Horizontal Boring Machine

[John Pendery]

Interested in a group consensus; are horizontal boring machines irrelevant nowadays with the advent of the domino regarding door making? Specific machine is a Ritter boring machine. My gut tells me they can’t be worth the floor space, but curious if anyone here is still using these for cabinet and or passage door construction?

[Warren Lake]

have a Newton. Very good quality US made. Doesnt take up much room. Dont use it for doors at least so far, mortise and tennon as first taught.

[Richard Coers]

Certainly not irrelevant to everyone. A domino machine is not for production, so quantity makes a difference.

[John Pendery]

Thanks guys. I do mortise and tenons for full size doors as well, but seems like a lot of folks I talk to are doing stub tenons with dominos or dowels. I’m more of a one off custom shop and don’t do production work, but was curious to hear others thoughts and how/if they used them. I’m buying a couple machines from a guy downsizing and I think he would like me to take his boring machine, but I think I’ll pass.

[Joe Calhoon]

John, I’ve had a few horizontal drills. Started out in the 70s with a Newton. Only doing cabinets at the time. It wasn’t too bad and later went to a Ritter. I made both of those work but marginal machines in my opinion. From there I went to a Kolle slot Mortiser drill. It was a great machine, was on wheels and took up very little space. I have always regretted selling this one. Panhans, Grigio, Hofmann Machine and a few others make this type machine and Felder a light weight version of these. They are pretty versatile. Dowel drilling is done with variable spacing for the dowel holes, slot mortising can also be done. With various stops and fence arrangements. The Kolle even had a table that swiveled for angle drilling. Also a mechanical digital readout for height.
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When we started making German and Italian style windows and doors I bought a Hofmann Frame drill. He was a cousin of Dovetail Hofmann. This company is now owned by Gotzinger. It’s a very accurate manual machine for any kind of frame. Also can do slot mortising. I do a lot of exterior doors mortise and tenon especially for historical work. Mostly dowels for interior doors, Euro doors and cabinet doors. This is a manual machine but the stops and fences are very accurate to where a tape measure is not needed to set up. It’s a little slow for production work compared to a CNC drill but really great for one off and small batches. I use it a lot for some hardware machining also. Stegherr and Gannomat make similar machines.
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[John Pendery]

Joe, thanks for the detailed response. I really like that little Kolle machine. Something of that size with the added versatility that maybe even sacrifices a bit of speed for production work would make more sense in my shop than the Ritter. I always prefer to bring the work to an accurate machine with repeatable stops and fence when I’m in the shop, unless the material is just too large or heavy. I believe I’m going to pass on the Ritter, but I’ll look more into these other machines. I’m very interested in their use in door and window work.

[Bill Dufour]

Seems like a dowel machine has to be set up for each cut as accurate as a mortice. A biscuit or domino just has to be pretty close on one axis. A chalk mark is plenty good enough. The setback is set by the machine and never adjusted until material thickness is changed a good bit.
Bill D

[Warren Lake]

the dowel has to be more accurate there is no side to side like in a mortise and tennon if machined that way.

[John Pendery]

All I meant by saying I preferred taking the workpiece to a machine with an accurate fence and stops (for repeated work especially) as opposed to bringing a handheld tool to the work is that I like to remove as much potential and cumulative error as I can when I’m working. I know I can cut to a line accurately, but I also know that if I need 20 parts cut to the exact same length I’m much better off using a stop than marking and cutting to a line 20 times.

I’m keep going back and forth on this machine. He’s not wanting too much and I’m halfway tempted to throw it in with the delivery and try it out on an upcoming job with a bunch of cabinets.

[Joe Calhoon]

Bill, doweling has to be accurate. The euro machines have spacing stops for the drilling head of 15mm, 20mm 32mm etc. so you butt the stile to the stop and drill a sequence of holes. Then the mating rail is butted and the same sequence drilled. Machines like the Newton and Ritter usually have 2 to 4 drills. The Newton has adjustable spacing for the drill centers. That makes these 2 machines useful for cabinet work. I came up with my own system of stops when I had these machines.

