Morticing Machines??

[Little Festo]

Just after some advice re morticing machines. Are there any preferences re Jet, Delta or the "new" Carbi-Tec machines. Price wise they are similar except for the Carbi-Tec which is a bit cheaper.

Peter

BTW - Merry Christmas

[DarrylF]

I've had the Delta for around a year. Works just fine for me.

They take a little time to learn to set up & adjust properly, but no big deal. Buy the good chisels - the cheapies are rubbish.

I found the stock table too small so I built one around 900mm long out of 16mm MDF, much better. Needs to be firmly bolted to a bench so mine has a permanent home.

[John Saxton]

Peter,I have a taiwanese model that does the job but does not meet the standards as does the better name brands...so may I suggest you consider your options carefully in that it's probably better to pay a little more for a unit with some quality control behind it rather than go for a cheaper option with it's inherent problems.

Cheers http://ubb.ubeaut.com.au/ubb/smile.gif

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Johnno

[derekcohen]

Has anyone used the morticing attachment for bench drills, such as sold by Carba-tec? Are they a waste of money, or would you recomend them (for low volume work)?

Regards to all for Christmas and the New Year

Derek (in Perth)

[Pantherx]

I'm in the same predicament, buy a drill press morticer attachment kit + the actual 1 Hp drill press(around $400-500 for both) OR buy a dedicated Delta 1/2 Hp from Timbercon catalog for $449.

Will be interested in further comments

Cheers..........

[DarrylF]

For my money, you need a drill press for a whole bunch of other jobs, but morticing is not one of them.

Even with a good quality attachment on a drill press (yet to see a good one), a drill press is just not built for the forces involved in morticing. A dedicated morticing machine is built to handle the deflection stresses, and has a handle long enough to be able to exert the pressure needed to mortice hardwood etc.

Morticing machines work by removing the bulk of the waste with essentially a drill bit in the centre, and squaring the mortice with a chisel. A fair bit of force is required to push the chisel into the wood in many cases.

After the initial waste is removed you generally take a second run to clean up the sides of the mortice. Any deflection of the chisel means you can't get clean sides on the mortice.

The fence is also important - it needs to be very solid. The Delta has a cast fence attached to the main post. It also has a cast collar over the top of the workpiece that stops the wood being pulled back up by the chisel.

So, for my money, go for a dedicated machine if you plan on doing the job properly.