Planer and Mortiser advice

[headhunter636]

First the planer. I have an old Ryobi AP-12 planer that is need of a new set of knives. I see them on Amazon for about $50 (haven't looked anywhere else yet). The machine works well aside from the knives, is there anything I am missing in a newer planer that I do not have on this? It does the basic planning thing, makes wood skinnier but I didn't know if the newer ones had any other options.

Not the mortiser. I am getting ready to build my daughter a set of doll furniture for her 18" doll and I am going to be making a lot of mortise and tenon joinery. I plan on making the tenon jig I have seen here but I decided to go with a dedicated mortise machine instead of trying to rig up my drill press attachment. I have seen mortiser from several companies and was wanting to see if I could get some opinions on them. Here are what I am looking at: Craftsman, Grizzly, Delta, Steel City and Jet. If there are any I am missing, I would love to hear about those as well.

Thanks,

[jussi]

Check your local Home Depot if they have any of the Dewalt DW735 planers. In my area they're clearing them out and priced at $137 (if you can find them).

[billwmeyer]

I have the Harbor Freight mortiser. I have not used it a lot, but it works well except that the fence is rather hard to work with. I understand that fence problems plague a lot of mortisers.

Bill

[headhunter636]

I have the Harbor Freight mortiser. I have not used it a lot, but it works well except that the fence is rather hard to work with. I understand that fence problems plague a lot of mortisers.

Bill

Thanks Bill. I thought about the HF model but haven't read too many good things about it. Some of the problems I've seen are that they use a non-standard size chisel so they are hard to find. I have been checking craigslist and found a Delta 14-651 for $145. I may have to go and take a look. I don't know if it includes chisels, but the ones from my Delta drill press attachment should fit, I hope.

[twistsol]

Leigh makes one that I can't afford. If you have a pile of cash laying around, check out this.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...23&cat=1,43000

I built a copy out of MDF and used it with a 3/8, 1/4 or 1/8 spiral bit for just the mortises. It was basically a flat surface with a rectangular hole in it for hardboard templates and a vertical piece beneath it. It wasn't adjustable so I had to shim the workpiece to center it under the hole. It worked pretty well but got wet in the garage and I couldn't salvage it.

I have a domino mortiser and it works quite well but it may make too large a hole for doll furniture.

[LarryG]

Dave, I have the Delta 14-651. I paid only $175 for it brand new but those days are unfortunately long gone. If the one on CL is in good order and includes the chisels (which would have come with it when it was new), $145 would be a good buy in today's market. There should also be a riser block kit that raises the head up about 2-1/2" so you can mortise thicker material.

[Eric]

I have the HF mortiser and took off the stock fence and built my own out of some oak and put a groove on the top so I could use stops.

I was making a lot of arts & craft nesting tables and it was a life saver.

[Norm in Fujino]

I have a Jet mortiser (I believe Hank Lee sold it to me 9 years ago), and it works well, but mostly for furniture legs. Unless you have a solid setup where you can rotate the head 180 deg and mount some kind of vise under it, it doesn't have enough clearance for cutting mortises in wide stretchers. On the other hand, I found plans for a great router mortising jig that is both simple and effective for the stretchers.
I found the free plans online at Shopnotes.

Here's mine, made from a remainder of 8mm acrylic I had lying around:




I was really amazed at how well it works, given its simplicity. Just remember to use a spiral upcut bit for best results.

[headhunter636]

I like the idea of using a router jig for this, since my shop isn't getting any bigger and I am having a hard time finding a place to put what I already have. I may try a shot at the jig and see what happens. I also like the clear acrylic, it lets you see what's coming unlike the hardboard.

Thanks for all the help.

[pelligrini]

You might take a look at the self centering jigs for mortising. They employ two pins for alignment instead of two fences. I haven't used one so I don't know if it would be more or less stable than the one Norm showed. I've just read a bunch about them.

[headhunter636]

You might take a look at the self centering jigs for mortising. They employ two pins for alignment instead of two fences. I haven't used one so I don't know if it would be more or less stable than the one Norm showed. I've just read a bunch about them.

I did a quick search and came up with a simple plan from this site: http://woodworkingtips.com/etips/

I don't know if this site has been mentioned here before (didn't see it in a search), but it has quite a bit of information on it.

[twistsol]

I like the idea of using a router jig for this, since my shop isn't getting any bigger and I am having a hard time finding a place to put what I already have. I may try a shot at the jig and see what happens. I also like the clear acrylic, it lets you see what's coming unlike the hardboard.

Thanks for all the help.

True, the clear acrylic would be a vast improvement over mine. I might just try for version 2