Mortising machine help.

[headhunter636]

I have a little problem with my Delta mortising (http://www.deltaportercable.com/Prod...952)attachment that I bought a while ago for an older drill press. I have since bought a Central Machinery (like this one only older http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=43378) and all the spacers that came with the mortise attachment do not fit. Does anyone know if I can get other spacers to mount the mortising machine to this drill press? I have thought about grinding down the current spacer to fit but I do not know if that will work in the long run.

I know there are as many wasys to make a mortise as there are to use a mortise. Should I try to get this up and running or maybe just make a different setup all together with a router or maybe buy a dedicated mortise machine?

Thanks.

[LCHIEN]

i recall i made a spacer from wood - cut a it hole in a big disk - the resulting ring was only a few mm thick. You split ihe ring into two pieces so the diameters don't need to be exact, just close enough and the wood will give to fit, just the differences (= thickness of the ring) are important. If the diameter is a little big you can cut a small piece out of the ring where its split.

That said, the adapter worked perfectly but i always found the mortising adapter to be wanting and eventualy got a dedicated mortiser.

[headhunter636]

Thanks for the information LCHIEN. What mortiser did you end up going with? I see HF has one for under $200 but you get what you pay for. I've heard that the HF model just isn't powerful enough, but I don't have any large projects planned.

I will be trying to make my own spacer, I actually thought about that but wasn't sure if it would be strong enough.

Thanks again.

[jonmulzer]

Keep an eye on craigslist. I picked my Delta mortising machine up for $50. The deals are out there, you just have to be vigilant. You can find them for cheap if you just keep looking and look often. As for the drill press mortising attachments, my biggest seller was when Tom Hintz from www.newwoodworker.com reviewed one and basically called it a POS. Very rarely does he have ONLY bad things to say about an item, so it carries weight with me.

[LCHIEN]

I have a Jet JBM-5.
Others are nice, the new Delta and the Steel City benchtops.
I built a table from a X-Y machining table, its almost complete.

Since in all these Mortisers you supply the Cutting force for the square hole (the auger and motor remove the bulk of the hole except for the corners), the force supplied by the quill handle does this work. On my drill press, I always felt the arm flexing and though the force was not too far from the yield point where the arm would give and bend if I really bore down. Mortisers have beefier components and a longer stroke than many DPs.