I have seen a lot of talk about mortisers lately so I thought I would post a couple pictures of mine. A couple years ago I had 107 half inch square balusters to mount in some hard maple railing. Some of the railing was on stairs so I needed to make many of the 214 square holes at an angle. I was too cheap to spend a thousand dollars or more on a good mortiser so I picked up a Harbor freight mortiser for $140 with a 20% off coupon. It did a perfect job on all 214 of the holes. I love quality machines but some times cheap ones get the job done without breaking the bank.
DSC06859-1.jpg
I built my own stand and table to mount the mortiser on.
DSC06862-1.jpg
The tilt mechanism could not have been simpler. A good lock nut and the motiser head never moved.
DSC06864-1.jpg
I was lazy so I mounted an old double acting air cylinder I had lying around and plumbed it through an old electric pneumatic solenoid valve with a foot pedal to activate it. I needed the double acting solenoid valve to slow and soften the downward motion with a bleeder valve. Worked great!
Some day I will come across a good deal on an XY table and make a nice vice to hold the work piece. Until then a simple wooden fence clamped to the table has been doing the job nicely.
I have no problems with people that want to drop $1000 or more on a quality mortiser. Good tools make life easier and are a pleasure to use which makes woodworking much more fun. But for the rest of a cheap tool might be just the ticket!