Mortise or x-y vise??

[Lloyd Brown]

Please talk me into a mortiser. I have a mortise atchment for my drill press and it works (set up time slows me down) so I was thinking a x-y vise would help speed the prosess up ($100) but a bench top mortiser looks nice ($240) Will I be that much happier? Plus their is shop space to think of?

[Dick Parr]

Lloyd, I have the Jet mortiser and love it. I think I paid about $250 for mine, but a friend just bought one for $199 at WoodCraft that was on sale. I guess it all depends on what you want to build and if you will use one. I don't use it that often, but when I need it, it's great. Hands down, it's better then the attachment for a drill press.

Good luck with your decision

[Carl Eyman]

In my ho Dick is right if you can get the x-y vise working with the dedicated mortiser. I don't know how to do that; so I use the drill press, a noname mortising attachment, diamond hones from Lee-Valley (I think), and a few kinks to make set-up easier. Doing chair leg mortises a while ago, I tabulated the set-up time per mortise on ten legs and it came out to something like 2 minutes per mortise. If you think thru your set-up process, I think you can reduce it to such a small amount it becomes insignificant.

Now if you can find a way to use an x-y vise and a dedicated mortiser - you've got it made.

[Bob Lasley]

Lloyd,

I used a DP with a Delta mortising attachment for awhile. It was ok once the setup was done, but for the most part a PITA if you needed to drill a hole after mortising and then once you drilled the hole, found you had forgotten one mortise! I now have the Shop Fox mortiser and love it! Gave my DP attachment away and never want to see another one.

Bob

[Frank Guerin]

I have an old Delta motiser and put a X/Y vice on it. Had a problem with wood hitting screw so filed down screw so wood bottomed out in jaw. Really wish I could come up with left to right screw disconnect because I got tired of cranking to move board so took left to right screw out.

[Jim Hill 2]

If you could see the drill press I have you would understand why I went with the Morticer. I ended up buying it from Amazon.com and got it for $200 including shipping. Good luck!