to the lines as described above, with or without the guide block. I do not recommend freehanding the angled mortise right off the chisel. At least not for furniture grade pieces. For a workbench, it’s probably fine.

Once you have the vertical mortise, you could use a floats, rasps, or files to shape in the angles. These tools are also helpful to refine the angles and make everything as uniform as possible.

The nice thing about rectangular mortises is that you really don’t need any of the above special tools. You could do the entire thing with a chisel and mallet no problem (and I’ve heard that the lack of boring tools in China is how the form came to be). Although, although a bevel gauge and a rasp or coarse file will definitely help.

Next time, we’ll talk about cutting the tenons. Including how to cope the shoulder so it mates perfectly with the underside of the bench.

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Bathroom Vanity Update

Quick one today.

I’ve glued up the frame for the bathroom vanity, and I think it came out great. The entire frame came out of a single chunk of reclaimed Southern Yellow Pine barn beam, so the color match is pretty good. I’m quite pleased. An exterior oil finish will darken the wood a bit, but won’t detract from the character of the reclaimed wood. And die forged nails will reinforce each of the stretchers and slats (mostly because it will look nice).

Ignore the white pine spacer in the bottom front; that was just for alignment during glue up.

The table top will also be SYP, but from a different board. I just didn’t have enough after cutting around the worst nails and checks and defects to get the wood for the frame, even taking into account the massive cutout for the vessel sink. The color match isn’t perfect, but I’m arranging the boards to make it work.

The small remaining chunk of the beam that went into the frame would have been enough for a lower shelf (slatted and nailed onto the lower stretchers). But upon further reflection, I think having the shelf boards match the tabletop boards will balance things aesthetically.

Plenty of bearing surface for a slatted shelf.

Stay tuned for more about the tabletop.

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Pushing Boundaries

It’s been tough to find enjoyable workshop time of late. There is some work being done on the house and as cramped as my 12′ x 13′ (3.5m x 4m) workshop is at the best of times, it’s even worse when more than half of it is filled with furniture from other rooms. I’ve got about 5 feet of workbench (at the vise end) and 2 feet of space along the front to move around. I can reach all the tools in my wall cabinet, but it takes a bit of leaning on my tiptoes to get the coping saw.  Even so, I’ve a project I need to complete, so I push onward.

Not sure if I’ve ever posted this image of the finished wall cabinet.

The vanity in the downstairs bathroom has always been subpar. It’s internet furniture pressboard bullshit that I bought when I first got the house just needed to make a gross washroom usable on a DIY basis. Now that the whole bathroom is being updated by professionals, I figured I’d tackle making a new vanity that is up to my own specs. 

The last few chunks of reclaimed old growth Southern Yellow Pine barn beam would be just enough for the frame and a top. My little bandsaw was instrumental in this; I don’t think hand ripping would have left enough stock. I have officially hit “can’t live without it” status on that tool, for what it’s worth.

In terms of style, I’ve always been fascinated with the “slatted” style of furniture. I think the first time I saw it was a Restoration Hardware media cabinet. But it seems a dreadful waste of material because the slats tend to be decorative (and not structural). But what if they were structural? They’d essentially make a wide board out of a few small sticks (id est, offcuts from the bandsaw): maximum strength with minimum material.

While also hiding the plumbing below.

As an aside (as if my entire collected works weren’t just one massive, frenetic soliloquy), this is the kind of project where a hollow chisel mortiser really expedites things. I couldn’t centralize the mortises for the top the rails or the slats and have mortises of any great substance, so the outer walls of the mortises ended up less than 1/4″ (6mm). So not something where brace and bit boring or chisel chopping is without significant risk of blowing out the whole thing. And when you don’t have material to spare (and can’t afford to scrap the work), a hollow chisel mortiser really shines.

The second of the power tool triumvirate for a small space, hand tool woodworker.

