Tony B

I used to use my drill press with I believe is called a mill end bit to make a mortise. I would put my workpiece in a cross slide vice, pull down the lever and make a series of close holes. When I made the last hole, I would hold down the lever and crank the cross slide vice back to the original hole, cleaning up the sides along the way.
This was many years ago. Is there a better bit I can use and will a router bit work in only about 2500 to 3000 rpm?

Thanks in advance

Tony B

TS3660

I think you need what they call and up spiral bit in a router to do mortises. The drill press method you used to use sounds good to me.

__________________
Bud

"Capitalism is the unequal sharing of wealth: Socialism is the equal sharing of misery"

clarionflyer

Wow! I was thinking of trying the same thing with a "drill saw/bit" set (cheapy from Harbor Freight). I was just gonna slide the piece on a homemade drill press fence but the slide you described sounds great.
I just haven't gotten around to trying it yet. If you find the slide you were talking about, I'm sure many here would be interested ('specially me).

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Tony B

With the way I did it, I could easily make 3 mortise's per minute including clamping and unclamping in the cross slide vice.
I eventually came across an industrial mortising machine made back in the 1940's. It was a big heavy beast, but fast. It had a chainsaw type plunger with a foot pedal. Unfortunately, it too was lost in Hurricane Katrina.

Tony B

TS3660

I think he's talking about something like this:

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__________________
Bud

"Capitalism is the unequal sharing of wealth: Socialism is the equal sharing of misery"

clarionflyer

Hmmm. Ya, I doubt you could put out that amount of mortise's with my theory. But I think I'll give it a try, just for giggles. Thanks for the post - you got my brain turning (ouch).

Tony B

I was just on a Harbor Freight site trying to download a picture.
Thanks. Just saved me some time. Also note that the end mill bit looks similar to that up spiral router bit.
This is a fairly nice clean cut.

Tony B

clarionflyer

Duh. Ya I wasn't even thinking of that (I was even close to buying one 4 months ago).
Well I'll give my theory a shot and see if it works.

Tony B

Once you get your first workpiece centered in the vise, the rest is all down hill. Also set your depth. I'm going from almost 20 year old memory, but here goes.:
No matter how or where you are standing with your stock in the vise, you will be looking down the length of you stock. Your marked mortise end/stopping points will be in your line of sight. Roughly set your starting point as the mark furthest from you. When you make your first drill cut, you can easily adjust from there. OK, lets do it.
1) Turn on Drill Press at fastest speed.
2) With left hand, pull down on lever and make first cut.
3) Raise lever
4) Make 1 Counter-clockwise revolution on vise with your right hand.
5) Pull down on lever again with left hand and make 2nd cut and raise again.
6) Use right hand again and make another CC rotation and plunge cut again. Keep repeating.
7) When you get to your last plunge, hold lever down with your left hand and now make CLOCKWISE turns on vise to feed the drill/cutter back into the previously drilled holes and this will clean up the sides.

If you go back to far into your original cut, the drill press will surely let you know. It is too slow for removing large amounts of material and will raise hell.

I use a 1/4 bit for 3/4" thick stock and 1/2 bit for 7/8" thick stock up to about 1 1/2 thick stock. This depends also on the thickness of the stock you are using for the tenons.

I make my tenons on the table saw and round the enges with a small rasp.

I hope this makes sense to you. It ALMOST does to me.

Tony B

clarionflyer

So... does it work?

Tony B

It worked great for me 20 years ago with the end mill bit. I was wondering if it would work better with a router bit.
It's fast , easy, and pretty much mindless. I could put my cross slide vise on the DP and bolt it down and set up faster than I could with a router jig I made. Even my wife didn't mind making mortises for me. All other tools except for the sanders intimidated her.

Tony B

Tony B

I don't know if you used a cross slide vise before so let me explain.
You don't have to bolt the vise down accurately. There is one knob to tighten the actual vise part that holds the wood. Then there are 2 separate hand knobs of sorts. One moves the vise on a track left to right and the other one moves the vise on another track front to back. The left and right movement would be the one that lines up the center of the cutter with the center of your wood. The front to back movement would be the one that is used to make the drill holes and clean them up on the return direction.

Sorry I'm so bad at explaining, but it's difficult for me to put into words without having the tools in front of me to point to.

Tony B

clarionflyer

No Tony, you do a good job of explaining... I just wasn't thinking on the same page (never used a cross slide, but I was looking to buy one a while back). Hopefully anything I (or anyone else) said will help you out.
Good luck.

Tony B

The only thing I ever use my cross slide vise for is to make a mortise.
What other uses would a cross slide vise have in woodworking?

Tony B

cabinetman

For doing mortises with a drill press I just use an ordinary drill bit. Some drill presses can be fitted with a hollow chisel mortiser attachment. It works similarly to a dedicated hollow chisel mortiser.

Tony B

This might help in getting the idea. I wish I was home, I could just take a few pics and wouldnt have to say anything, (LOL)

Tony B

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