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A new take on the PAUL SELLERS HAND CUT MORTISE JIG.

BentonTool

BentonTool

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Benton, PA, USA.
Name
Alex Acle
LOCATION
Benton, PA, USA.
Good Morning Brothers,

I was very impressed with Paul Sellers techniques for hand-cutting mortises.
His videos on the topic (there are several) are very much worthy of watching.
The one in question is linked below:


I liked his idea for these jigs, but then thought I could perhaps make one that was more compact (and durable).
This is his, with multiple jigs, one for each mortise distance from the edge.

Paul Sellers Mortise Guide.JPG


This is mine; one jig with multiple spacers to set the distance from the edge:
01 jig open dsc06630.jpg

It is fabricated from various sheets of phenolic, which is a wonderful material for making jigs (get some!). The main body is 1/2 inch phenolic, and the various spacers are made from 3/16 inch and 1/16 inch phenolic. You will also require a few machinist screws, washers, and thumb screws.

In use, adding or removing spacers sets the distance from the edge, all in one compact package. Simple to make.

Here, it is set at 1/4 inch by using the 3/16 and 1/16 inch spacers:
02 set 1-4 inch dsc06637.jpg

Below it is set at 1/2 inch by using all the spacers:
03 set 1-2 inch dsc06640.jpg
04 rear dsc06642.jpg

You get the idea...

P.S. Be sure to always set the jig from the reference side.

Here is the other video on the topic of hand-cut mortise jigs.
It addresses tenons as well. Long, but excellent video.
Simply BRILLIANT, IMHO...

 
I'll be honest here I like the idea of it but I found it much easier to do it freehand when cutting mortises without a guide, basically I want to cut joints as fast as possible and found the jig got in the way of my 'flow' state when working, maybe it's just me but it was way too fiddly to get right.
 
I do like him... we share a very similar WW background from the point of view of having served a traditional apprenticeship.
I also very much like his furniture.
On the other hand, Many things he shows look like they are designed to fill a good amount of time in a video. Its not necessarily reality.
 
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John Brown said:
If you never watch, how would you know?
My granddaughter doesn't like spinach, but she's never tried it.
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When I saw him chop a mortice by putting the wood in the vice instead of clamping it to the bench top over a leg, that was enough. I've not had the patience to endure him further. On the other hand, I love me spinach and all greens! - Rob
 
I hadn't seen that Paul Sellers video. I don't tend to watch many of his although I've got nothing against him in general: he's certainly done a lot to promote the idea of working with hand tools, which is definitely a good thing. He can be a bit dogmatic at times ("there's only one right way to do things") which really winds me up, but so can many others including some of his critics.

Alex: that jig of yours looks like a nice take on the Sellers one: I like the adjustability by inserting different shims. I did a similar (ish) sort of thing with a Kerfing Saw, which used spacers of different sizes to get the right off-set from the edge.

I'm not sure I'm sold on the idea of a jig for paring mortices, although I used one when I made the travel toolchest as I wanted the faces of the tenon boards to be perfectly flush with the edge of the mortice boards. That was a much simpler jig as it was a one-off made for the purpose rather than trying to make it adjustable. Photos of how I did that are on page 29 and page 30 of the build description of the travel toolchest.

When I made the mortices for the garden table I'm working on at the moment, the flush-ness was much less critical so I just pared in the marking gauge lines rather than bothering with a jig. That was a bit quicker (although I don't think it made that much difference in the grand old scheme of things).

Like everything, horses for courses and dogma is almost always wrong! In my opinion, if something works, it's a perfectly valid way of doing things, even if it's different to the way I would do it. So top marks for finding a way that works for you.
 
I tend to find Paul Sellers videos tedious and dogmatic. He's not my cup of tea but each to their own. I doubt many people who post here regularly have much trouble with the things he tends to demonstrate at great length on you tube, but he clearly has his fans and disciples. I've done shed loads of mortises in my time - it's pretty basic stuff.
 
