Originally Posted by
John TenEyck
I suspect your equipment is better than most, Brian. I read all the time on here about problems people have with chisel mortisers. Most hobbiests have bench top units, which seem pretty light duty to me for the job they are asked to do. And then there's the tooling. Sharpening chisels and augers, adjust the bit gap, on and on. And how many people have a Maka? I didn't even know what one was until I read it about it on here. I'm sure tenons are quickly made on a shaper, once it's setup to do so, but how many hobbiests have one? And then there's the issue of space. All these machines take up space, space hobbiests often don't have.
I agree that mortises beyond about 2-1/2 - 3" deep become difficult with a router, but how often for furniture making is that needed? The only time I've had to go that deep was for making exterior doors. And for furniture making, mortise depth of 3 - 4 times the width seems plenty adequate to me. Most furniture making uses mortises less than 2-1/2" deep, and routers do that easily, quickly, and with no clean up required. Similarly, I can't remember the last time I actually needed to make a mortise wider than 1/2". If I feel the need for more glue area/strength, it's easy to make two mortises, side by side. Folks who own Dominoes follow this strategy.
For specialized work I can see the advantage of a quality chisel or other deep mortiser. For furniture work I prefer loose tenons cut with a router or slot mortiser. It's just so straightforward, simple, space efficient, and low-cost.
I guess we look at it differently, and that's fine.
John