I want to purchase a decent tenoning jig. I have an older Craftsman but the miter slot is standard. I’m wondering if anyone out there has any recommendations.
also, i have a drill press and was planning on creating mortises simply by repetitively drilling into the mortise with drill bits. I understand that a dedicated mortiser is the best way to go but I do not want to spend the money at this time. This is also a Craftsman drill press and the question is, is there a huge advantage to purchasing a mortising attachment. I have heard that they can be a pain to put on and take off.
Regards,
Buzzsaw
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Gil Bailie
Replies
I've tried a Delta mortising attachment and found it to be not worth the hassle- My friend's Delta mortising machine ditto- (I know a lot of guys have had better luck) Drilling mortises with a drill press is my choice as of now- I've used a corded hand drill for larger mortises-
Save your money,forstner bits and some chisels,and a router with a guide is the way to go,besides once the joint is glued into place permanantly who will see how it was done.Too much crap is pushed in our face with all these dream machines, I live on a beer budget too
I live on a beer budget too Geeee. Mines Jack and gets expensive..I just have a have JET mortise and a old Craftsman drill press mortise... I use router these days.. As I recall that old drill press one works... OK... IF I hogged out most of the wood with a drill bit first...
Hi Buzzsaw, yup i'm been thinking about the same things and have about the same equipment as you.I would like to get into doing mortises and tenons but have been putting it off.I weighed the pricing options and then looked into the preperation of setting up my equipment for the task.After reviewing my own shop set up i find that all my machinery are set up mostly for their own purpose and do not want to be constantly installing and removing attachments from my drill press or table saw. I use them to often. what i have finally come to is that i will be purching a seperate mortrise machine .there are only a few i have my eye on which seem time tested and resonable in price. I know that once i have the tooling to do mortise and tenions i will be doing much more than i anticipate now.{seems to be the way it goes}. Hope i have been of some help. good luck. Isawu
Thank you all for your posts. I was pretty much against getting a mortising attachment, now I am positive. I was more interested in the tenoning jig though and I bit the bullet last night and bought the heavy duty tenoning jig from Rockler. It was $99 minus a $15 gift card that they sent out to me. I will be setting it up tonight and it should do the trick. I read a few decent reviews about that one. The Delta was $50 more and I had heard "not-too-great" things about that one.Regards,
Buzzsaw
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Gil Bailie
hey, glad to hear about your decission and i will be interested in the preformance and how well you like it.
Isawu
I'll be sure to post my "Knots review" of the Rockler tenoning jig. I've always cut tenons in the past by using my crosscut sled and nibbling off a bit at a time. It worked fine but it is really messy so this should cut down on a whole lot of time and dust. Please let us know what mortiser you buy and what you think of it. That may be my next purchase but I really need both a planer and a jointer although I do have access to a shop with these machines...Regards,
Buzzsaw
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Gil Bailie
Ditto on the mortising attachment being useless. For specifics, set up time is long, about 15-30 minutes. I got a dedicated mortiser. If I couldn't afford a dedicated mortiser, I'd probably make a jig for my router(s).
Regards,
Scooter
"I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow." WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
I have a Jet drill press and tried the mortising attachment once, with poor results. I got much better results mortising with a router and squaring the holes with a chisel.
-robert
IMHO, the set-up for a tenoning jig is a PITA. I make all the shoulder cuts with a CC blade, and take out the rest with a dado blade.
I do mortises with a Forstner bit in the DP that is 1/16" smaller than the finished mortise, then finish on the router table with a high fence to stabilize. One pass per side. Centers the mortise perfectly. Goes fast for FF's.
Well I'll be the sole voice in the wilderness.
I bought a Jet DP that came with a free morticing attachment. I set it up and it worked awfully, so in a box it went...
Recently my wife decided I should make cabinets for the living room and after those, more for the kitchen. The idea of chopping by hand a hundred or so mortices did not thrill me, still I couldn't justify some hundreds of dollars for a dedicated morticer. So I had another look at the Jet attachment.
The quill clamp was alright, the hollow chisel was okay but not nearly sharp enough. A few minutes with a diamond hone and some 2000 grit Silicon Carbide paper took care of that.
The biggest problem was that the stock clamp wouldn't accomodate a stile or rail wider than 2-inches, the hold down was awful and the U-shaped bars that hold the piece against the fence were cumbersome. So I engineered a better fence and hold-down and I use a quick clamp to secure the workpiece.
Now it works fine! It is a PITA to set-up, but if I have less than 4 mortices or so, it is faster to do them by hand but for more I set up the attachment. It is much faster than overlap drilling with a Forstner and then squaring up. I could use a router, but I HATE routers and avoid using them at all costs.
I don't think I'd rush out and buy a morticing attachment if I didn't have this one, but they're really not as bad as everybody says, they just need some tuning, like a new plane or a chisel, so for a hobbiest (like me) it makes sense.
Oh, when I use it I unscrew the lever arm and replace it with a longer one for more leverage and in the spirit of full disclosure I have only used it on pine and poplar, but it works remarkably well.
To make set up and break down easier I keep it in a box with all of the tools that I need so it's all handy. I can set up in 15 minutes or so, same for breakdown.
Best Regards,
David C
Yes on the tenoning jig. If it's big run, I'll use the 2 outside blades from my dado set with spacers and shims to cut both cheeks in one pass. This radically improves consistency as it eliminates the thickness induced variance caused by flipping centered tennons. I've used my Jet DP HCM attachment for small jobs with relatively soft hardwoods and once on a set of 8 mahogany dining chairs. It did OK but was fussy. For big jobs and hard hardwood I've borrowed Delta and Multico bench top HCM's. Both were way better than the DP, but still had holdown issues when doing 100's of mortices in QSWO. I put a cheater on the Delta and broke the rack gear! If I ever do another run of 10 or 14 Stickley arm chairs in QSWO I'll pre-spend some of the profit on the Powermatic floor model HCM.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
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Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
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