It occurs to me that, even with multiple slats, a piece like this still needs substantial, double shouldered tenons for the top rails and the lower rail. This will increase the bearing surface of the main joints in the structure and should encourage squareness in the overall assembly and a strong frame. The slats themselves can be single shouldered, I think (again, just to use all of the available material). On the lower rails, a tight fit becomes a necessary. So everything gets fettled with a router plane. 

Do others use the “over the garbage can” method for storing ready-for-glue up pieces?

I would typically drawbore each joint on something like this, but there really isn’t room for a size of peg that would give any real strength. I think, instead, I’ll use die forged nails (after finish) to lock everything in place. I’m not worried about the glue failing, I don’t think. But some extra reinforcement can’t hurt in a bathroom with wildly-varying humidity. 

But I’ll tackle that after I finish the frame. I’ll also talk more about making the top where the sink will sit (this is for a vessel sink).

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Fetch the Board Stretcher

Happy New Year, everyone! I realized I missed my usual “6am Eastern on New Years Day” post. I think that’s because I went to an actual party and didn’t get to bed right at 730pm like I have for as long as this blog existed. But anyway… 

A while ago, I obtained an old growth slab of what I believe is Slash Pine (one of the species of Southern Yellow Pine) from a reclamation sawmill. It’s about 16 inches wide, 90 inches long, and after flattening is still a solid 3 1/2″ thick. It’s mostly flat at this point, anyway. I actually made an impromptu router sled because it’s so damned hard (the resin long ago crystallized and, between that and the barn grit in the checks, it was eating O1 steel for breakfast). This slab will make a wonderful workbench top once I laminate a fascia board along the front edge and square the ends, though. 

And after I fill all the nail holes and bolt holes with tinted epoxy offscreen.

Another workbench, you say? Well yes, of course. I’ve been working on my 8 foot maple Nicholson which I made in the thick of the pandemic. It’s got the nicest leg vise I’ve made (it’s angled, uses a cog and screw instead of a pin board, and opens and closes very smoothly). But I’m kind of over front aprons again; it makes using bench dogs in the top too difficult, even if the apron is great for edge planing long, wide boards. And I have just the one workbench at home after giving all the others away. A second wouldn’t hurt. 

This new bench will be in the Shaker style, like at Hancock Shaker Village. Leg vise, tail vise, sliding deadman, some drawers underneath. In fact, I’ve already made the leg assemblies. But unlike the Shakers, this bench will knock down (like a Moravian workbench). And I have a linear bearing and a 1 1/2″ hardened steel shaft to use as a parallel guide for the leg vise instead of a pin board (or even a cog and screw or crisscross). McMaster-Carr is the best. 

When making the recess for the linear bearing, though, I didn’t have a good way to make a 2 3/8″ hole. So I chopped it out octagonally. And it was scruffy and didn’t fit well and I had to shim it. All of which ate at my brain and caused me to set the whole project aside for a while. 

I’ve finally come back to it. And it still eats my brain. 

This is just not the quality I’m used to producing.

And what is a fellow to do when a bad bench installation is ruining a good time? Cut the offending portion of the leg off and add some wood back on, of course. About that…

First step was to saw off the offending area and square up the end grain. And also dig out and prepare an offcut of the same species that has a decent grain match. If I had access to a Festool Domino, this would essentially be the end of the process. Four dominos and some glue: Bob’s your uncle. 

My workbench is an absolute mess as I do a few renovations.

But absent a Festool Domino, how does one join two boards, end grain to end grain? Finger joints are probably the best option, because of the large amount of long grain gluing surface. For a hand tool guy like me, that’s essentially a bridle joint. I think in this application, it would be strongest if the mortise was in the remaining leg and the tenon on the added piece. I almost made bridle guides, but that probably would have taken longer than just sawing and paring. 

Now to saw down the sides of the mortise.

Once the mortise was nicely pared to the lines, I roughed out a tenon and finessed it to a friction fit with a router plane. Remember to ease the inner parts of the mortise to leave room for glue on the mating surfaces. A dry fit looked like so:

It was at this point when I realized the offcut was actually from the same board as rest of the leg. Fortuity!

