I built a Morley Mortiser

I have watched and admired Philip Morley for awhile as he seems to be truly dedicated to his craft and has earned his way through a 7 year apprenticeship. Here is his website; https://philipmorleyfurniture.com/

He designed this mortising jig to be easy to set up and use. I downloaded the plans from his website a long while back and I was impressed with his attention to detail and it was obvious that he put a lot of thought into his design. What I really liked the most was that his design positions the mortise slot using center line marks and pre-made shim blocks. This gives me repeatable accuracy time after time which I really wanted. It is very adaptable to different stock and mortise sizes and it was pretty easy to construct.

I took great care to cut my dado slots very accurately along with the corresponding slides to try and achieve tight tolerances as this is what really drives the accuracy of the mortise slot. After I got a snug fit to the slides, I waxed them with a bit of paraffin for smooth action. All of the other pieces are just basic cut and fit parts. I had a bit of an issue with finding an adapter plate for my old Ryobi router that would accept a guide bushing as required for his design. I finally got that resolved with a lexan adapter plate that fit, and I was in business. I have made mortises all morning and they have all been dead on accurate so far. I am having an issue with chip extraction as the chips get packed under the adapter plate quickly as there is no easy way for them to escape from under the plate. I'll have to work on that issue, but so far, everything else has been really smooth.

I have pre-cut my tenon stock and planed it to the right thickness so that whenever I need it I just cut off a short section and use that for my floating tenon.

Hope this review helps someone!
Bud
Attachment 447095Attachment 447096Attachment 447097Attachment 447098

Cleaning out the chips is the reason Phil Thien designed his mortising jig the way he did. Maybe a shortened bushing? Or a blast of air blown through the router base as mortises are being cut? Because the bushing only locates front to back, and not length, an elbow could be adapted to router base for air line to supply compressed air to clear chips at the point of generation. Hose would most likely have to come down from over head.

Bud, this reminds me of Young Je's design. He and Philip Morley certainly have a way of inventing jigs.

Here's my take on Young Je's jig:

Attachment 447172 Attachment 447173

It's only useful for shorter mortises than yours can make. I tend to use two mortises in long work anyway.

For a little extra accuracy, I did notice that this little shim was helpful for finding the center, so I made a few:

Attachment 447174

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bob Jones 5443

Bud, this reminds me of Young Je's design. He and Philip Morley certainly have a way of inventing jigs.

Here's my take on Young Je's jig:

Attachment 447172 Attachment 447173

It's only useful for shorter mortises than yours can make. I tend to use two mortises in long work anyway.

For a little extra accuracy, I did notice that this little shim was helpful for finding the center, so I made a few:

Attachment 447174

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That's a nice looking jig Bob!
I use the same centering shim block just like yours. In addition, I also made some pre-measured spacer blocks to set up my outer stops to the mortise center. I have them pre-cut at various standard mortise widths such as 1" , 1 1/2". etc. Saves time and gives excellent accuracy. You just line up your spacer block and then slide the outer stops on each side to the block.

Jigs are fun.

Good job...thnks for info...

Thanks for introducing me to Philip Morley, and showing a Jig that I didn't know I needed until I saw it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steven Woodward

Thanks for introducing me to Philip Morley, and showing a Jig that I didn't know I needed until I saw it.

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Also check out Woodsmith / ShopNotes mortiser, which uses router base as guide. Same basic method of construction, just different system for guiding cuts. After weighing both plans, I went with the ShopSmith version.

For comparison, here is the fixture I built. Inspired by one in FWW magazine, with a few mods of my own.

https://i.postimg.cc/5NLS6KHj/1a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/TPYVNRtW/2a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/PJWP9H0H/Morticing4.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/LXGjsj2z/4a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/431Yf9fX/21a.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/K8vRqdfX/legs16.jpg

Regards from Perth

Derek

I bought the Morley plans and then realized the limitation of mortise depth that comes with the 3/4" base. I modified the design which coincidently looks much like Derek's but uses the Morley-type clamp board. That extra clamp board length plus horizontal clamp grooves is useful for mortising chair legs and other odd shaped parts (or loose tenons on ends of boards). I happen to have the same router edge guide. Word of warning...that guide flexes just enough that one has to be be very careful to take relatively light passes. Also, taking the mortise ends to full depth initially is also a no-no. They never aligned perfectly with the rest of the mortise cut because of the inherent flex. The guide aspect of the Morley design eliminates this problem but mortise depth is the trade-off that I was not able to overcome.
The Match-Fit clamps have become my favorite accessory for table saw and router jigs.

Nice work --

For anything having to do with routers and jigs/fixtures, genius-level solutions from Pat Warner can't be beat. Unfortunately Pat passed away in 2017, but you can see photos of his solutions in the wayback machine (https://archive.org/web/), just plug in patwarner.com, and look for a snapshot that's before 2017.

Here is the morticing jig I bought from Pat long ago. He solved the chip collection issue by using a router that has a connection for collection. The full description of the jig can be seen here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100724.../mortiser.html


Attachment 468815

I'm working on building the Woodsmith Mortising jig presently. It's very similar to the Morley design with a few variations in the clamping and router holding configuration. https://www.woodsmithplans.com/plan/...mortising-jig/

Patrick

Hi Bud,

I just finished my mortising jig, and it ended up looking very much like a Morley Mortiser, even though it started out as a Woodsmith mortiser. Using the MicroJig clamps is a big improvement over knobs and toggle clamps to hold the workpieces.

Patrick

I see very few advantages of those designs using a guide bushing and movable top compared to the dual fence Warner design a few posts up. Of course with the tweak to have a large reference surface with integrated clamps to hold the work piece.

With the dual fence design the top can be fixed rather than movable which simplifies the build a lot and improves rigidity. You can have a larger hole through the jig that improves visibility and dust extraction. You can easily see the start and end of your layout lines so no need to make custom spacer for each joint. No need to make a guide bushing specific zero play groove that should stay that way during the jigs lifetime.... Double mortices easily done in the same run without even switching off the router using a spacer between the fence and the top plate.

My take on this https://pin.it/128c1Ni and https://youtu.be/KBoim06Hmyg

I think I prefer the moving top I have on my jig. It's very easy to slide the top to center the bit over the mortise, plus it's precisely 90 degrees to the router bit and the whole table is rock solid. I only have one lock knob for the sliding table, and the runners are fairly narrow. I'm using the insert Morley showed in his video to center the bit, and it's spot on.

I'll take a picture and post the jig when I get a chance.

Patrick