Shop Stool Mortises
Finally I have the opportunity to make progress on the stool. Taking the time to carefully lay out the angle and mortises, I begin to chop out the joints. There are two jigs that I am using to hold the correct angles shown in the picture.
I almost finished the last mortise on the first leg when I heard a crunch and felt the chisel drop. A groan rose into my throat as I thought that I had chiseled through the leg. However the wood split along the grain, something that I can hopefully repair with a little glue and clamps at the end of the day.
Categories: Techniques, Tools and Schools, Woodworking Master Class
Leave a Reply
orepass 
I know that sound and mushy feeling of the chisel all too well, so I feel your pain. This is one of the drawbacks to chopping mortises in the vise. I got in the habit of light cuts once I’m reach a certain depth. Still it happens to me once in a while. Especially when the grain is like in your example. It should glue up pretty well. If not, chalk it up to practice.
Greg
Arrrrgh!
Been there as well! I went clean through with the chisel once. I was having so much fun chopping away. Now I consciously ease back on the hammer blows towards the end. It does look like those splits will glue nicely.
Good choice, I recently made a stool similar to this out of a Home Depot 2×4! Putting the mortises on the outer edge will let you miter the tenons inside for a bullet proof stool. Here’s a link to the blog I did on it if you want to see how I went about it: http://woodworksbyjohn.com/2013/12/19/2-x-4-x-8-challenge-december-2013-sin-city-woodworkers/
Wow, thanks John, I thought I kept up with your blog pretty well but must have overlooked this post.