Thread: Router or Drill Press with Moritising Bit for making mortises?

Hi Bushie and welcome to the forum.
Have a look at this Google image search result - https://www.google.com.au/search?q=h...5MIo6lsaT_s%3D

Click on an image that interests you and you can then link to the page. There appears to be some images of products that are the spitting image of the McJing offering and plenty of other home builds. You'll never regret making a quality router mortise jig. Loose tenon joinery is the ducks guts!

Cheers,
David

Forget the Idea of using a drill press with morticing bit,they are not great,the drill press is not suited well to this kind of use and you will not get the accuracy required.
Similarly bench top morticing machines are not much better.

I got rid of my benchtop machine a couple of years back and built a horizontal morticing machine for loose tenon construction.
The heart of my machine is my old Elu mof177e router with 1/2" solid carbide spiral upcut bit.I purchased a morticing attachment from Machinery house which was intended for use on a planer/thicknesser and bolted it to a home made bench grinder stand,re-purposed for this machine.

The advantage of it being a horizontal machine is that you are not limited by timber length,so by using roller supports for the timber you can cut mortices in the ends of long lenths of timber.

I can cut a 45mm deep mortice in jarrah endgrain in literally seconds,try doing that with a traditional morticing machine.

The whole build cost approx $250 which was really just the cost of the morticing attachment,all the other parts are things I had lying around.
The bracket that the router is bolted to was a 50 year old dovetail jig that was incomplete anyway.

Originally Posted by aldav

Hi Bushie and welcome to the forum.
Have a look at this Google image search result - https://www.google.com.au/search?q=h...5MIo6lsaT_s%3D

Click on an image that interests you and you can then link to the page. There appears to be some images of products that are the spitting image of the McJing offering and plenty of other home builds. You'll never regret making a quality router mortise jig. Loose tenon joinery is the ducks guts!

Cheers,
David

Thanks David,
The surprising thing regarding the mcjing vs a US 'spitting image' router table, the mcjing is a lot cheaper, usually the other way around.

MLCS Woodworking FLATBED Horizontal Router Table Mortise-Tenon Package - - Amazon.com

Although it does have a three piece bit set, but still....

Another question before i buy a spiral upcut bit: Will a 1/4" x 1" x 2-1/2" x 1/4" be OK to cut mortises around 30 mm deep, where the 1" is 'cutting depth'?
Also looking to make mortises 12mm wide.

Wondering to about controlling a long board, end on. I guess a slide would assist this, but the 'outboard end' would still need support?

Originally Posted by mark david

Forget the Idea of using a drill press with morticing bit,they are not great,the drill press is not suited well to this kind of use and you will not get the accuracy required.
Similarly bench top morticing machines are not much better.

I got rid of my benchtop machine a couple of years back and built a horizontal morticing machine for loose tenon construction.
The heart of my machine is my old Elu mof177e router with 1/2" solid carbide spiral upcut bit.I purchased a morticing attachment from Machinery house which was intended for use on a planer/thicknesser and bolted it to a home made bench grinder stand,re-purposed for this machine.

The advantage of it being a horizontal machine is that you are not limited by timber length,so by using roller supports for the timber you can cut mortices in the ends of long lenths of timber.

I can cut a 45mm deep mortice in jarrah endgrain in literally seconds,try doing that with a traditional morticing machine.

The whole build cost approx $250 which was really just the cost of the morticing attachment,all the other parts are things I had lying around.
The bracket that the router is bolted to was a 50 year old dovetail jig that was incomplete anyway.

Thanks Mark,
Have found the attachment you used:

https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/W61

More expensive, but that's understandable.

Yes it was your post that got me thinking about a horizontal router.
Do you think my router will be of sufficient size?

Originally Posted by Bushie

Another question before i buy a spiral upcut bit: Will a 1/4" x 1" x 2-1/2" x 1/4" be OK to cut mortises around 30 mm deep, where the 1" is 'cutting depth'?
Also looking to make mortises 12mm wide.

Wondering to about controlling a long board, end on. I guess a slide would assist this, but the 'outboard end' would still need support?

For what you're looking to do at the moment - mortise in 140 x 31mm - I'd probably use a 3/8" tenon and cut the mortice about 100mm long. Will a 1/4" tenon be strong enough? Probably, but if you wanted to make sure you could do twin 1/4" tenons, hell of a lot of glue surface area there! Other options would be to reset your jig to cut the mortise wider or buy an 8mm bit, with an 8mm shank they can be had for not much more than a 1/4" bit.

Carbide hates heat, nothing else will destroy it as quickly, so I wouldn't be cutting any deeper than the cutting depth of the bit. You'll be surprised how deep a 1" depth 1/4" mortice looks. Technique is also important - overlapping plunges to full depth along the entire length of the mortice followed by multiple passes at progressively greater depth to clear out the waste works best.

I wouldn't consider doing the routing without adequate support for the stock, ie. at both ends, you're only setting yourself up for a hiding without it.

Your router is big enough to get you started, but you won't be able to cut mortices wider than 8mm in one pass. If you find yourself using loose tenons a bit in your projects though an upgrade to a more powerful 1/2" router would be the way to go. I've never seen a solid carbide spiral bit with a cutting diameter larger than the shank diameter. Hinge mortice bits, ordinary straight bits and dowel bits aren't suitable. Forget the HSS sets, they just don't last like carbide. I have seen some bits that would allow you to cut wider mortices in one pass, but I'm not sure that they're available in Australia or whether they're available with 1/4" shanks, weird looking things with the staggered carbide aren't they!