Dr.Al said:
I hadn't seen that Paul Sellers video. I don't tend to watch many of his although I've got nothing against him in general: he's certainly done a lot to promote the idea of working with hand tools, which is definitely a good thing. He can be a bit dogmatic at times ("there's only one right way to do things") which really winds me up, but so can many others including some of his critics.
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:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

Being younger than the generations brought up doing tenons etc at school I quite like his videos. Yes they can be quite long but with regards to the dogmatic approach if you haven't got the confidence that your approach is correct you're probably not going to put it out on Youtube.
 
AJB Temple said:
I tend to find Paul Sellers videos tedious and dogmatic. He's not my cup of tea but each to their own. I doubt many people who post here regularly have much trouble with the things he tends to demonstrate at great length on you tube, but he clearly has his fans and disciples. I've done shed loads of mortises in my time - it's pretty basic stuff.
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Agreed, cutting a mortice(s) is very basic stuff but the wood needs to be supported on the strongest part of the bench which is directly over a leg. You then stand at the end of the bench so you can sight the chisel to ensure it's vertical; Sellers put his wood in the vice(!) and then stood to one side (IIRC) to chop the thing. To be fair I've seen clips online of newbies doing the same thing on courses, so it's not just him - Rob
 
Woodbloke said:
You then stand at the end of the bench so you can sight the chisel to ensure it's vertical
Click to expand...
You don't have to do that though. Yes, it's one way that works, but if the mortice is relatively shallow and you've elected to pare the sides of it, then a little deviation from vertical of the chisel doesn't matter. For that matter, it's perfectly possible that someone (not me!) can see whether it's vertical from side-on, so I wouldn't want to say that the method is completely wrong.

I would still choose to stand where I can see whether the chisel is vertical (unless it's impossible within the limitations of my work space), I'm just saying that it's not absolutely essential and like in all things, there is more than one right answer.

Presumably (I haven't watched the relevant video) Paul Sellers managed to produce a reasonable quality mortice using his method, so from my point of view, that's fine. Just because it's not the way you'd do it doesn't immediately make it wrong.
 
I've not got much to add to the very sensible points made above, except to say that I did try a jig like that once, when I cut a lot of mortises on my bed project.
I'd already departed from normal practice on those, by boring out most of the wood first, as that was the only way I could think of to space them properly along a curved edge. So it seemed ok to continue to chop - and then pare the sides. It worked ok but felt slow and fussy for normal work.
It could be useful in helping an inexperienced person get a predictable result.
 
I sometimes find it useful to use a reference surface for chiselling and it’s also useful to have blocks of a known size for double-checking or eliminating measuring & marking. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of use out of your jig. Beats having to dig around for scrap of the right size or make new blocks when using standard sized wood.
 
I like Paul Sellers’ videos overall, but since we’re talking about stuff that Mr Sellers does that we’re not keen on, I’ll throw in one: he uses his hands for hitting the butt end of a chisel and hammering his tenon into the mortice instead of using a mallet. (I watched the second video). This is a bad idea. Hands aren’t well designed for use as hammers and it’s perhaps not surprising that he has pretty severe problems with his hands.
 
Dr.Al said:
You don't have to do that though. Yes, it's one way that works, but if the mortice is relatively shallow and you've elected to pare the sides of it, then a little deviation from vertical of the chisel doesn't matter. For that matter, it's perfectly possible that someone (not me!) can see whether it's vertical from side-on, so I wouldn't want to say that the method is completely wrong.

I would still choose to stand where I can see whether the chisel is vertical (unless it's impossible within the limitations of my work space), I'm just saying that it's not absolutely essential and like in all things, there is more than one right answer.

