Making Mortises for Dummies

Mortise and tenon joint

We thought we would take a day away from poking the Leaf Group niches today, and have a look at the content on another surviving (barely) content farm: EzineArticles.com. While eHow allegedly had standards – most of them concentrated on format, fewer on accuracy – sites like Ezine let self-appointed "experts' write anything about anything. That's how the article "Mortising Attachments" made it to the web, compliments of Mary Riverstone.

Riverstone, whose author bio informs us is in reality named "Greeshma Justin," published several articles about woodworking, making her (him?) some sort of "guru" on the topic. With that in mind, "Mary" opens by explaining, sort of, what mortises are:

"A mortise is a joint that can be used to connect two parts of a structure together. The mortise is not complete without its counterpart the tenon."

We take issue with the notion that a mortise is a "joint." It's not: when combined with a tenon, a mortise is a method of fastening a joint. In reality, a mortise is a hole cut into, though not necessarily through, wood. Door hinges lie in a mortise, for instance. But what can you expect from someone who gets the whole relationship between mortise and tenon backward?

"The tenon has to be shaped appropriately to fit into the mortise like a glove fitting a hand."

We'd say "a hand into a glove"; though we admit most of us are native English speakers... Riverstone goes on to make enough mistakes to reveal that she knows precious little about joinery or power tools, telling her readers for instance that,

• "A special machine used to create square or rectangular holes in a piece of wood is called a Mortiser. These cube shaped holes are called mortises." – "cube shaped"? really?
• "One of the best mortising attachments you can find is the drill press." – We think that's backward, Mary: a mortiser is an attachment for a drill press, not the other way 'round.

• "Your drill press will allow you to attach a hollow chisel mortising attachment where bits ranging from 1/4th inch to 3/4th inch may be fixed." – Attach what to where, Greeshma?
• "The mortising attachment consists of a two piece device, one holding the chisel in place while the other bit spins inside, getting rid of the wood as the chisel piece moves into the lumber." – Wow, now that's pretty... descriptive...

Riverstone / Justin (Mary / Greeshma) also attempted to explain using a "Harry Watt square drill bit" to make mortises. The technique's name is actually the Reuleaux Triangle, though Harry did develop the method of using a round bit in an eccentric cam to make almost square holes. At least Harry knew what he was talking about, which is a darned sight more than you can say for "Mary," our Dumbass of the Day for today.

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