This post is part of a blog series revealing the table of contents of upcoming Issue Thirteen. As is our custom, we’ll be discussing one article per weekday in order to give you a taste of what is come. The subscription window which includes Issue Thirteen is open now. To get Issue Thirteen when it ships early October, you can sign up for a subscription here. If you aren’t sure about your subscription status, you can reach out to Grace at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. Keep in mind though, if you are set to auto-renew, you never have to worry about getting the next issue of Mortise & Tenon. Issue Thirteen is coming your way soon! ___________________________________ Kenneth Schwarz – “A Blacksmith’s Contribution to Woodworking” Since the discovery of iron...
This post is part of a blog series revealing the table of contents of upcoming Issue Thirteen. As is our custom, we’ll be discussing one article per weekday in order to give you a taste of what is come. The subscription window which includes Issue Thirteen is open now. To get Issue Thirteen when it ships early October, you can sign up for a subscription here. If you aren’t sure about your subscription status, you can reach out to Grace at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. Keep in mind though, if you are set to auto-renew, you never have to worry about getting the next issue of Mortise & Tenon. Issue Thirteen is coming your way soon! ___________________________________ Michael Updegraff – “The Scraper Through the Ages” Thousands of years...
This week in the Daily Dispatch, a chisel gets a grip, the forum takes off, and we express our deepest regrets (or not). After last week’s exciting launch of the M&T Dispatch Forum, things started getting interesting. Our goal with the forum was to create a place for Dispatch subscribers to share tools, antiques, and information easily. And it is working swimmingly So far we’ve had book recommendations, tutorials, and videos shared – including one of a Chinese planemaker that was especially interesting. In yet another segment of “Ask M&T” (these just keep on coming), Joshua and I talked about our biggest regrets with starting the magazine and what kinds of pie-in-the-sky dreams we might have for the future. We looked back...
In this new episode of the podcast, Joshua and Mike take up the topic of portable woodworking. They argue that even though modern woodworkers tend to feel safe “within the box” of their workshops, we would all do well to get out a little. Try taking up carving around the campfire or make a simple tool tote to bring around the yard for home repairs. In their conversation, Joshua and Mike discuss how putting yourself in new work scenarios invites learning new ways to work effectively. The “way they did it” in the past was never uniform, nor does it need to be in the present. SHOW NOTES: Issue Thirteen M&T Daily Dispatch HouseByHand.com Mike’s workholding article Kim Choy’s article...
Editor’s Note: This is the continuation of an earlier post I wrote about replacing chisel handles. Grab your torch. I wrap the bolster and blade in a wet cloth and heat the tang with a MAP gas torch. I direct the heat to the middle of the tang but pointed away from the wet cloth so as not to heat it directly. This enables me to heat the thicker part of the metal before the tang begins to burn from overheating. Once it’s red hot, I press the tang down into the handle’s mortise (with the handle firmly in the front vise). Smoke billows out as I gently press the tang deeper. I don’t rock or twist the tang because...
This week in the Daily Dispatch, a house vanished, a new forum opened up, and we talked about drawer bottoms. In a shift of gears, we did not cut any timber-frame joinery this week – but massive progress was made in the house project! In a flurry of activity that may have constituted the greatest degree of excitement around here since the 2019 CSF project, the old Klein modular home was hauled away early in the week. The moving crew had some serious skill in manipulating such a bulbous load down the narrow driveway. And the rental place was out of small cranes… so they brought in a HUGE one. We opened up a new resource for Daily Dispatch...
As our fourth term of the Mortise & Tenon Apprenticeship Program is just about complete, we’ve been doing some assessment to see how we might refine it going forward. Don’t get me wrong – this program is a smashing success. To date, we’ve led loads of people from around the world through eight weeks of hand-tool bootcamp, and we’ve seen a shockingly high completion rate. And, believe me, it’s not because this program is easy. It is hard work, but the folks who sign up seem to be a dedicated lot. But, with four terms now under our belt, we wanted to do our best to tighten up the program and work out any wrinkles. As we’ve gone through each...
This week in the Daily Dispatch, we did a tremendous amount of head scratching; an old roof system was raised (and lowered); and new joints were cut in old timbers. First off, Joshua filmed me, his son Eden, and our friend Nevan joggling and hewing a red pine in the woods behind the shop – the same woods where a team of (mostly) French carpenters hewed the timbers for our smithy back in 2019. It was great to hear the sound of axes echoing through the trees once again. He also shared a bunch of photos of cutting new joinery in timber frame members for the house’s addition – big massive dovetails on tie beams, with enough play in the...
Hewing a log with an axe creates a sound like no other. After peeling some bark and snapping a chalk line, the hewer stands atop the log and chops notches down its length all the way to the line. In a freshly felled pine, this impact sounds a wet resonance, accentuated with the harmonic ring of axe steel. Get a number of carpenters together, put them in cool, echoing woods, and the rhythmic music of hewing is magical. That is what I best remember about the Charpentiers sans Frontières project here at the M&T shop back in 2019. Dozens of axes ringing at once, sometimes falling into step, sometimes drifting out, different tempos and beats reverberating. For Joshua and me,...