Presumably (I haven't watched the relevant video) Paul Sellers managed to produce a reasonable quality mortice using his method, so from my point of view, that's fine. Just because it's not the way you'd do it doesn't immediately make it wrong.
Click to expand...
The way I describe is how it was shown to us students at Shoreditch by time served cabinet makers etc who had gone into teaching. You can chop a relatively deep mortice (say 40mm ) which is a square as square and there's no need to pare the sides. Within the limitations of your work space/bench try it and you'll see. It works, assuming that the bench top is level in both horizontal planes - Rob
 
Windows said:
I like Paul Sellers’ videos overall, but since we’re talking about stuff that Mr Sellers does that we’re not keen on, I’ll throw in one: he uses his hands for hitting the butt end of a chisel and hammering his tenon into the mortice instead of using a mallet. (I watched the second video). This is a bad idea. Hands aren’t well designed for use as hammers and it’s perhaps not surprising that he has pretty severe problems with his hands.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's definitely not a good idea.
 
Woodbloke said:
The way I describe is how it was shown to us students at Shoreditch by time served cabinet makers etc who had gone into teaching. You can chop a relatively deep mortice (say 40mm ) which is a square as square and there's no need to pare the sides. Within the limitations of your work space/bench try it and you'll see. It works - Rob
Click to expand...
I have no doubt that it works (and indeed I have tried it) and have never suggested that there's anything wrong with the way you do it. The point I'm trying to make is that just because it works, it doesn't mean that other methods don't also work.

I've tried chopping with a correct-size chisel and it works fine. The actual chopping bit is ever-so-slightly slower than chopping with an undersize chisel as you have to take that extra bit of care to make sure things are vertical and that the chisel doesn't twist. Chopping with an undersize chisel needs a paring operation at the end, so that adds a very small amount of time and pretty much cancels out the difference from the ever-so-slightly slower chopping. The overall result seems to be that they both take about the same overall time and both give perfectly acceptable results. So just because paring wasn't how they did it in Shoreditch doesn't make it inherently wrong.

Horses for courses, nowt wrong with either.

Anyway, I said that dogma winds me up and my interactions with this thread have probably demonstrated the effect of that. I think it best that I take a big step back and let the conversation drift back onto the subject intended by BentonTool.
 
😂 You chaps are overthinking this. However, I can say with absolute certainty that the scariest way of cutting a mortice is with a big chain mortiser. I really should sell mine as after using it to do endless big mortices on my first timber framed building I decided it was very bl**dy dangerous and opted for slower methods on subsequent structures.
 
Dr.Al said:
Horses for courses, nowt wrong with either.

Anyway, I said that dogma winds me up and my interactions with this thread have probably demonstrated the effect of that. I think it best that I take a big step back and let the conversation drift back onto the subject intended by BentonTool.
Click to expand...
Sound idea Dr. Al, we'll leave it there. If it's of interest Krenov was an absolute demon for 'dogma'; apparently 'his' way was the only way to do stuff. I have a signed book by John Makepeace detailing events at Parnham House and apparently JK's visit wasn't universally welcomed! - Rob
 
Woodbloke said:
When I saw him chop a mortice by putting the wood in the vice instead of clamping it to the bench top over a leg, that was enough. I've not had the patience to endure him further. On the other hand, I love me spinach and all greens! - Rob
Click to expand...
I was wondering about that... it caught my eye. I have always read that you should chop mortises outside of your vise (it has become my habit), on a stout corner of your bench, or on a mortice bench. We should ask him if he has broken any of his vises...
Another thing I dislike is his method of mounting the vise away from the front edge of the bench. I always aim to make mine flush with the front face.
Oh well, no one is perfect... but he is good, and has some novel ideas...
 
Dr.Al said:
Photos of how I did that are on page 29 and page 30 of the build description of the travel toolchest.
Click to expand...
Very interesting... thank you for the links.
I like that hot dog plane handle... did you make that?

BTW, the jig is best for starting your mortise. Soon thereafter, one can be further guided by what you have already cut, so it can soon be removed.
Better yet, when I develop more skill or a better "eye", just do it without the need for training wheels! :LOL:
 
Windows said:
I like Paul Sellers’ videos overall, but since we’re talking about stuff that Mr Sellers does that we’re not keen on, I’ll throw in one: he uses his hands for hitting the butt end of a chisel and hammering his tenon into the mortice instead of using a mallet. (I watched the second video). This is a bad idea. Hands aren’t well designed for use as hammers and it’s perhaps not surprising that he has pretty severe problems with his hands.
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Totally agree! I cringe each time he does that!
 
