Thread: Chisel mortiser

There are several existing threads.

When I was looking recently the thing that stood out is that:

the bench drill mounted ones put a fair straing on the drill press mechanism and may be potentially too much for it.

Most of the chisels as supplied are not sharp enough and the machines do better with a touch up.

The bench top ones seem fine but cut smaller holes than the bigger ones, so if your doing say a 100 mm long mortise you have to make more holes on a smaller one (maybe 10 as opposed to maybe 7) to get your length. If your not doing production runs one of these should be adequate.

I bought a second hand delta bench top for about $200. Carbatec have an own branded similar machine. The delta has some extra features but I doubt they matter. YMMV. I think they are $300ish new.

Carba-Tec® Benchtop Chisel Mortiser : CARBA-TEC

The next one up is $700ish

SYDNEY TOOLS - Delta Chisel Mortiser - Professional

You should be able to get the delta for about $300 or so I'd imagine.

If you do decided on a drill mounted one timbecon have one on special just now, $60 or so as I recall.

Pity your not up here:

Chisel Mortiser | eBay

Chisel Mortice Kit For Drill Press | eBay

Machines of the type I described come up on this forum occasionally.

I have the Carbatec HM16D (it's not the one show on the website) it's more like the Delta one.

Put a 6" cross-slide vice (MJING) on it and made a set of riser blocks for it it.

Works well, can cut a moritce of about 150mm by just using the sliding vise to move the work piece. No unclamping, move and reclamp.

There is a thread on it.....i'll try and find it....

Try this one...

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f40/un...inters-129727/

If you are using well seasoned hardwood, you probably should remove most of the waste with a regular drill in a drill press or with a solid carbide spiral bit in a router in a jig. This should save you ending up with one arm looking like a weightlifter's from hanging off the handle of a chisel mortiser, trying to force the chisel through the timber.

Also, not all mortiser chisels & specially drills are equal - take a close look at the specifications, most are plain high carbon steel & are easy to ruin in old hardwood due to over heating - look for sets marked/marketed as high speed steel (Lee Valley sell both sorts for instance, others only the plain HCS) - HSS drills don't care about a bit of heat (& smoke ).

Get yourself a diamond coated chisel sharpening set with 2 cones to sharpen the inside of the chisel & carefully polish the outside of the chisel with a fine stone too. The drill will eventually (sooner rather than later if you use it to remove all the waste) need sharpening - again, specialist suppliers have sharpening files made for the purpose.

The US version of Shop Notes will have an article on mortisers in a few issues, and there are some on-line articles at Popular Woodworking if you dig around on their site.

There are several types of sharpeners and the differences in price are remarkable, for a couple of $ to nearer $80! So shop around.