Mortise by machine question.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

will perform as well, but for appearance, square is best. Nice work. Ed

[David Binkowski]

If you marked your mortises you could just go to the drill press first for some preliminary material removal. Set depth stop (or not) and just drill out quick holes inside the marked area. Then go to the mortiser and do your mortising just to square it up and remove what material is left. It will mean less hard work on the mortiser. I can't imagine it taking alot longer either, since you'll be spending less time hanging from the lever arm on the mortiser. Perhaps I am overstating it.

I've just got my mortiser so I don't claim to be an expert yet, but I've thought of this scenario, i.e. what to do on really tough woods when I have alot of stuff to remove. I remember the drill press was very fast doing preliminary cuts before chiseling or routing. Its a similar concept to using the DP to remove material before routing after all. Noone wants to stand there with a plunge router and turn 50 cubic inches of hardwood into powder to make mortises, the majority is removed on the drill press. So why not apply the preliminary DP work to mortising as well. At least when it comes to deep ones, or on woods that are annoying (like your beloved pine).

[Andy Dingley]

Good pine doesn't splotch (IMHE)

It's the fast grown stuff, fresh off the tree and still full of unstable resin, that's the worst for splotching and bleeding.

(OK, all pine splotches - but slow-grown, or especially old recycled stuff, is nothing like so bad)

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Probably what I'll do. I still have to prep the stock.

What surpised me was the fact that he hard wood was easy and the soft wood was hard. I've not tried jatoba or anything like that yet. Ed