New Horizontal Router Mortiser

[Dave Diaman]

I have been using one of Johns mortisers for a few weeks now. The machine is fantastic. I have been finding new uses for it every day. I have also found it to be a lot faster than my hollow chisel mortiser. I made a production run of the small tables I make for trade shows. I made a total of 6 tables and I would say cutting the mortises in the legs probably took me half the time. The machine does cut the joints faster but the big difference is that there is no clean up. No mater how hard I try I always need to do some amount of chisel clean up. I'm working on a few different attachments for John's machine that I think will add even more versatility to the machine

Rick, that mortiser is interesting but it also looks very limited in its uses. With Johns machine you can cut long mortises, sliding dovetails, raised panels, tenons and so on. That machine appears to have a limit of about 1 1/2" in length. For most of what I do that machine would not be that useful. About the only thing I can think of that it would do for me is loose tenons in face frames and possibly cutting the mortises in doors but that would be about it.

[jteneyck]

I see I forgot to include a picture of the mortiser after I added a Rockler On/Off switch, which is included with the mortiser. Here's what it looks like on my original machine.



The switch allows you to turn the router on/off from the front of the machine, much safer than having to reach around the back or over the top.

Ok, routers. You can use most any fixed base compact or mid-sized router. If you have one with built in dust collection that may be a good choice. I use that blue silicone boot you see on the back of my mortiser and it gets 80%+ of the dust. It costs about $35 which seems outrageous to me, but it works with any router and is the best I've found since Rockler stopped making the Down Under attachment on my original mortiser. Dave has been using a Sears router with built in dust collection and says it works very well if you have a powerful vacuum cleaner like he does. They sell a 1/4" collet model for $57, an amazing bargain. I tried one on mine and found it to not be nearly as effective as the blue silicone boot. Of course, you could always use the Sears router with the blue silicone boot and still not spend much money. I use my PC-690 router because I had it when I built the first mortiser. I bought an extra base for it and mounted that in the mortiser and just switch the motor into and out of it, as needed. With the blue silicone boot it's everything I need on the mortiser.

John

[Howard Pollack]

Thanks John. That looks like a very nice machine.
-Howard

[jteneyck]

Some things you can do with the mortiser:

Large mortises in large workpieces. This is 1/2" wide by maybe 4 or 5 inch long mortise in a stile for a man door.





The dado in between the mortises was cut by just sliding the work piece past the bit.

A stopped dovetail on the end of a cabinet stretcher.



and a full length dovetail:



Long parts are no problem. When they get too heavy, just add an outrigger support.



Lots of sliding dovetails. Probably took less than 30 minutes to cut them all on both ends:



Integral tenon:



Dual integral tenons on the end of a stretcher. Counting turns of the vertical adjust screw allows very accurate height adjustment.



Mortise on end of angled part:



and more that I haven't thought of - but you might.

John

[Dave Diaman]

Like John said I have been using a craftsman router. My dust collector for all my small tools is a crazy powerful central vac unit. If the hose sucks onto your arm it is so powerful it hurts and will leave a mark. A friend who works as assistant and a student has one of Johns mortisers too. I have been meaning to ask him about the dust collection because he is using the same router. He hasn't complained and raves about the mortiser so I guess if the dust collection isn't great everything else works so well he doesn't really care.

[bennybmn]

jteneyck said:

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and a full length dovetail:



L

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Any issues with the piece grabbing being that it's between the bit and the table? Or is it so stable that it slides thru ok?

[jteneyck]

I was worried about that, too, particularly when I cut that stopped dovetail where you are making a climb cut on one side. To my relief it has never created a scary moment. There is a fair amount of mass in the X-table and work rest, and the work piece is very securely held down on the end, the side against the work rest, and the X-table.

My plan B was to add a sacrificial board on top of the X-table and bury the bit in it so it would make the cut on the bottom of the work piece. There may come a time when that is the better approach but, so far, I have not found a need to do so. One application where that might be the smart thing to do would be when making raised panels with a vertical panel raising bit. I've just never done that with it yet.

John

[doobes]

Very cool. I'm having dinner with my daughter, but I'm study this later.

[bennybmn]

jteneyck said:

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I was worried about that, too, particularly when I cut that stopped dovetail where you are making a climb cut on one side. To my relief it has never created a scary moment. There is a fair amount of mass in the X-table and work rest, and the work piece is very securely held down on the end, the side against the work rest, and the X-table.

My plan B was to add a sacrificial board on top of the X-table and bury the bit in it so it would make the cut on the bottom of the work piece. There may come a time when that is the better approach but, so far, I have not found a need to do so. One application where that might be the smart thing to do would be when making raised panels with a vertical panel raising bit. I've just never done that with it yet.

John

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I like the sacrificial board idea. You could even just lower the spinning bit into your existing table, the runners are well outboard of that area anyway, right? Almost like a zero clearance fence on a "normal" router table.

[jteneyck]

Yes, exactly. You could either lower the bit into the sacrificial table or plunge the sacrificial table into the bit, like cutting a mortise. The runners wouldn't be of concern if you are using a sacrificial table of sufficient thickness.

John