Hi all,

I've recently finished a qualification in carpentry here in France (By way of doing things the wrong way round, I built my timber-framed house first!). And we are continually pushed to be 'rentable'. That is to say, that our time is productive enough to be valuable. This means hand tools only when a power tool cannot do the work, circular saw for nearly everything. And every serious workshop above a certain size (namely everyone with at least one employee) has a chain mortiser. Generally either the LyonFlex P43 (which is frankly a back-breaking beast), or the Mafell or Protool (now Festool) unit.

And yet I notice from the numerous posts and videos from this group that many quite serious (as viewed from over here) timber framing houses are routinely mortising with hand tools. Either boring machines, or eventually auger bits on a drill, always finished by hand with a chisel or slick.

Which leads to my question. Is it a difference in labour cost, or in the client's perceived value of a timber frame (and thus, the price tag that goes with it) that "allows" you all to use such tools, or have I just misread the situation and are you all secretely punching holes left-right-and centre with your Mafell LS 103s while producing YouTube videos about the joys of hand finishing mortises?

In essence, how do you bill the time spent per mortise?

Jon

Chain mortisers are a love hate situation for me. They can rough out a big mortise in knotty oak pretty fast, but there is always just a bit of cleanup in the bottom/ front face that takes a lot of time. When you figure in the huge cost of the machine (SwissPro), plus maintenance and replacement parts, I don't think they are really as much of an advantage as a lot of people think. Being efficient with hand tools and selecting good timbers and laying out round defects is part of being a good timber framer, in my opinion. Buying a lot of expensive tools so you can just blast a bunch of rough holes in low grade timbers is an indication that one has stopped their journey towards being a highly skilled craftsmen. I know that will upset some people, so everyone just needs to remember it's just my opinion. I know that at the end of the day my arms will be a lot more tired running a boring machine over a CM, but my back won't hurt as much as if I had been running the mortiser.

Here is an 8 minute brace pocket, housing included. The boring took less time than measuring and layout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNxFR4U2rc

Here is the modified boring machine, I'm still tempted by the chain mortisers, and after that it will be a cnc machine, when to stop?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17h_be9zjNo

@Dave Shepard: Here there is no cleanup. It helps that the standard tenon in traditional French carpentry is 30mm (so a bit over 1") which corresponds nicely to the standard chain size. Tenons are rounded by hand on their long edges to ensure that they don't foul the rounded bottom of the mortise which is, in any case usually cut to 75 / 80mm depth for a 70mm tenon. In modern construction we're usually working with treated commercial pine 75x225mm (referred to as an 8/23 and very roughly equivalent to a 3"x9").

I wholly agree with the cost issue (factor in also the fear factor of the chainsaw). But that is factored out here by the time saving. Since we're not 'roughing out' but just cutting with the mortiser, our time saving is very real. To take TIMBEAL's example from above: Let's say that 8 mins is a realistic time for cleaning out a bored mortise, and that boring that mortise took another 4 mins (from memory, that seems generous), that's 12 mins from layout to mortise being cut. I would count maybe 2 mins to set up the mortiser (assuming that your using a guide and not just freehanding), and another 3 to cut it. So a time saving of 7 mins per mortise. For a standard truss there are at least 6 mortises so 42mins per truss. Let's say 3 trusses in a house (Fairly normal for a house with "traditional" roof carpentry), so just over 2 hours. At a total cost of employment per hour of around 20€ for a newly qualified carpenter (just to pay the wages), that's at least 40€ extra labour per house. Each extra minute taken per mortise costs an extra 6€ per house.

What I've been wondering for some time (and am now wondering out loud) is what is the fundamental difference between our countries that makes for this difference in working practice? Is it simply employment cost? Or is it a more subtle difference in attitude.

Please don't take this as a criticism. I'm trying (in my own way) to push a more "artisanal" model where the work is valued not simply for its cost, but for how it was made. That is to say, that there is a value for the future owner in knowing the care and precision that went into the cutting of a mortise, even if they will never see the mortise itself.

@TIMBEAL: Already watched nearly all of your videos over the last few years. I'm more tempted by a modified boring machine, than by a chain mortiser, but a few years of trying to sell this idea to clients may cause me to drift off-piste on this one.

I figured you had seen these videos, Jon, I couldn't resist posting them.

One aspect to consider is layout methods, material at hand, and how the two come together. All my material is sawn on site, some hewing, too. It is rough stock compared to treated commercial pine, you are working with. I'm assuming it is surfaced on 4 sides and true.

