New Tool

[Leon]

No I did not buy this tool.

BUT if you want a tool that can cut mortises for floating tenons faster than a classic mortising machine, this might be it.

Further if you have ever considered getting a Domino for cutting mortises for floating tenons but were repulsed by the cost of the machine, this might be it.

HOWEVER if you intend to use this tool extensively you may still want to consider a Domino.

I have mentioned many times that I have cut in excess of 10,000 mortises with my Domino. I quit counting at that point.

The above video shows that 4 mortises can be cut in basically 2 minutes, or 2 mortises per minute.

For me, cutting 10,000 mortises with this tool would take 5,000 minutes or 83+ hours.

One last thing to consider for this tool. I cannot find any information regarding the ability to make the mortises wider from end to end. If that is the case you might as well be using a doweling jig.

Why? I always use exact fit mortises on one side of the 2 pieces to be joined. I always use the elongated mortise setting for the opposite mating piece. Exact fit is exact fit. If all mortises are cut to be exact fit and if one on the mating side is not precisely placed you will not be able to proper align the pieces. Elongated mortises on the opposite mating piece afford you some wiggle room during assembly.

This new tool from Jessem is approximately 1/3 the price as a Domino. Maybe worth it if it will make elongated mating mortises. Not worth it if it only makes 1 width, not thickness, mortise.

[DerbyDad03]

"The Pocket Mill Pro is capable of putting a mortise at the center of a

3.5” board or 1.75” off the edge of your work piece."

The board seen at the end of the video has mortises that appear to be way beyond 1.75" off the edge.

I'm assuming they weren't made with the PMP. I know that the Domino can put mortises anywhere in the face of any board, but can the PMP?

[John Grossbohlin]

I hadn't seen it. Might be useful for one off types of work but it looks tedious for 10K mortises (as would any tool unless it's spread out over years or decades!).

[Leon]

It is the kind of mortise maker that you may not realize is as useful as you think. Mortises are a PIA even with a traditional mortiser because of the multiple passes needed not to mention using it to cut a mortise in the middle od a panel.

While more expensive than my old bench top mortiser it does appear to make clean mortises.

I bought my Domino almost 16 years ago and hoped that I would get some use out of it. Wow, I did get some use out of it.

I would be fearful that if some one buys the Jessem tool for this purpose that they might find that this makes cutting mortises very easy and quick compared to a traditional mortiser. And I fear that they would grow tired quickly of the back and forth hand motion and then upgrade to the Domino. BUT maybe not if not building more than one or two pieces a year.

[Scott Lurndal]

I assume you are referring to the relatively inexpensive hollow chisel mortisers. A chain mortiser is much quicker, albeit considerably more expensive.

I have a Laguna horizontal mortiser, which generally works more quickly than either of the hollow chisel mortisers I used to use (both a drill-press attachment and a small standalone (General International) HC mortiser). With the Laguna, you either need to round the ends of of the tenon or hand-chisel it to square.

[russellseaton1]

I did a Google search for Laguna horizontal mortiser. But could not find any pictures. A am guessing it is similar to the European Felder model. It was a machine with a table and a couple levers. And a motor driven chuck that held a drill bit, cutter. Clamped your wood piece to the table and used the levers to move the wood side to side and in and out to cut a mortise. There are stops to set on the table to limit the size of the mortise. MiniMax has bolt on tables for its jointer/planer and presume jointer. Uses the cutter block to hold a bit in the end. Then put the table on the machine and rout, cut, the mortise.

These horizontal mortising machines seem ideal for making a few big mortises. Such as when building a door. Make the mortises any length and mill your slip tenon to whatever size you need. Different cutter bits determine the thickness of the mortise. Probably anything from 6mm up to 20mm.

Again, for a few mortises, slip tenons, these horizontal mortisers seem great. But for doing dozens and dozens of mortises on small pieces or big pieces too big to fit onto the machines, the Festool Domino seems the way to go. Not sure on the Jessem device Leon had in the video. It would seem to work in some situations but not all situations. Unlike the Domino. I would be worried with the Jessem mortiser that after buying it and using it, I would see all of its short comings and all the things it cannot do very well. And then wish I had just paid the 3-4 times more for the Domino up front. I would be worried it might be like drills. A 3/8 keyed chuck electric drill is good. You can do lots of work with it. Drilling and driving. But after you use a cordless drill, the old electric drill doesn't get much use anymore. And then add an impact driver, and it gets even less use. And add a Milwaukee Hole Hawg or a right angle drill, if you are an electrician, and the old 3/8 electric collects even more dust. The Jessem mortiser thing might make you sad at how much it can't do compared to the more expensive real tools.

[Leon]

Yes! The hollow chisel variety. The chain looks very interesting. It appears, from your link that small mortises might not be possible, those like the ones that the Domino, and or the hollow chisel variety can make. And the bottoms are probably round. That could be good for excess glue.

Yeah! When I was looking at jointer/planer combos from Hammer a couple of years back I saw that some offered the mortiser attachment. Those would be fast especially for larger mortises.

Is your Laguna a stand alone unit? Those look pretty stout. It's mortises are much like the Domino mortises. I suppose you use or could use a bull nose router bit to make your tenons.

On another note I saw a mortiser several years ago that had an isolating straight cutter. It sorta looked "t" shaped on the business end and the ends of the t's, the left and right side, cut into the wood as it plunged. Because of the "t" shape it did not take big bites of wood, so it was a blur when operating and plunging.

