Replies

1. 
   rslatm | Jun 20, 2002 12:19am | #1

   I remember the article because I knew someone who built one 15 years ago that was even more basic and it was pretty impressive to say the least. Most of the slots we do on our commercial one are under 6". Check out the specs on the Rojek and Felders etc for their travel to get a feel for the standard travel. I would think even the shortest slides would suffice. Bigger ones will just give you more table support.  You wouldn't need the full travel.  Can't you kind of scale it off a picture in the article.  I think the slot mortiser is one of the best secret tools of woodworking.   If Delta made one  for that plaid TV woodguy they would sell a millon.

1. 
   TomMGTC | Jun 20, 2002 01:48am | #2

   Here are some pics of my own version. I must say that this one peice of equipment is the best thing I own. It has 11 1/2" side to side travel, 4" depth travel and about 7" vertical. The table can be tilted to a full 90. The speed and accuracy that you can cut mortises is incredible.

   I have affectionately called it the Frankenrouter since it was built from mostly salvaged parts.

   Edited 6/19/2002 6:51:01 PM ET by Tom

   
1. 
   KeninLeslieville | Jun 21, 2002 06:55pm | #4

   thanks for the reply.

   Fascinating pics. would you change any dimension? I noticed you had 7" of vertical adjustment. Why that much?

   best regards

   Ken Wulff

1. 
   TomMGTC | Jun 21, 2002 08:27pm | #5

   The only reason I have that much vertical travel is because that is how much linear bearing I had. You never know when it might come in handy.  The 11 inches of lateral movement is very nice to have and I wouldn't mind having a little more. Iam currently building an arts and crafts style entertainment center amd used 7 1/2" mortises on the bottom rail so the side travel is nice.

   Just to give an example of how eficient this machine is, last saturday I started on the entertainment center. It is hard maple and joined with loose tennons. I started with rough lumber saturday morning at nine and by saturday evening I had all the lumber cut and dimensioned, all the joinery cut, and the loose tenons made. I used five different widths of tenons all 3/8 fitting in 3/8 X 1" deep slots. Using a hollow chisel mortiser to do the same would have taken all day just to cut the mortises alone.

1. 
   John_Casteen | Jun 21, 2002 09:59pm | #6

   I agree that the slot mortiser is phenomenally underrated.  I own the Laguna router-powered model, which I bought secondhand, but one company I worked for had a much simpler rig that produced a much greater volume of work.  The table was melamine, and the X/Y mechanism was 6/4 cherry that had been oiled and waxed.  It was set up mostly for tenoning (dovetailed cross-rails in case goods) with two routers, but could just as easily have handled mortising with one.  This would be cheaper and, I would guess, potentially more solid than a table mounted on ball-bearing slides.  And it works.

   John Casteen

   Fern Hill Furniture Works

   Earlysville VA

2. 
   KeninLeslieville | Jun 22, 2002 11:56pm | #7

   The sliding table mortiser in FWW did'nt seem to have anything more than 3" of vertical lift -basically a pivot point . Think I should factor more height in as part of the design?

   I'm faced with your same interest - Arts and Crafts style- tables and chairs(Morris) It seemed a natural way to do the incredible number of M&T joints involved. Certainly glad to hear of other uses: it seems ,sometimes, I spend half my time making tools to make "sawdust"

   One of the other respondents in this msg chain. said he had seen and used "store-bought" versions. I've never seen a commercial sliding XY table mortiser in the wild.  

   I'd still love to hear from anyone using this type of machine for raised panel production -sideways mounted vertical panel bit

   Best regards

   Ken Wulff

3. 
   RickL | Jun 23, 2002 01:14am | #8

   I see no reason to use the slot mortiser for raised panels. The travel is too restricted. Far simpler to use a tall fence in a regular router table or a horizontal mounted router minus the x/y table. Been using a commercial slot mortiser for years and done other applications with them but raised panels was never considered worthwhile.

4. 
   KeninLeslieville | Jun 24, 2002 03:27pm | #11

   Good point - why make the project it any more complicated.

   regards

   Ken Wulff

5. 
   TomMGTC | Jun 23, 2002 01:17am | #9

   Highland hardware sells a three axis router machine called the JDS multi-router. It is pretty pricey and doesn't have quite the travel that mine does but it is a well built machine. JDS also sells templates for their router that enable you to do angled tenons easily and also dovetails and box joints. I set up my machine to accept the JDS templates and they work well.

   Three inches of vertical travel would probably be sufficient but having a little extra couldn't hurt. A tilting table is also nice because it makes compound angles easy.

6. 
   KeninLeslieville | Jun 24, 2002 03:23pm | #10

   Hm, interesting- I hadn't considered "tilt" I'll check out the JDS templates. Sounds like a useful addition to the design/plan consideration.

   Best regards

   Ken Wulff

2. 
   KeninLeslieville | Jun 20, 2002 06:58am | #3

   Thanks for the reply. I agree, I could guess on the slide length for the slot mortising portion - chances are you're right I wouldn't need more than 4" for the slots. I just thought that if I could do the raised panels on the same machine I would need more than 12" of sideways travel.  The trouble is there is no picture of the jig working as a side mount raised panel system.  I think I'll go for the largest slide; there's not that much difference in price and I get the added support. If it works out I'll post some pics.

   thanks again

   Ken Wulff