In my work and others I am sure, I can pull a log from the woods, saw it, and incorporate it into a frame all in the same day. Do any of the shops in your area perform work on green fresh sawn timber? I suspect that is so, but the majority of the work you see is it prepared material? Sometimes this rough timber sits in the yard and you will find twist and other effects time has on timber, do you find chain mortisers will perform cut after cut at the time frame you mentions without hesitation? A frame we put up this spring had near 1" twist in it from end to end. How about extra waney timber, how does that affect the workability of a chain mortiser?

As for time, I try to find other ways to still offer a traditional frame with short cut joinery decisions built into the system, from types of joints used or not used, as well as short cuts in working the joinery. I think the case could be made that if you are working with smooth, slick material your joint execution will need to be top notch to bring the project together, while working in the rough things are still exact yet there is the allowable fudge that will not be as noticeable The two outcomes will be similar but different and to compare on a price of cutting joints alone may lead one down a road that doesn't lead to any destination.

Hi Jon,
I think you're seeing a skewed sample on the Forums; people who are interested in the craft of timber framing are going to participate here and are perhaps more prone to using hand tools. As Director of the Guild for 11 years I got to know most of the companies out there and I would guess that 95% of them use chain or hollow chisel mortisers or CNC. One high end company and highly productive near me still prefers drills (Milwaukee Hole Hawgs). Works for them; go figure. By the way, when I use a Mafell mortiser I bore 5/8" deeper to get past the curve of the chain so there is no cleanup.

Thanks, Will. I do believe that sums it up. From my stance, I know I am in the minority of cutting shops out there.

This conversation fascinates me.

I've noticed the same thing working with Swiss Carpenters. Their shops all utilize very nice tools -mortisers, planers, saws, etc. and even special saws are set up to cut out tenons in a single pass (a machine with 5 blades, 1 cuts the overall length, 2 cut the shoulders, and 2 cut the width of the tenon)
And they also all make use of meticulously planed and dimensioned timbers (although they still use layout methods that don't assume wood is perfectly dimensioned)

I don't get the impression that, at least in the regions I deal with, they are driven with this same productivity mindset, however.

I'm honestly drawn to both ends of this endless debate. I love to work with hand tools, but I also love to employ methods that render the final costs low.
But I also have observed that cost isn't the only consideration. Time is an important factor in some situations.

Many larger production shops need to be able to crank out frames in a few weeks time, some shops have the ability to take a couple months to get the job done. For the production company, the overall per job cost may be higher running power tools, but that is offset by the time factor. They make less profit off a job by using expensive tools, but they make up for that by running more jobs through their shop in a year.

I applaud the carpenters who can find the spot in the market that lets them sit back and enjoy the process more, but I understand the businessman who is driven to cut out the 'luxuries' of craftsmanship and the romance of working by hand and put power tools to use.

Me personally, I employ a mixture of the two. Some things I enjoy doing by hand and some things I'd rather not (I'll admit, I'm not too crazy about hand saws, but I love to whack a chisel or swing an axe) I'm also in search of the way that is most cost efficient to me, and therefore to the customer, that means finding the perfect balance between hand and machine processes.

I'm drawn to the economy of machine methods, but I'm also (maybe a bit more strongly) drawn to to simple joy of the traditional processes. I'm the kind of guy that could be happy in either situation (I happen to also like machines)

I don't consider working with hand tools a luxury or romantic. My first timber trestle took my 10.5 hours to cut. I'm sure many of you have seen it, and I'll try to add a photo if I have one loaded. There are eight 1.5"/1.5" joints and four 2"/2" joints for the anchorbeams. 20 peg holes/pegs and four wedge slots/wedges. I used a boring machine for the 1.5" stuff and a T-auger for the 2". We cut one of these benches at work last month and used the SwissPro mortiser, circ saws and power drills. We eliminated the 8 pegs at the anchorbeams and we managed to trim exactly minus 4.5 hours off of the build time. That's right. 15 hours with the fanciest hand held tools money can buy.

Jon Senior, a single mortise is not a good representation of the time it takes to cut mortises. You need to do all your layout at once, then bore everything on a timber, or timbers, then do your cleanup. I did a pictorial of boring and cleaning up a 1.5"x6" mortise 4" deep in white pine. Including taking the shots and setting up the camera, it was under 9 minutes. In a continuous mortising setup, it would be less. I estimated on the last frame of 50/50 white oak/white pine, the chain mortiser might have saved 3-4 hours. Average the labor saving over the life of the chains and maintenance, and I don't see it as getting ahead very far.