Will a 1″x1″ tenon (with 7/8″ mortise walls) be strong enough for a front leg of a workbench, even with TiteBond Thick & Quick PVA? Fuck if I know. But this is poplar, which doesn’t split easily, so I think I’ll be okay. I plan to add a trio of 3/8 oak pegs as reinforcement along the length of the tenon, which should help. Maybe a couple of metal mending plates too just for luck. But I think it will be strong enough, even without pegs, as long as whatever parallel guide I use for the leg vise doesn’t bear just on the new wood. 

Hopefully I can find the stain I used for the rest of the leg too. 

To be clear, I almost bought a Festool Domino today. But I’m glad I stayed strong and didn’t. Not that having a Festool Domino is bad; I just kind of enjoy doing things the hard way. And I do think this fix is a good solution and should stand the test of time. 

Or not. Fuck if I know. 

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Building on a Theme

If anyone asks me what kind of workbench they should build when just getting into woodworking, I have only one answer: a Mike Siemsen-style Naked Woodworker English workbench. The video is an excellent step by step (my only complaint is that it doesn’t show cutting the lap joints on the lower stretchers for the leg assemblies). But more importantly, it is a design that a true beginner with a small set of tools can knock together with a reasonable chance of success.

I have built a few such workbenches. But I’ve noticed that pretty much all of my shop furniture pieces end up in the Naked Woodworker style too. Id est, glue and screw laminating various pieces to create the lap joints and other connections without having to cut any real joinery.

A bandsaw stand in potentia, illustrating the style.

One of the important things about Mike’s design is leaving the top rails a bit proud (shown above), so they can be leveled with a hand plane to form a flat plane to attach the tabletop. This is very useful when using rough construction lumber but still wanting precision in the final piece.

Abrupt segue:

I fully subscribe to the hypothesis that the best woodworking hand tool is a band saw. I can absolutely spit a gauge line with a hand saw (although it has taken practice) and I am able to saw a perfect shoulder with a back saw (with a little bit of chisel paring). But a well tuned band saw just makes things go quicker (at least the cheek part of the cut).

I have the most basic version of a band saw with a coarse (skip tooth) blade, but it can cut as fine of joinery as I need. If I could go back in time, I would have bought this thing so much sooner. And now, it moves around.

Stationary stand seen to the right.

Sometimes I wonder if having a bandsaw will atrophy my hand sawing skills. But then I need to resaw some 16/4 stock and I forget about my previous qualms.

And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas.

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So I Herd U Liek Mudkipz

It’s no secret that I like me a sliding tray in a toolbox. See here. Or here. A pull out tray that covers the whole well is well and good if that’s your thing. I have a vintage craftsman metal toolbox that’s built that way. But I find it gets in the way on the bench.

As shown by the links above, I’ve made a few traveling toolboxes in my day. Any tool storage solution should be customized to tools it will hold, of course. Though much trial and error, I’ve settled on the perfect size (using 5/8″ pine for the case) being roughly 22″ long x 11″ wide x 9″ high. This gives plenty of room in the well for a No. 6 Stanley (my preferred “single” plane), a saw till for a small panel saw (the BTC hardware store saw is shown below, but any small hardpoint saw will fit too) and combination square, a short sweep hand brace and bits, and an eggbeater drill, plus a hammer and a sharpening stone. If the chest were taller, I’d probably add a tool rack to the back wall of the well.

And some other odds and ends.

But a No. 6 is only about 5 1/4″ high, and even a panel saw in its till is less than 6″. What do do with the other 3+” of well space? A sliding tray, of course, that slides front to back and holds everything else I’ll need.

3″ is too deep for a single tray of this size. Nothing you’re carrying You’d waste a ton of space. And 3″ of height is probably enough for two tiers of sliding trays (bottom probably being 1 1/2″ deep (so 1 3/4″ with the bottom)). I’ve certainly done that before in the blue toolbox.

