Thread: Mortisers

I also have the Delta.
Ive made hundreds of mortises with it, using the bits that came with it. Its been a nice little machine. You really have to keep the bits sharp to get good results, but its not hard to do
The nice thing about them is you can make deep mortises easily and repeatedly. set up time is minimal, and is much less noisy and dusty than the router.
Ive done quite alot of wedged mortises with it too. I just make a wedge to sit the wood im mortising on, to get the required angle. Its worked out quite well

Bodgy, after each mortice give it a blast with compressed air before you remove the piece of wood.
Are you setting up stops? Its much more accurate just like setting up a dropsaw for repetitive docking.
A problem I had when I first started using mine, I had adjusted the clamp down fork thingo to tight making shifting the wood hard and frustrating, now I set a gap of about .5~1mm and wax the table... much easier!

Harry

I sometimes use stops but the table design makes them a bit hard and fiddly to put in place. A sacrificial table would cut the plunge depth.

I'm sure you're right about the compressed air, or dusty, but again blowing out the dust after every plunge isn't my idea of efficient.

I suppose you have to put up with a bit of tedium, but I think the answer is to go a bit up market and get the more exxy one with sliding table.

Ah ok, your trying to put the stops on the machine?
No need for a sacrificial table...
I screw my machine down to my work bench and mount the stops on the bench with clamps.
If the stop position is on the machine base I cut an offcut and place it between the stop(mounted on the table)and on the base of the machine, this way you dont have the problem of mounting a stop on the machine and the offcutt can be removed to aid blowing away the sawdust.
Also I plunge the short end of the piece of wood 1st then the other end of the mortice, this way sawdust doesnt get jammed between the stop and the wood, so you only need to blow the sawdust away after each complete mortice is cut.

Made up my mind to go for the Delta, had to go to Melbourne today to pick some other gear and went to Carbatec.

Sad news, no more Delta Mortisers and won't be getting any more.

Oh well, can't win them all, the Carbatec one at $169 isn't a bad deal but need to add chisels to that so that still takes it over $200.

Decided to sleep on that.

Originally Posted by Harry72

..Also I plunge the short end of the piece of wood 1st then the other end of the mortice, ....

My understanding is that this is the correct way to use a morticer - You do each end and plunge subsequent holes leaving a web of timber in between then go back and clean out the webs left. This is because the bit will deflect if not supported on both sides which apart from getting a less than square and rough mortice, it will wear and blunt the chisel more quickly. The method pretty well avoids the sawdust problem as you say. Here is an interesting link on hollow chisel morticing

http://lumberjocks.com/jocks/decoustudio/blog/432