Router bit in drill press question

[Dennis Aspö]

I know this is generally not a good thing and doesn't work for hogging away material. But I am wondering what if you make a mortise in the conventional way, drilling a bunch of holes with a brad point bit. What if instead of using a chisel to clean up the mortise you instead use a straight router bit in the drill press and just moved the workpiece back and forth against your drill press table fence (I assume you have one, I do).

That way you'd have a lot less material to remove, maybe it could work, maybe it won't? I have no router so I cannot test it unless I go and buy a bit, I'll be making some mortise and tenons soon though and I was consdering ways to speed it up.

[Brian Hale]

Don't do it

I can picture several things going wrong including...

A drill press is not designed for lateral pressure
It can loosen the drill chuck and cause it to run out
Odds are it will grab the workpiece and screw it up

Cleaning up with a chisel is the correct way to go

Brian :)

[Dave Richards]

My grandfather used to run router bits in his drill press with it set to the highest speed. He used it to round over edges on the toy trains and trucks he made. It didn't work real well but he didn't have a router table and he made do. It made a heck of a racket though.

As Brian said, it isn't a good idea because the drill press isn't designed for that (it isn't designed for drum sanding either but it doesn't stop some people from using it that way) and it could be dangerous.

If you want to clean out mortises with a router bit, why not just put the bit in a router? Besides, unless you plan to leave the ends round, you'll still have chisel work to clean the corners out.

[Dennis Aspö]

I don't own a router, if I did I'd probably make the whole mortise in that.

I was thinking of using round corners and round the tenon instead.

[Lee Schierer]

As Brian said, it isn't a good idea because the drill press isn't designed for that (it isn't designed for drum sanding either but it doesn't stop some people from using it that way) and it could be dangerous.

My drill press has oilite bushings which are commonly used in lateral load situations. If my spindle starts to display run out, It is a pretty easy and inexpensive task to change them. I regularly use my drill press with sanding drums and have no issues. It also has a Jacobs taper chuck which stays in place until I wedge it off on purpose.

The problem with using a router bit to clean up holes drilled for a mortice is one side of the bit will tend to self feed so it will tend to grab and damage the piece since the piece is free to move on the table. Trying to cut the cross grain between the holes will most like result in a grab which will tear up the piece you are working on. You can do mortices with a router and a guide template which helps constrain the bit and prevent the problems you will have trying to do the same thing on a drill press.

[Peter Quinn]

I have done it using an XYZ vice mounted to the drill press table with both a 1/8" spiral and 1/4" spiral bit, in both wood and aluminum, generally for small parts such as jigs or hardware modifications. I keep the passes real light to minimize lateral load, feed rate is slow due to decreased rpm's of Dp versus router. It does work but it's not appropriate for all situations, or most for that mAtter, and it's not my first method of work. Better to buy a small plunge router or DP mortising jig.

[John Coloccia]

I've done it with 1/8" and 1/16" spiral bits to make angled channels in small pieces of wood. Of course, that has to be done free hand with a fence. Even the 1/8" bit in a shallow groove can be a handful and required some care. Honestly, I'd be quite scared to do anything bigger or deeper. At least with a cross slide vice you can somewhat get out of the line of fire. Something like a mortise, free handed against a fence, has some potential to really hurt something.

[Bill George]

The problem with a milling bit in a drill press chuck is the newer ones tend to have a tapered shank. Any or a lot of side pressure can loosen the taper and bingo the chuck comes flying out at you with a still rotating very sharp bit. The older drill presses might have a screw in or some other mounting method for the chuck.

That's why I now own a "real" milling machine.

[Bruce Page]

I once tried milling a mortise using a drill press and a x-y vice. It went pretty well for awhile. It got real exciting when the drill chuck fell out of the quill at ~ 2000 rpm.
I ditched the DP and got a full size milling machine. The mill will cut beautiful mortise’s all day long.