But I thought it would be fun this time to add the second tray inside the first. So I first whipped up a single deep tray with 1/2″ pine in the usual style (1/4″ oak bottom with grain running parallel to the length of the tray, nailed onto the tray) that was about 5″ wide. I also divided off a dedicated chisel compartment, since there will be lots of piling into the rest of the tray.

The divider also let me use up some shorter oak scraps for the inner runners.

To size the inside tray, I found the tallest items that would sit in the bottom of the tray tray (which was either the stock of my marking gauge or my sharpening guide) and sized some thin oak runners to that height, plus 1/8″ (see picture above). Those got glued in to the long sides of the tray. I then knocked together another tray in 3/8″ pine that was pretty much exactly half the length tray and tall enough to fill the remaining depth of the large tray (taking into account the 1/4″ oak tray bottom). The grain of the tray bottom runs perpendicular to the length of the tray this time.

It overlaps the chisel compartment a bit but doesn’t get in the way.

I’ve found the inside tray acts as a bit of a gyroscope when this thing is on the move. The toolbox easily fits in the back seat of the car and I’ve noticed the tray whips around less than if it were a single tray. Perhaps the inner tray shifts a bit on the x axis and takes away some of the y axis momentum (inertia?) of the larger tray. Who knows?

The auger bit seems to have migrated out of the well.

If you need a how-to on making and fitting sliding trays in a tool chest, I highly recommend the Christopher Schwarz 2015 Popular Woodworking article on a Traveling Toolchest (a medium chest that is still big enough for a hobbyist woodworker’s set of tools). Go to the “Interior” section of the article.

This setup works so well, I also added a sliding inner tray to the drawer on my hanging tool cabinet in the shop. More on that later, but a sneak preview below.

No gyroscopic action needed here.

I hope everyone gets some workshop time on the holiday weekend.

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Tiny Workbench

I had in my mind a singular vision. A mini workbench, surrounded by a tray, that sat upon an office desk.  Like those perpetual motion clacking ball desk toys.  But where one could plane small sticks of wood with a block plane in meditative rhythm.  The small curls falling gently into a rimmed collection tray to keep things neat.

I could have sworn such a thing existed. Maybe it was advertised in an old Popular Woodworking issue. It might have been Fine Woodworking or WOOD. But it eluded me.

So I made a prototype. And it turned out great!

As I saw it in my mind.

The bench itself is roughly 1:8 scale. The slab is 12 inches long and 3 inches wide.  1/2 inch thickness would have been to scale, but I bumped it up to 7/8 for stiffness. The wing, which functions as both a tool shelf and a shooting board, is about 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick. The planing stop is 1/2 inch square. For those who care, the entire setup is 19 x 7 x 3.

About the footprint of a large gaming keyboard.

Let’s talk materials for a moment. This is just a prototype, so I used some tight grain Spruce framing lumber from up north. In Vermont, where my parents have a house, you can get stuff that has birdseye pattern and blue streaks but still arrow straight grain. It’s beautiful and a joy to work with.

This stock was a bit more plain, but I think still looks good. The only non-Spruce materials in the piece are the planing stop (red oak) and the base of the tray (1/2 inch birch plywood).

Spruce is rather rigid and dimensionally stable, so a good choice for this.

The workbench legs are 1 1/2 inch x 4 inch x 1 inch posts that are rabbeted (cross grain) into the slab top. The oak planing stop is also rabbeted in. The planing stop actually hides some nails reinforcing the joint between the slab and the front legs. The tool shelf is just brad nailed down to the legs.

To attach the bench to the collection tray, the legs are glued and screwed from the underside of the plywood. The tray itself is banded in 1/2 inch spruce just butt jointed around and glued and nailed on. I stuck on some nonskid furniture pads to the underside so it won’t slide around.

Top view with some blanks.

There is admittedly a practical purpose to this piece. There is a step down on the window sill in my office at work. The larger pots overhang the stepdown and it’s unstable without a spacer that’s level with the main sill and fully support the pot. Each spacer needs to be somewhere between 1/2 and 11/16 but the height varies. This will allow me to fine tune some pine 1 x 3/4 spacers on site.

