Mortising Atachment for Drill Press?

[John McKissick]

Watched a number of YT vids on it. I don't plan on making mortises routinely but want to have that abilty and build my skills.

Aside from tying up the drill press what are the downsides of using an adapter vs a properly designed and purpose built mortising tool?
Is this a decision I would regret shortly into the tools use?

In my space limited shop storing a case vs a machine tool has a distinct advantage.

Thanks in advance

[Lee Schierer]

I have an old Homecraft bench top drill press and I've used a mortising attachment on it quite a few times. Once I polished up the outside surfaces of the mortising chisels and made a fence to aid in alignment, it became much easier to use. The only down side is it takes time to covert to mortising and back again, so if you need to drill a hole or two before your are done making mortises it can be a little frustrating. I have seen no ill effects on my drill press.

[Brian Tymchak]

I've not used a mortising attachment on a drill press. But, it seems that it would take more effort to push a chisel through wood on the DP than on the mortiser where the longer handle provides more leverage. This would be more an issue with harder woods, oak, ash, etc.

[Jim Becker]

The attachments can be fine for occasional use. With the drill bit extended to the correct length, the chisel is only removing the corners from an already bored hole. But Brian is correct that the nature of the DP's quill rotating handles vs the single lever on a dedicated mortising machine can be material if you are going to do more than occasional work with the tool. I'll mention that many folks do this work with a router and if they want square corners, they just use a chisel to get them that way. There are so many ways to do mortises.

[John McKissick]

The attachments can be fine for occasional use. With the drill bit extended to the correct length, the chisel is only removing the corners from an already bored hole. But Brian is correct that the nature of the DP's quill rotating handles vs the single lever on a dedicated mortising machine can be material if you are going to do more than occasional work with the tool. I'll mention that many folks do this work with a router and if they want square corners, they just use a chisel to get them that way. There are so many ways to do mortises.

I guess a router is a decent option for occasional work. Is it practical to leave the mortise with rounded ends and match with the tenon? Seems easier to hand work the tenon ends round

[Jim Becker]

I guess a router is a decent option for occasional work. Is it practical to leave the mortise with rounded ends and match with the tenon? Seems easier to hand work the tenon ends round

IMHO, yes...rounding tenons isn't hard and since they disappear into the mortise, they don't need to "perfect". They just have to fit with the correct snugness. In fact, a little bit of irregularity can help with glue-up because it gives space for the glue to go. That's why Festool's Domino fasteners are not perfectly round on the end and have some small scoring on the faces...it accommodates the glue.

[Tom M King]

I used one for years before I ever got around to getting my first mortising machine. You can get the job done with one, but you end up running around in a lot of circles, before you start making square holes.

[John McKissick]

I used one for years before I ever got around to getting my first mortising machine. You can get the job done with one, but you end up running around in a lot of circles, before you start making square holes.

So if you were to set up say for a dozen joints how much time would you estimate you save using a dedicated machine vs setting up your drill press?
Thanks for your reply as all the others

[Andrew Seemann]

So if you were to set up say for a dozen joints how much time would you estimate you save using a dedicated machine vs setting up your drill press?
Thanks for your reply as all the others

From what I remember about using one, if it isn't set up, you have the 30-45 odd minutes of remembering how to put it on, locating the part that you lost, fiddling with the adjustments and so forth. For a dedicated mortiser it is just putting in the right chisel and setting the fence, and doing some test mortices. Usually, that is about 5-10 minutes. Unless the wood is really hard and dense, cutting the mortices would be about the same perhaps a little longer on the drill press due to less leverage and "attitude problems" with the set up.

If you do a lot of mortices, I would definitely consider getting a dedicated one, but for only a few every once in a while, then a drill press attachment is probably just fine. I frequently mortice, so I have my "benchtop" Jet permanently set up on a mobile cabinet for immediate use.

[Andy D Jones]

My gut, with some anecdotal evidence, tells me that there are a lot of drill press mortising attachments, used at most once or twice, sitting around unused ever since, because either better methods/tools were found for cutting mortises, or other methods of joinery were substituted.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[Tom M King]

So if you were to set up say for a dozen joints how much time would you estimate you save using a dedicated machine vs setting up your drill press?
Thanks for your reply as all the others

Once you have both routines down, and have all the parts close at hand, setup time of 30 minutes, versus 5 minutes. Never having done either, and have to look for the parts, half a day, versus half an hour. The biggest problem is when you need both a mortiser, and drill press for the same project, and have only one drill press.

[Richard Coers]

I guess a router is a decent option for occasional work. Is it practical to leave the mortise with rounded ends and match with the tenon? Seems easier to hand work the tenon ends round

I just chamfer the tenons. You won't loose any strength and it's much faster. One or two strokes with a chisel and then paring the bottom flush with the shoulder.

[Bill Dufour]

My walker turner 20" drill press the quill is too big for any commercially made mortise adapter. Also I would have to remove my 5/8 chuck and switch to something smaller.
They might be nice on a vertical mill with power downfeed and CNC controls. Problem would be the quill is about 3" diameter.
Bill D

[Andrew Seemann]

My walker turner 20" drill press the quill is too big for any commercially made mortise adapter. Also I would have to remove my 5/8 chuck and switch to something smaller.
They might be nice on a vertical mill with power downfeed and CNC controls. Problem would be the quill is about 3" diameter.
Bill D

If you have a vertical (or horizontal for that matter) mill, you just use an end mill. No need for some fiddly attachment

One shop I worked at had one of those huge old Ekstrom Carlson patternmaker's router/mills. Kind of like a Bridgeport, but the quill was belt driven, and the bit turned way faster than a normal mill. The whole thing was kind of terrifying to fire up.

[Andrew Nemeth]

I agree with most everything posted here. I started out with a drill press attachment and ended up with a freestanding hollow chisel mortiser. I don’t use the floor standing unit much, but since getting it, I’ve never put the attachment back on the drill press. I will say, the most important part of either a dedicated unit or the attachment is learning how to properly sharpen the tooling and setting the proper clearance between the chisel and the drill bit. Set up is a bit finicky for either, but much more so with the drill press attachment. Also without a proper fence, x-y table, and hold down, the drill press attachment is less efficient in use. Finally, my drill press doesn’t have the leverage needed to easily drive the chisel into very hard wood, even with very sharp tooling. I have used a cheater bar to lengthen a handle on the drill press but, if making a deeper mortise in the middle of a longer piece of wood, you can only extend so far before your handle starts running into your workpiece as I need to rotate the handles of my drill press quite a bit to get the quill to move up and down far enough to get to depth. There are work around a to this but, once again, they are cumbersome, and honestly, I’m not sure how good of an idea lengthening the handles of a drill press to gain enough mechanical advantage to properly drive a larger chisel into a harder wood.

However, if you would like to experiment, and it will fit your drill press, I’d be happy to send you my drill press mounted unit for nothing other than the cost shipping. IIRC, the only measurement that is critical to these attachments is the diameter of the ring that mounts it to the quill of the drill press. If I have any duplicate chisels I’ll send those too (although I may have already given those away). If you’re interested, just PM me the diameter of your quill, or the model of your drill press, and your address and I’ll drop it in the mail if it will fit your setup.

Now, just to be fair, I’ve tried to give this thing away multiple times with no takers. Either people don’t like me too much or the drill press attachments do not appear to be a hot item.