[Leon]

Ah, Found that oscillating chisel mortiser. Although the bits seem to be a different design than described in my previous reply, it works on the same principal.

And one with a similar cutter that I saw way back when.

[Scott Lurndal]

I have an older one, it is stand-alone. The bits need to be fairly long (3-4"), I don't think a bullnose router bit would be workable.

I had to build some sway braces[*] for it bolted to the floor to get the highest quality mortices with it. They no longer sell this model, but rather more expensive (and better quality) models.

[*] 1/2" EMT, flattened drilled ends to bolt to the back of the head unit and the floor.

[krw]

I found (I think) a picture.

._AC_.jpg>

[Scott Lurndal]

That is it.

The column isn't really very sturdy, so it helps to both bolt the base to the floor and brace the head unit (there are two mounting points for this purpose in the back of the motor enclosure).

[russellseaton1]

Yes. Identical, sort of, to the Felder FD 250. Except 100% opposite. It looks like the motor and bit move with the Felder model. Whereas the Laguna has the motor and bit fixed in place and you move the wood on a moving table.

Laguna

._AC_.jpg Felder I could be misinterpreting the Felder picture. Maybe its lever moves the wood too, instead of the motor. Not sure.

With the MiniMax jointer, and combination jointer/planer, it does have a chuck you can mount on the end of the jointer cutter head. And a separate bolt on mortising table. You clamp the wood onto the separate bolt on table. Then use a couple levers to move the wood and table. Motor and bit are fixed in place.

Here is a video of the mortiser attached to a MiniMax full combination machine. Same table attaches to the combo jointer/planer.

Here is the SCM horizontal mortiser. Here is a discussion about the bolt on horizontal mortiser for the MiniMax machine. Kind of gives some real world examples of when or if you want it. I know it is completely unrelated to the original point of this thread. But this is the internet!!!!!!

[Leon]

If the mortise is only as wide as the bit making the mortise the bull nose bit of the same diameter should work. If your mortises are wider than the bit doing the cutting, that would require 4 passes on a round over bit of the same radius as the cutter on all 4 corners.

[DerbyDad03]

I’m not sure if you saw my earlier post. Can the tool make the mortises that are shown in the middle of the wide board at the end of the video? Based on the description, it doesn’t seem like it could.

My previous post…

"The Pocket Mill Pro is capable of putting a mortise at the center of a

3.5” board or 1.75” off the edge of your work piece."

The board seen at the end of the video has mortises that appear to be way beyond 1.75" off the edge.

I'm assuming they weren't made with the PMP. I know that the Domino can put mortises anywhere in the face of any board, but can the PMP?”

[Leon]

I would assume so, how else would the mortises have been placed?

FWIW this PMP cannot make wider mortises, like the Domino, unless you move the tool over. It cuts a fixed width. That wold be a hard no for me.

[russellseaton1]

is a video from the Jessem website on this tool. It looks like you can undo the right angle support and lay the tool flat onto a piece of wood. And drill the mortises in the middle of the board. You would likely need to use some long boards/battens and clamps to hold the jig in place in the middle of the board. At 0:35 in the video you can see the right angle attachment separated from the working part of the jig. So then the drill guide and back and forth part of the jog could be clamped flat in the middle of a board. Maybe?

[DerbyDad03]

I’ll have to go with your “maybe”. They never show the tool being used in that manner or even mentioning it. On the page that you linked to there’s a section entitled “Referencing Your Cut”. Click the plus sign and the following text appears:

“The Pocket Mill Pro comes with a laser engraved referencing window. Simply loosen the large knob and slide the upper unit back. Line up your material to where you want the mortise and slide and lock the upper unit back in position and you’re ready to cut. The Pocket Mill Pro is capable of putting a mortise at the center of a 3.5” board or 1.75” off the edge of your work piece.”

There’s no mention of removing the fence and using the tool in the middle of a wide board. In fact, they specifically mention what the tool is “capable” of doing. 1.75” off the edge.

I might just give them a call and get a direct answer. Might. ;-)

[John Grossbohlin]

Seems like removing the fence and indexing off a board or straight edge clamp would be a "normal" application of such a tool... No?

[Leon]

Or leave a comment on the video. I did that and learned to make an elongated mortise that you need to move the tool or the work over a bit.

This thing is half baked and there are a lot of, IMHO, necessary features it would need to have before I would consider one. Unfortunately some of these tool companies, and Woodpeckers, dream up tools and there seems to be no woodworker feed back to help with the design.

I will say that some of these tools are great, some rushed to market.

Unfortunately for novice woodworkers they don't know how much they don't know and jump on something like this.

I'll look into making another comment on the video concerning the mortises on the side of a panel.

[DerbyDad03]

I tend to agree, but they don't mention it or show it, yet they specifically mention the 'capability' being "putting a mortise at the center of a 3.5” board or 1.75” off the edge of your work piece." One could easily read that as the *limit* of the tool's capability.

Maybe their ad writers either don't know or didn't think ahead far enough to word it differently. Something like this makes it much clearer and makes the tool sound more versatile. Assuming it's true. ;-)

"With the included fence, the Pocket Mill Pro is capable of putting a mortise at the center of a 3.5” board or 1.75” off the edge of your work piece. Removing the fence allows the user to put a mortise at any location they choose."