Chopping the mortises in the door stiles
 
Chopping the mortises in the door stiles

This is my 1/2" mortise chisel with mallet. Normally the tenon thickness of doors, windows, raised paneling, etc., is 5/16" thick, give or take a 1/16"whether it be a window or a thicker door. Because this man made the door stiles 1 7/8" thick , the tenon thickness can be increased to 1/2" thick, thus allowing the maker to only have to cut one face on the rail stock, and thus increasing the strength significantly, and also the back board between the stiles only has to be 16" wide, not 24" or more sometimes, eliminating half the work !! Its much harder and more time consuming to plane out wide boards. This is a BIG DEAL !! 1789 !! Everything has "firsts". >