Max Coller
08-26-2010, 10:45 AM
So I went to look at a Greenlee 226 mortiser found on CL last night, all fired up and with the asking price of $400 in crisp spending cabbage burning a hole in my pocket.
An hour and a half drive later, I see it's a good machine in decent shape, converted to 220 single-phase thanks to the belt-drive flexibility and a newish motor. No major rust, no play in the bearings, table depth adjustment doesn't have much backlash, foot pedal wasn't even worn. The seller's grandfather used this in his shop for making birdhouses on Saturday afternoons in winter, or something similar.
But. There isn't a table clamp, there isn't an x-y axis table adjustment, and there aren't any holddowns. No extra chisels. In fact, other than just being really, really cool, I didn't see too many advantages over my benchtop Delta other than increased chisel capacity and greater accuracy in the depth adjustment thanks to a handwheel. Another disadvantage is that it's a pig, and I'd need to move it twice in the next 12 months as we're in the process of getting ready to sell our house.
So I walked away.
And I'm kicking myself this morning.
Please feel free to affirm or kick as you see fit.
An hour and a half drive later, I see it's a good machine in decent shape, converted to 220 single-phase thanks to the belt-drive flexibility and a newish motor. No major rust, no play in the bearings, table depth adjustment doesn't have much backlash, foot pedal wasn't even worn. The seller's grandfather used this in his shop for making birdhouses on Saturday afternoons in winter, or something similar.
But. There isn't a table clamp, there isn't an x-y axis table adjustment, and there aren't any holddowns. No extra chisels. In fact, other than just being really, really cool, I didn't see too many advantages over my benchtop Delta other than increased chisel capacity and greater accuracy in the depth adjustment thanks to a handwheel. Another disadvantage is that it's a pig, and I'd need to move it twice in the next 12 months as we're in the process of getting ready to sell our house.
So I walked away.
And I'm kicking myself this morning.
Please feel free to affirm or kick as you see fit.