If it's any comfort, discussions about how to cut mortises appeared in the first year that the Woodworker magazine was published, 1901.

Strong views were expressed by correspondents, claiming that their own methods were quickest and best.

This thread is much better behaved.
 
another thing about sellers is he doesn't use mortise chisels, at least not in the videos he's published... they are literally designed to cut a mortise and it makes it much easier, I am really surprised at this, once I got one I couldn't believe how much easier it is, you will not need any kind of guide if you are careful, it gets more obvious if you work in oak or a really hard wood.
 
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thetyreman said:
another thing about sellers is he doesn't use mortise chisels, at least not in the videos he's published... they are literally designed to cut a mortise and it makes it much easier, I am really surprised at this, once I got one I couldn't believe how much easier it is, you will not need any kind of guide if you are careful, it gets more obvious if you work in oak or a really hard wood.
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I seem to remember in one of the (relatively few) videos of his I watched he made the point that mortice chisels make it easier but it's perfectly possible to do it with a bevel-edge chisel. Similarly, he tends to use a #4 for almost everything I think: he's trying to persuade people they don't need every tool under the sun in order to do good work.
 
Paul Sellers is probably a good woodworker, but his dogmatism re his way of doing things obscures this. And, his wordy delivery encourages sleep.

Secondly, my hands are markedly arthritic at one year off seventy; I'm astonished then that a (presumably) indentured, time-served, City-and-Guilds-possessing, bod, of an age with me, is beating his chisels into hardwood with his mitts??? At least two parts of that last sentence just have to be wrong. Answers on a postcard.
 
SamQ aka Ah! Q! said:
Paul Sellers is probably a good woodworker, but his dogmatism re his way of doing things obscures this.
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Yep, I completely agree. I learnt far more from David Charlesworth and Matt Estlea than I did from Paul Sellers and I'm sure that part of that was the way that the videos from both of those two often show more than one valid way of approaching the same problem - they show multiple approaches and then you can find what works for you.

Nevertheless, while I don't like Paul Sellers' dogmatism and have learnt much more from other youtubers, I still think he deserves a lot of respect for how much he's done to promote hand tool work. Just because he's not my cup of tea doesn't take away from that.
 
SamQ aka Ah! Q! said:
Paul Sellers is probably a good woodworker, but his dogmatism re his way of doing things obscures this. And, his wordy delivery encourages sleep.

Secondly, my hands are markedly arthritic at one year off seventy; I'm astonished then that a (presumably) indentured, time-served, City-and-Guilds-possessing, bod, of an age with me, is beating his chisels into hardwood with his mitts??? At least two parts of that last sentence just have to be wrong. Answers on a postcard.
Click to expand...
You can see an example at 6:30 in the second video

He says “Use a chisel hammer if your hands are not toughened up. I think that’s important. You don’t have to do it this way.” Unfortunately this implies that you can train your hands so that they can be used this way, but you can’t really.
 
I find the reaction to Paul Sellers quite perplexing. On another forum some members even took objection to his choice of jumper!

He’s got some strong opinions on how things should be done but so have a lot of woodworkers when in reality many routes can take you to the same destination. He encourages people to have a go and points them down a route that doesn’t cost a fortune to get started and make something they can feel proud of. I’d be happy to stand him a pint for that even if I cut my mortices in a different way.

@BentonTool - nice jig!
 
Blackswanwood, I take your points re P.S. encouraging beginners and providing an alternative to power tools. Agreed,he does both,and that's a good thing.

Where I diverge from him is in style of delivery. I taught in an all-boys school for 37 years. In that time, had I used his plodding, pedantic and long-winded approach, I would have been lynched! This bloke is not a good teacher.

Finally: "chisel hammer" 😲 NO chisel.of mine is getting abused and deformed by a hammer! Mallets rule! It's just one example of how - what I view as strange practices - creep into Paul's videos and, I believe, are not representative of tried and tested practice. He then presents them as de rigeour. Nope.