John, the Ritter would probably work well for cabinet work. With these type machines I took time to center the dowel holes in the workpiece. That way you can flip and work off one fixed stop. The Hofmann I use now has accurate fences left to right so all material can be drilled face up. The Hofmann is also accurate on inner rails and mullions. Very little setup to get accuracy. When doweling is dialed in frames, doors and windows can be built right to size without needing to trim to size after assembly.
picture of a 68mm thick Euro door with 16mm X160mm Locust dowels. I have tenoned these doors but the haunching gets very complicated.

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[John Pendery]

Joe, thanks for the photos, I see what you mean!

Setup and repeatability seem to be the pitfalls of the Ritter. Now I’m imagining adding a digital readout for height adjustments and shop made fence stops. I think long term a slightly more sophisticated machine would fit the bill better, but I might consider this as a stepping stone as it’s kind of teed up right in front of me.

I appreciate the feedback, guys.

[Michael Schuch]

I have a cast iron Davis Wells horizontal boring machine that I rebuilt. It gets some use. A two head (2 drill bit head) would be faster and more useful. Most joints I use dowels for I usually use 2 dowels. Drilling them both at the same time with perfect spacing would save a lot of time. For me dowels are as much about alignment as they are about strength. A horizontal boring machine does a better job aligning dowel holes than any of my doweling jigs.

I don't own a Domino and for what they are going for I don't foresee owning one any time soon. Pocket holes have replaced dowels in face frames for me. Face frames used to be where I used dowels the most.

[Joe Calhoon]

Michael, the Kolle machine had a removable stop with locating dowels that could be set on either side of the table at various locations.
you could possibly fabricate something like this then use a spacer for the second hole. This would at least solve outside corner drilling.
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[John Pendery]

Michael, I agree the domino is expensive. I started out framing and trimming out custom homes, and on a job site setting a domino is indispensable, in the shop it doesn’t get used as much, but some use it exclusively and it certainly creates good strong joinery quickly. Similarly, it took me way too long to realize my miter saw was a colossal waste of space in my shop, but absolutely necessary on a job site.

Anyway, looks like I have that Ritter coming my way. I think he just wanted the machine out of his shop, and for the price he was offering it at it didn’t make sense to turn it dow. I’ve also seen his work, and it is very high end, so if I can’t figure out a way to make it useful I suppose that’s on me! I don’t see this as a dream machine, but will put it to immediate use, and hope to one day stumble across a nice Maka mortiser to complement the horizontal drill.

[Jim Becker]

Seems like a dowel machine has to be set up for each cut as accurate as a mortice. A biscuit or domino just has to be pretty close on one axis. A chalk mark is plenty good enough. The setback is set by the machine and never adjusted until material thickness is changed a good bit.
Bill D
I'll agree that a biscuit has some lateral flexibility, but a Domino on the tight setting has nearly zero play. The same is true for a dowel when the hole matches the dowel diameter. So someone choosing to use a dowel for a tenon is best served by having a quality doweling fixture to help insure that accuracy. The Domino has that built in.

[Michael Schuch]

Michael, the Kolle machine had a removable stop with locating dowels that could be set on either side of the table at various locations.
you could possibly fabricate something like this then use a spacer for the second hole. This would at least solve outside corner drilling.
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Thank you. I have a fence set up on my Davis Wells where I can index my pieces quickly and it works. It isn't as fast as drilling both holes at once.


Michael, I agree the domino is expensive. I started out framing and trimming out custom homes, and on a job site setting a domino is indispensable, in the shop it doesn’t get used as much, but some use it exclusively and it certainly creates good strong joinery quickly. Similarly, it took me way too long to realize my miter saw was a colossal waste of space in my shop, but absolutely necessary on a job site.

Anyway, looks like I have that Ritter coming my way. I think he just wanted the machine out of his shop, and for the price he was offering it at it didn’t make sense to turn it dow. I’ve also seen his work, and it is very high end, so if I can’t figure out a way to make it useful I suppose that’s on me! I don’t see this as a dream machine, but will put it to immediate use, and hope to one day stumble across a nice Maka mortiser to complement the horizontal drill.


I picked up my Davis Wells for really cheap many years ago. It had taken a tumble so the spindle movement, in and out, was really crunchy. I was able to get it back into working order by replacing the bearings which where themselves very cheap (same bearings commonly used in roller skates). Luckily no other damage was done. I use mine enough that I don't want to get rid of it.