This week I cut a set of mortise and tenon joints for the base of a display case. I decided that I would try out the new mortising chisels I got last month and some sweet new sawing skills that I have been working on. After carefully cutting and fitting the parts, I started thinking about how all of the time and effort put into these joints would be hidden from view the moment that I placed glue into the joint and clamped up all of the parts. I also considered about the myriad other ways in which this joint could be constructed(i.e. dowels, dominos, screws, biscuits, etc.) or handful of less manual techniques that could be employed to the form the parts (i.e. mortising machine, a router jig, table saw, drill press and on and on and on…)
The question is why bother this sort of thing by hand?
