Minimax CU 300 Smart Morticing Unit

[Dave Novak]

Here's my situation: I'm a hobby woodworker working out of my garage. About a year ago I bought the subject combo machine from Minimax at a slight bargain because it was a demo unit. When it arrived the only difference I could tell between it and a new machine was the it was already dialed in perfectly. My dilemma is that I simply don't have room to use the morticing attachment. For example, if I need to put a mortice in the end of a 6' board, I need 6' right of the machine to do that. I just don't have the room. I'm thinking I need a Festool domino for my morticing needs. As far as I can tell the morticing attachment I have has either never been used or was used only by Minimax reps who used it gently. It appears to be brand new. How does one go about selling this? I don't know if there's much of a market, what to price it at, or even what it's really worth. I couldn't even find one on ebay, but I do know it's a pricey addition when buying new. I even have 3 knifes that still have the wax on them. If you had to sell this to justify buying a domino, what would you do? Thanks in advance for your advice.

[David Kumm]

Register on the Minimax Yahoo group and post it there as well as here. Dave

[Mike Heidrick]

Make an ad in the swap and sell and the yahoo groups and on other ww forums. Google mortiser instead of morticer and you will see a lot more info. I saw one old ad for the model for the 12"J/P for $1350. You might find if you use the DF500 a lot you could use this mm mortiser for where the DF700 would be needed. should easily be able to find bits to fit the larger dominos of the 700 (or just make them).

Personally I would keep it and just get a 500 domino used.

[Mike Ruggeri]

I find I don't use my mortising attachment very often - in fact I made a stand whereby it hangs off the wall most of the time so as not to be in the way. As noted above, the MM users group would be a good start but my guess is there isn't a big market for these. Is your machine mobile? I am also tight for space and I just move the machine when I need extra clearance one way or another (my machine is on Zambus casters and it makes it really easy to move around when needed). So far in my work (also a hobbyist) I haven't had used enough mortises to justify a Domino.

Mike

[Paul Murphy]

Think about your future projects before selling your mortiser, as you might just find you will have a use for it. My last 3 projects all used m&t or floating tenon joints. Web frames between drawers, doors for furniture cases, table aprons, frame & panel chests. Anyway, I'm a huge fan of the slot mortiser and cannot understand why they have not been more popular in America.

[Dave Novak]

Think about your future projects before selling your mortiser, as you might just find you will have a use for it. My last 3 projects all used m&t or floating tenon joints. Web frames between drawers, doors for furniture cases, table aprons, frame & panel chests. Anyway, I'm a huge fan of the slot mortiser and cannot understand why they have not been more popular in America.

It's unfair of me to judge a machine I've never used, but it just seems somewhat ill conceived to me. The table is pretty small, seems like it would be difficult to work with long/large pieces of stock. Maybe I should watch a few youtube videos of it in use, but it seems more manageable and possibly more accurate to bring the machine to the wood, i.e. - the Domino.