Mortiser

The bit clears out most of the material to be removed, and the chisel ensures the edges are straight and clean.

An improvement was to place a rotating cylindrical auger inside a hollow chisel.

As electric power became easily available, the auger developed as a drill bit and became the main means of removing waste timber from the mortise.

A more recent innovation is the horizontal mortiser, which incorporates a router mounted statically on its side with the workpiece clamped to a multi-axis sliding table.

However, due to the precision of fit required for a mortise and tenon joint, this can be a difficult and time-consuming task.