Have any of you had experience with the Delta hollow chisel mortising machine? Our Lowes is having a sale right now and was wondering if it is worth the investment. Thanks in advance.
Chuck Callaghan snipped-for-privacy@virginia.edu
I own one and it is probably worth it if you do a fair amount of m&t joinery. Get good chisels and the sharpening gizmo.
It is > Have any of you had experience with the Delta hollow chisel mortising
Like my things in life the answer depends on your expected use and your expectations on speed & precision. I purchased the Delta model about 10 years ago and was not happy with the results I was getting in maple and cherry. I found that it took a lot of pressure to make the mortise and there was noticeable deflection at the mortise ends.
I read articles about tune-ups and positioning of the drill/chisel but was still not happy. Next step was to purchase the better chisels and sharpening system. I had a little better performance but still not great in hard woods so I called Delta to see if it was a problem with my unit. They told me to bring it to their service center.
When I went to pickup the unit I was told that they could not find anything wrong. They even did a few test cuts for me in some fir and showed me the correct technique. I had some maple in the car so I asked to test on maple. The results were horrible on the maple...even with the "correct technique." The technicians told me that my expectations were too high and not to expect a precision machine for the price.
I do a lot of mortises, and wanted precision, so I upgraded to a slot mortise. It is much more expensive but the results are great.
Bob McBreen
I own one and use it a lot. It isn't perfect (how many $250 tools are) but it does a satisfactory job and isn't so bad that the tenon's cheek and shoulder cuts don't cover the evidence. In harder woods you can do the bulk of the work at the drill press and use the mortiser to clean up. I prefer it to the drill press attachment which I found to be a total POS in accuracy and set-up time.
Check it against Jet which seems to be identical. Don't forget to see what is thrown in with the machine (mine came with 4 chisel/bit sets which aren't cheap).
technique."
Thought I'd mention that Delta redesigned their mortiser, oh, 6 months or a year ago. General impression is that they improved it enough that you don't want the old model, so it's worth checking to see which one lowes is peddling. Sorry I don't have the model numbers handy, but last time I looked, tool crib still had both models in their catalog.
Paul Franklin
Tom Kohlman asks:
Dunno. I got at least a couple, including an E.C.E. compass plane and one of the Veritas scraper planes--whoops, that doesn't cost $250!
Charlie Self
"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself. " Ronald Reagan
I got the new model about a week ago and I'm satisfied. I had the drill press attachment and its just a pain in the butt when you want to use your press for any other work.
Daniel
Workbench magazine did a review of machines a couple of months back. The $250 Delta was rated the best in class, the $199 Delta was fair at best, not a good value. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
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