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Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Machine?

8/4/19       
Ken Member

So my old specialty was cabinets for the music and electronic industry but that ship has sailed. Now I'm doing what I set out to do 30 years ago and build custom furniture. I recently did a 12/4 & 8/4 white oak table that required mortise and tenon joints. The easiest way I thought of to do it was with loose tendons and a plunge router, that said I have a brand new Delta 14-651 that has been sitting in a corner for maybe 10 years. No matter how sharp the chisels are I feel the mortise is inferior to the routered cutout. I really don't want to get into the drill and hand chisel process on doing them. So my question is does the bench top machine have any redeeming value or should I dump it?


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8/4/19       #2: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
rich c.

Dump it. If you Google "Delta 14-651 failures", you'll read about sheered pins and gears on the plunge mechanisms. Not built in a good period for Delta.

8/4/19       #4: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Joseph Eultgen

I made this over 30 years ago from FWW when it was sti in black and white. Tage Frid article. Easy to use.on spot every time


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8/4/19       #5: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Joseph Eultgen

Sorry. This should add clarity. Use with unge router


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8/5/19       #6: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
David R Sochar Member

The Delta is crap. I was given one 25 yrs ago, and gave it away about 2 years later.

I replaced it with a Powermatic. It is OK. We use a Maka for most mortises, as its speed and accuracy cannot be better.

However these 'loose tenon' joints will stop any conventional mortising equipment. Going into end grain is difficult to impossible with a hollow chisel. The Maka can do it but has limitations on the smaller size mortises it can make.

I am not a fan of 3 pc M&T joints. Old Traditionalist, I guess. The number of parts increases by 33%, and that third part is critical in its fit. One more thing to worry or fuss over, eliminate it if possible. We can adjust our tenons by just a few thousandths if we need to, using the Powermatic Tenoner with DRO's on the heads. Loose slip fit to hammer/clamp tight is easy to do with our methods.

Granted, they are all a bit large and heavy for furniture joinery. I would go to a Bacci mortiser or even an 'Acme' machine with a P-C router is useful. But I would not depend upon a hollow chisel for making end grain hardwood joinery.

I have photos, but I also need to work today......

8/5/19       #7: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Ken Member

Thanks guys,

I actually found the receipt for it and it's more like 15 years old. The only thing I ever used it for was using the chisel to press out shallow square holes for a walnut plug in some panels. I used a brad point first so the drilled portion didn't extend past the chisel like the mortising drill would have, other than that maybe a door stop? I did find some Square Hole Punches at Lee Valley when I was at AWFS to do the walnut plugs. I think I'm going to focus on a versatile router jig for the mortises and setup on the shaper for the tenons with the understanding I will have to round over the edges.

8/5/19       #8: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Pete

I have the powermatic mortiser 719. Its decent and (maybe)step up from the smaller units but I have not used them. I do mostly furniture. I bought a domino a while ago and Im not a fan. Yeah its helpful in some aspects for some unique things but for traditional joinery on furniture its not my go to. I don't have a powermatic tenoner either. I have a jig that runs in the groove on my shaper table. Two rabbeting heads set up with shims between depending on mortise width. Made tons of furniture this way, particularly chairs, and its fast and accurate. The shaper jig is the poor mans set up without a tennoner or sliding table shaper.

8/6/19       #9: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Glen Harwell

We have a heavy duty Mortising machine and a tenoner we bought around 25 years ago for one job building furniture for a library. They have been sitting in the back room since then. They weigh a ton and were made in Canada. If you are close to Arizona we can make a deal. I forgot we still had them until this thread.

8/11/19       #10: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
BH Davis  Member

For large scale production work a heavy duty mortising machine is the way to go. For occasional mortising a hand router mounted multi-router style table top machine will do a good job.

John Wirth of Woodworker's Supply (originally of New Mexico) invented one of the first of the table top machines many years ago. Similar in design to the Multi-router but with a full size 2 hp motor driving the high speed spindle via belt drive. I have one of these I would not part with even though I have a 4x8 CNC. If you can find one it would do the job well. Last I knew about 10 to 15 years ago Woodworkers Supply still had a couple of them gathering dust in storage.

BH Davis

JDS Multi router

8/12/19       #11: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
nicko Member

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base_images/bah/veneering-table-legs_02.jpg

Th
is is a slot mortiser i made out of a Grizzly horizontal boring machine. I had a weld shop make me a mount and mounted a Dewalt router to it. It has an xwz table and it really works well.

9/8/19       #12: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Tom Norton

Joseph, I built one very similar to yours out of plywood and it served me well for a number of years. The only challenge was end grain routing in long pieces. Had to mount it vertical and hang on to my router!

9/9/19       #13: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Mark Hennebury  Member

Website: http://www.solidwoodmachinery.com

Maka Mortisers are fast, precise, clean and versatile. Cut up to 4" deep, cut a variety of size and shape mortises, single, double, haunched, complex combination. I don't think they can be beat for speed, accuracy, surface quality and variety.


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fast mortising.

9/13/19       #14: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
Steve Member

Any searches for "Delta 14-651 failures" return pics of the Delta hollow chisel (that resembles a drill press) rather than the box device shown at the top of this thread. The JDS Miultirouter linked might be of interest ($3,000) but it would seem the Domino's two models would be worth perusing, disposing of the frailties of hollow chisel.. Given the underwhelming comments by several here about the Delta, it explains why Delta has apparently assigned it to oblivion.

9/27/19       #15: Anyone use a Table Top Mortising Ma ...
David R Sochar Member

I'll repeat the two things I think important in this discussion:

The Maka mortisers are the best, fastest, and most accurate non-CNC machines for making mortises. Watching one make a mortise will make you head spin and your knees weak. They are that good.

Making mortises in a stile and then making them in the end grain of rails is more than twice the time and effort of making integral tenons on rails, with mortises only in the stile. And part counts go up 33% since you now have to make the loose tenons.

And, I'll add a third:
I do not feel that tenons need rounded edges to mate to routed mortises. Nor do square edged tenons need to fit closely in the length of the mortise. We intentionally build in a little slop here to insure we can hit all the points along a stile by scooting rails along a mortise a bit to get things in place. The tenon is held only at the faces of the tenon and the copes. We have never had a joint failure in 40 years.


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