Grizzly G0540 Horiz. Boring Mach. Used As Mortising Machine

[Steve Kohn]

I've read several posts from people who speculated that the G0540 (Horizontal Boring Machine) from Grizzly could be used as a mortising machine by using end mills.

Has anyone tried it?
Is the 3450 RPM too slow to give a clean mortise?
I'd probably be running 3/8 and 1/2 inch end mills. Does the motor have enough guts to cut a 1 inch deep mortise or slot in pine?
Anything special on the end mills you're running?
Any other conditions or issues?

Anyone have an extra Grizzly coupon?

[Mike Henderson]

I don't have any experience with using that machine for mortises, but 3450 RPM is not too slow. I've used old iron horizontal slot mortisers and they use a standard induction motor which means they run at 3450 RPM max. We used spiral upcut router bits in it and it cut mortises fine.

I'm fairly sure there was no gearing in the machine to increase the RPMs, it looked like the chuck came straight out of the motor.

Mike

[Jim Andrew]

I just bought one this last Christmas. Checked out all the slot mortisers I could find, all were about 5 times the cost of the G0540. I bought some high speed steel end mills from Grizzly, need to order some 1/4", as using 3/8" on a 3/4" board does not leave much on the edges. 3/16, which is not much. Need to learn some technique, as I find I feed the depth a little too fast, but the motor does not pull down, and it makes a suitable mortise. There are stops on the table, so you can set it up, and just push the cutter in on one end of the mortise, and use the handle to go back and forth to make your cut. Need to practice a bit, as it is easy to take more than 1/4" at a time.

[Rick Potter]

I have a Laguna slot mortiser, and it is direct drive off the end of the motor, which has no markings. I called Laguna, and they said it is 3400 RPM.

[Silas Smith]

I have it and it would work fine for the intended purpose. The mortise isn't quite as smooth as you would get on a router, but it's a loose tenon, it doesn't need to be that precise.

[Keith Hankins]

I've read several posts from people who speculated that the G0540 (Horizontal Boring Machine) from Grizzly could be used as a mortising machine by using end mills.

Has anyone tried it?
Is the 3450 RPM too slow to give a clean mortise?
I'd probably be running 3/8 and 1/2 inch end mills. Does the motor have enough guts to cut a 1 inch deep mortise or slot in pine?
Anything special on the end mills you're running?
Any other conditions or issues?

Anyone have an extra Grizzly coupon?

I bought it and used it for that purpose. I did not use end mills. I used whiteside carbide router bits. Probably in hind sight would have been cheaper. The 3450 is an issue as it's turning reall slow. However, if you compensate with technique, mine came out perfect. I would do a ful in or left and right and then nibble the center out. Came out clean as a whistle. It's pretty simple with x and y travel, but the mchanism for the x travel is pretty chincy, requiring a small amount of setup but works fine. I created a mdf jig for the table top for a positive stop to index the maerial against.

Only negative I found was the getting perfection on the table. I could only zero it in to +/- a few thou. I solved this with shims under my mdf table to zero it in, and then never moved it again, so that problem was solved. It would cause a high/low spot when mating the pieces together.

Again, you are using this for much more than it was intended.

A reccommendation is to get 4 casters and put it on. It's pretty heavy when assembled. I liked rolling it around to get it out of the way.

I used it steadily for floating M&T for a good while, till I bought the Domino and sold it. That sucker has gotten expensive.

I bought it when they first came out before it dawned on them what it could be used for. I think I paid about half what they are listing it for now.

Again, if you set it up right, and go slow to compensate for the RPM, it makes fine cuts.

For that money, though now, you are up to the same price as a good Morticing machine.

Anyway, it will work.

[Jim Andrew]

The G0540 is 450.$ The Laguna was 4000 when I priced it around Christmas. All the other machines I found, router based were about 2500 and up. The G0540 was the only reasonably priced machine I found. You can buy a cheap hollow chisel mortiser, but the G0540 is the least expensive slot mortiser out there.

[brett gallmeyer]

I used to have one and used it for that exact purpose. I used carbide spiral router bits.
Eventually I was going to replace the motor with a router mounted using cnc mounts. A little fine tuning and I think It worked great with alot less cost.