I'm not an activist. P.S. is a "Marmite" individual. A Curate's Egg". I think his basics are good, but eyebrow-raising here and there.
I would like to be round that table with you, when you buy him a drink, so that I could more explore his philosophy.

Edit: I confess to admiring David Charlesworth's videos. He's good on content (and, importantly, the rationale behind) but glacial on delivery!! That's no.bad thing, as it allows contagion on what he just said,before he progresses to the next step.

EDIT: "contagion"??? Contemplation! I loathe Otto Korrwreckht.
 
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SamQ aka Ah! Q! said:
Finally: "chisel hammer" 😲 NO chisel.of mine is getting abused and deformed by a hammer! Mallets rule!
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In the interests of fairness - if you look a bit later in the video, around the 24 minute mark, you'll see he's using a Thor nylon-faced hammer. That's the only thing I've ever used to hit chisels with, and it does them no harm at all. He's not suggesting wailing on them with a clawhammer.
 
SamQ aka Ah! Q! said:
Thanks spb. I was unaware of that. Amendment: " no chisel.of mine will be struck by a steel-headed hammer".

Sam
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I attended the four classes David Charlesworth offered between 2019 and 2020. I was his only student for two of the courses and was one of two students for the other two courses.

Sir used the steel-headed Hattori hammer from Dictum on all of his chisels, and I asked him why he didn't use a traditional mallet. I can't remember his exact answer, but it had to do with control and the fact that none of his chisels have ever been damaged by the Hattori. I now have the same Hattori, and after four years of banging, none of the Lie Nielsen or Blue Spruce bench and mortise chisels show any signs of abuse. I also have a large traditional mallet, but prefer the Hattori.

Hattori.png
 
Thanks Mike, I have read somewhere, sometime, about that hammer; different face, different 'weight' to a Stanley claw hammer!
I also remember D.C.'s penchant for Japanese chisels with metal rings around the tops of their shafts. That would render them more resistant to.hammer blows. I've only got plain old English pattern ones, so I've never read D.C.'s Japanese chisel articles in depth.

May I please make it clear, I am NOT setting myself up as a 'stirrer' (like Jacob) to denigrate Paul Sellars. We all like different things. I detest marzipan, but my wife and daughter could eat kilograms of the stuff. Horses. Courses. Yes, the man has his name 'out there' far more than I will ever achieve I suspect (or would want) but - Marmite time - some of the things he says and does sit uncomfortably with me. As a professional in education, I judge his delivery to be lacking, and, in woodworking, I wouldn't do some of the things the way he does them, "Your mileage may vary". Until Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his SVR and FSB thugs rule the world, and enforce my 'opinion', I reserve the right to dislike marzipan and find Paul Sellers "good in.places".
 
In defense of P.S. and his "teaching" abilities, to be fair he has built his reputation for being a sedate British woodworker for an American market and as such probably appeals for that alone. (the reverse is equally true for us of course)
Being a good teacher from a schools perspective? no but that's not really required.
 
I freehand mortise chisels, however I enjoy coming up with fixtures to help those learning this skill. A few years ago, inspired by Paul Sellers' mortise fixture, I came up with a related design, and sent it to him ... since it was an improvement in that it would be less costly and more efficient. I gave him credit for the basic design. Sellers simply deleted my post from his forum. This is not the first time he has done this - others have complained that he will delete anything which contradicts his authority.

My variation was to use the fixture clamped in a vise but keeping the work piece on the bench top (much less strain on the vise), have a variable fence (make one fixture and not a dozen), and include a built-in hold down (to prevent the work piece moving. An incredibly simple design.

Link to the article: https://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTools/MortisingGuide.html

MortisingGuide_html_m1cd6b9df.jpg


MortisingGuide_html_37f5fddb.jpg



Why do you think Sellers rejected my (free) offer that he may use my design for his students?

Regards from Perth

Derek
 
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