A full size, modern block plane is probably a bit much for this setup. Perhaps I’ll clean up a slightly smaller vintage block plane from the user pile. We’ll see.

When I make a nicer version in mahogany or walnut, I may do a Basic Projects writeup. But for now, the prototype is rather serviceable.

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Bridle Joints on the Hollow Chisel Mortiser

Back during the prime of the pandemic (early 2021), I took the plunge and bought a benchtop hollow chisel mortiser (an “HCM”). At the time, the Powermatic Benchtop Mortiser was on backorder from Southern Tool (who are really great to work with [not a sponsor]). I’ve always hated boring and chopping mortises by hand. I’m totally totally fine with cutting tenons with hand tools. It’s just the donkey work of mortises that I would love to avoid. And my HCM allows me to do so.

So when it came time to cut some large bridle joints for my new forever workbench (I mean it this time!), I couldn’t help but wonder if I could do it on the HCM. I consider myself to be pretty good at following a line with a panel saw and have cut plenty of large bridle joints that way. But bridle joints are just “open” mortise and tenon joints, after all. So cutting bridles on the HCM should be easy enough with just a little planning. It’s not really intended for this purpose, but it works just fine.

First of all, it really helps if all of your leg blanks are S4S and the same dimensions, within a few shavings at least. That way, you can flip the blank in all directions and use the same fence setting for centering the mortise. It’s not fatal if things aren’t exact, as long as you use a consistent reference edge for the matching legs. But it will slow things down if you need to reset the fence after every flip end over end.

Second, leave your leg blank overlong, so there is some meat to support the temporarily enclosed mortise without blowing out. For wood species that split easily, such as Red Oak, you should probably leave a full inch. These legs are poplar, so 1/2″ was fine.

Thirdly, size your mortise to be no more than 4x (or just under 4x, ideally) the size of the bit you plan to use.

That is a broken auger from another hollow chisel mortiser bit that I use to scoop out waste.

I start by defining the walls of the mortise. Assuming the mortise is centered on the leg, cut about halfway through on a full pass, flip end over end, and cut the rest of the way from the other side. Then, you can spin the leg 180 degrees and repeat the two passes. After four total passes, you have the mortise defined as shown above. Repeat for the other 3 legs until the walls of the mortise are all defined.

Now, reset the fence so you are removing half of the material remaining in the middle part of the mortise. If you’ve sized the bridle joint correctly (i.e., no more than 4x the size of your HCM bit), you only need to reset the fence this once. Remove the material only at the base of the mortise with four plunge cuts, flipping the work as before. The base of the mortise will now be fully established. No need to worry about removing the rest of the waste on the HCM, as you’re about to see.

Like so.

Finally, saw off the extra length on the leg (I use my miter chop saw for big cuts like this, but hand saws are fine too). BAM! You’ve got an open mortise. You may have a small strip of waste holding the inner chunk on. Just snap it off and you’re good.

The waste falls out in two pieces.

If needed, a wide chisel or a medium cut file makes quick work of smoothing any unevenness on the inside of the open mortise. But if your HCM is well set up, this may not be an issue.

Some quick paring work on the walls and the base and this will be joinery ready.

Is this the most efficient way to cut bridle joints? No, not at all. Either a table saw or a band saw works faster and probably better. But I’m still learning to set up my little band saw and I wasn’t confident the cheek cuts wouldn’t wander horribly. Plus I already had the HCM set up for mortising in the lower stretchers so it was quick to move over to this operation.

While it may be a single purpose tool, I believe the HCM is the second most time saving stationary tool for the hand tool woodworker (right after the thickness planer). It’s far quieter than a router or simply chopping the mortise with chisel and mallet, and produces more predictable results. It’s faster than boring and paring out a mortise (whether with a drill press, a hand drill or a brace) and makes only the same amount of mess. All of which makes it ideal for small space woodworking.

To be clear, you don’t need a hollow chisel mortiser as a hand tool woodworker. But if I have a batch of mortises to knock out, odds are that’s where you’ll find me.

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