Chisel out corners or is there a better way

[jbasen]

I'm building a set of built-in cabinets for my dining room.  Each, of 4 cabinets has 2 doors with a stained glass insert.  I've built the doors (rails and stiles held together with dominos) and on the inside of the rails and styles I've routed out a 1/2" deep by 1/4" wide rabbet for a stained glass panel and a 1/4" x 1/4" quarter round strip to hold the glass panel in place.  I used my of 1400 router and a rabbet router bit with a bearing to cut the rabbet.  The Festool domino and 1400 OF router have made building the doors very easy. 

This is all the background.  Now for my question  [smile]

The rabbet bit leaves rounded corners.  I have always sat there with a chisel and cut these corners out by hand to square up the opening for the stained glass panel.  I have 8 doors so this means I have 32 corners.  It takes about 5 minutes to carefully chisel out each corner so that means I'm going to spend over 2 1/2 Hours chiseling corners.

Do the pros out there have a better/faster way of squaring corners on doors like this or does practice make perfect and they are simply much faster at chiseling a corner than I am?

Thanks in advance for the help

I'll be posting pictures of this when I'm all done. 

 

[epicxt]

I normally do a dry fit and mark where the corners of the glass will be then pull them apart and cut the rabbet. Still have to finish them off by hand but it's easier than when they are already glued up. You can use a pull saw and clean up with a chisel.
If the doors are already assembled chuck up a small spiral cutter with the MFS or make a jig and it will leave a much smaller radius that will be  acceptable or at least leave much less to chisel out.

 

[waho6o9]

Corner chisels come to mind.

[attachimg=1]

 

[peter halle]

This might not help you out with stained glass, but with a material like plexiglass you can nip the corner off at a 45 degree angle and have it not look too poorly.  You can then set up stop blocks to make matching cuts on the panels.

Peter

 

[jbasen]

Corner chisels come to mind.

[attachimg=1]

Thanks for the fast reply.  I am already using a corner chisel.  My technique is as follows.  First I use a double square and a marking knife to mark the corner section to be cut.  The groove left by the marking knife gives allows me to position the corner chisel precisely.  I then start chiseling away the corner with a  few blows to the corner chisel.  However, since the section to be cut is longer than the sides of my corner chisel; after this initial cut I switch over to a 3/4" inch chisel and finish chiseling away the entire corner by alternating cutting away at the 2 sides of the corner.

If this is the best way; I'll just continue along.  Since it is time consuming I'm just wondering if there is a better technique used by professional cabinet makers.  Always looking to learn a new technique that improves quality and productivity.

Thanks again

 

[semenza]

There is also this kind of corner chisel.

http://www.rockler.com/spring-loaded-corner-chisel

Seth

 

[jbasen]

This might not help you out with stained glass, but with a material like plexiglass you can nip the corner off at a 45 degree angle and have it not look too poorly.  You can then set up stop blocks to make matching cuts on the panels.

Peter

Thanks Peter.  That is a good suggestion but, as you said, it won't work with the stained glass panels I'll be building.  It would take me longer to make the rounded corners in the glass panels than to do the chisel work.

Thanks again and hope you're doing well and will have a speedy recovery

 

[jbasen]

There is also this kind of corner chisel.

http://www.rockler.com/spring-loaded-corner-chisel

Seth

Thanks Seth.  I do have one of those but it is too small for these corners.  I'm using a Robert Sorby corner chisel just like the Narex chisel in waho6o9's post

Thanks again

 

[jbasen]

Just a quick update.  I've been experimenting and I'm finding that if I do the majority of work with the corner chisel and just the final cleanup with th 3/4" chisel, the process goes much faster  [big grin]

 

[neeleman]

Veritas Magnetic Corner Chisel at $39.50.

 

[jbasen]

Veritas Magnetic Corner Chisel at $39.50.

Thanks.  I hadn't seen that one before.  It looks interesting.

I guess the consensus is that the proper technique is to chisel out the corners.  The only question is which corner chisel device works best.

Thanks again all for your input

 

[wrightwoodwork]

Not sure what your technique is I would just use a good sharp chisel. I have never used corner chisels as I have always thought of them as unnessary. The reason being they only cut the shoulder then you still need another to remove the waste. I just can't see how you pare with a corner chisel. The task should only take a little over a minute I guess. The first cut wants to be across the grain the reason being to stop the wood splitting. Then make a cut with the grain on the shoulder line and pare the waste away then just repeat the steps always start with the cut across the grain.  I guess the round is, g  only 1/4 radius another way still just a normal beval chisel as long as sharp ihs to have the handle running the same direction as the rebate so first cut across the grain approximately 1/8 deep then come from the other way to remove the waste with the beval down so the chisel doesn't dig in then go back and chisel across the grain giving a good hit down. Then remove the waste and finish by pairing up the corners. No fancy corner chisels and the job is done in 5 hits

 

[jbasen]

Thanks for the input.

At this point I have finished chiseling everything out.  I did speed up considerably as I worked through all the corners.  Though I must admit, I never got down close to 1 minute. 

Thanks again

 

[Hookie]

You could use an old 1/2" Mortice hollow chisel, sans bit.  Just turn up a piece of ash, or similar, to slip over the shank of the chisel, so you can use a mallet. Or if it's a really old chisel, just hammer on the metal!
Works a treat.

HTH

John