WWA Info Exchange

I'm sort of obsessing on half blind DT's lately, and had this brainstorm this morning that I thought I'd run past y'all. We all know what a mortising bit looks like, so this is a modification of that idea. Forstner bits can be used to hog out this waste area in half blind dt's, so it seems logical to add a chisel that cleans up the corners and edges also.

How about a mortising bit that has the chisel part angled at the correct angle to remove the waste area of the pin side of half blind dt's (typically end grain )? There could be a set of them at various angles. It would avoid a lot of chisel work and potential poor fits I think. What say you?

See pic ( exaggerated for clarity ).

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I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

Gene Excellent idea on being able to complete the task but i think the error in doing it this way is repeatability. you would need some sort of long jig to move the piece along on a drill press to get accurate results. Now as i am thinking about this say you had a small arm that extended to the right or left (like a circle cutter) that would index the bit perfectly for the next slot now that might work

This is what makes us woodworkers ...always trying to find easier ways of doing things. My wife calls it lazy, i call it trying to be efficient.



Jeremy

Well, you'd still want to mark the pins out using the tails so I don't think an indexing arrangement would be absolutely necessary - , although if you were doing equally spaced dt's it would be handy. I thought of this in connection with hand cutting where you would have a symmetrical row of dt's but not necessarily equally spaced. As I did here ( You can tell I missed the mark a bit on these ):

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I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

Looks nice, Gene.

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My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter!

Put multiples in series like on a line boring press for adjustable shelves. A long-shaft worm drive would allow you to position the bits anywhere along the bar and would transmit power to multiple bits at the same time through gears.

The idea sounds neat, but if you used a straight bit in a router, you could remove almost all the waste except right up to the angle. Mark your board as usual and cut the angles with a DT saw. Place the base on the inside face of the board and use the height of the bit to make sure that the sockets are all the same height to accept the pins. Then all you have is a bit of clean up with a chisel for the depth of the socket(3/4" thick board for side).

If you add a fence to your router you would have even less clean up because you could set the fence for the thickness of the drawer side material.

Have you tried any of the commercially available jigs. Leigh makes a fabulous jig that allows for infinitely variable pin placement.

Good luck,
Darryl

What say you?

I suspect that you would have a couple of issues.

I believe that the triangular area between the round drill bit and the corner of the "chisel" would easily clog. It's possible this section of wood would be retained by the stock and not lifted up, but I doubt it.

Secondly, this machine would work for short drawer fronts, but blanket chests and other furniture pieces would be too long to stand on end below such a device.

Thirdly, its a power tool trying to do a hand tools job.

Interesting idea though for sure.

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~Dan.

Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe the guys at LeeValley could work the kinks out and have one ready for next April.

_________________
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)

I actually rather enjoy doing these the old way with just saw and chisel. I do have the necessaries to route them, and have done so in the past, but routers are so doggone noisy and throw dust everywhere, even with a dust pickup attached.

This idea was one of those early morning, before coffee, brain farts that some of us are afflicted with.

_________________
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)