Cheers,
David

Originally Posted by Lappa

Do you have any photos of the router assembly and the mortise attachment?

TIA

The Actual morticing attachment can be found here W615 | MA-300 Mortice Attachment | For Sale Sydney Brisbane Melbourne Perth | Buy Workshop Equipment & Machinery online at machineryhouse.com.au
The mount for the router was made from a redundant dovetail jig but actually any way of rigidly mounting the router in the horizntal position via the router baseplate will work.
The spiral carbide upcut bit make really smooth and fast mortices,I don't bother squaring the mortices, I just make loose tenons and round off the corners with a hand-plane.

Originally Posted by aldav

For what you're looking to do at the moment - mortise in 140 x 31mm - I'd probably use a 3/8" tenon and cut the mortice about 100mm long. Will a 1/4" tenon be strong enough? Probably, but if you wanted to make sure you could do twin 1/4" tenons, hell of a lot of glue surface area there! Other options would be to reset your jig to cut the mortise wider or buy an 8mm bit, with an 8mm shank they can be had for not much more than a 1/4" bit.

Carbide hates heat, nothing else will destroy it as quickly, so I wouldn't be cutting any deeper than the cutting depth of the bit. You'll be surprised how deep a 1" depth 1/4" mortice looks. Technique is also important - overlapping plunges to full depth along the entire length of the mortice followed by multiple passes at progressively greater depth to clear out the waste works best.

I wouldn't consider doing the routing without adequate support for the stock, ie. at both ends, you're only setting yourself up for a hiding without it.

Your router is big enough to get you started, but you won't be able to cut mortices wider than 8mm in one pass. If you find yourself using loose tenons a bit in your projects though an upgrade to a more powerful 1/2" router would be the way to go. I've never seen a solid carbide spiral bit with a cutting diameter larger than the shank diameter. Hinge mortice bits, ordinary straight bits and dowel bits aren't suitable. Forget the HSS sets, they just don't last like carbide. I have seen some bits that would allow you to cut wider mortices in one pass, but I'm not sure that they're available in Australia or whether they're available with 1/4" shanks, weird looking things with the staggered carbide aren't they!

Cheers,
David

Have rethought how to join the rails - with about 50mm checked in (dry) and hidden bolts on the footing end and checked in with countersunk semi hidden bolts on the headboard end, (as they won't be seen on that end).

Will still follow your good advice on routing mortises in the ends after cutting them down to size. They are 90x35.

Will go for and 8mm spiral. The ones I'm looking at, at McJing, have $35 for the 1/4" mentioned above and $70 for; 3/8" x 2-1/2" x 4" x 3/8"Shank.

Thanks heaps for your advice.

"The mount for the router was made from a redundant dovetail jig but actually any way of rigidly mounting the router in the horizntal position via the router baseplate will work."

If I could think of a way to secure the router (and adapt easily to a larger router in the future, as suggested above) this attachment would be well worth the difference in cost between it and the McJing jig. Looks like great control over the work piece.
Thanks for the update.

Hi Mark,
I bought the mortising attachment you have, great piece of gear.
Must say was very impressed with machineryhouse, ordered Monday afternoon and it arrived (from Sydney) yesterday afternoon,(Wednesday) to SE Queensland.

Any tips you can give in regard table height in relation to router bit would be greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by Bushie

Hi Mark,
I bought the mortising attachment you have, great piece of gear.
Must say was very impressed with machineryhouse, ordered Monday afternoon and it arrived (from Sydney) yesterday afternoon,(Wednesday) to SE Queensland.

Any tips you can give in regard table height in relation to router bit would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Bushie,yes it's not a bad attachment although there is some play in the thing,pity it is not dovetail slides.
A bit of tightening up here and there improves it somewhat.

The bracket that holds my router to the stand is held in place by threaded studs and I have some shims that i can use to raise the whole assembly for larger workpieces.

"The bracket that holds my router to the stand is held in place by threaded studs and I have some shims that i can use to raise the whole assembly for larger workpieces."

OK I'll keep that in mind when mounting the router.

However having never seen one of these in the flesh, was wondering router bit height to what reference on the table , ie table wound up/down, and end of router to table etc. Just a rough idea so i'm somewhere in the ballpark.

Originally Posted by Bushie

Will go for and 8mm spiral. The ones I'm looking at, at McJing, have $35 for the 1/4" mentioned above and $70 for; 3/8" x 2-1/2" x 4" x 3/8"Shank.

Thanks heaps for your advice.

I can sell you a quality 1/4" or 8mm (with collet adaptor) solid carbide upcut router bit for a better price than that. Have a look in my EBay store and PM me through the forum if you're interested.

Cheers,
David

HA, ha, have already bought these from you! Along with your:
16 Pcs M8 Plastic Clamping Knob Assortment

Hope they turn up soon.

Well you got me there! Never associated 'Bushie' with an acclaimed martial arts proponent.

You didn't order the 8mm bit with the collet adaptor. Do you need the 1/2 to 8mm adaptor? This bit has an 8mm shank.

Looks like your goodies will be delivered by Robert Scott, your local Fastway man, tomorrow.

I assume you couldn't PM me because you haven't been a member long enough.