Mortising the Legs – Part 2
2013.01.04
Today I began mortising the legs for the second nightstand. On the first nightstand, I made the mortises about 3/8″ deep. I decided these would be 1/2″ for a little more glue surface. To go any deeper would connect the two mortises together in the corner (and in fact I usually broke through as I made these). This is commonly done in larger-scale furniture, with the ends of the tenons beveled to 45° to meet. I had not allowed enough length in the roughed-out aprons to do this.
In the past, I have scribed both sides of the mortise. Unfortunately, I never liked the traditional pin-style mortising gauge I originally bought, and I’ve been less than enthusiastic about the wheel-style double gauge I bought more recently; it is practically impossible to mark both sides simultaneously. Also, setting the gauge to exactly the width of the chisel can be challenging. Some people on woodworking forums have mentioned only marking one side with a single marking gauge. I decided to try it with this set of mortises, and it works fine. I made a series of closely-spaced shallow cuts before going back with more vigorous blows to deepen the mortise.
Front Rails