Cyrille de Brébisson wrote:
hello,

Iam planning to buy a mortising machine for an upcomming project, but I have
a few questions.

- is it really worth it?
- is the $99 HF machine good enough for light usage (like a 1 project a
month type thing)
- I imagine that the HF mortising bits are crap (this type of stuff usually
is crap at HF), but how crap are they really, how much should I expect to
pay in a "real" place (woodcraft) for the bits

any advices?

thanks, cyrille

In a recent FWW tool guide, they gave a very good review to the Delta
14-651. (Tops were General International and Woodtek, in that
order...both very substantially more expensive.)

I just bought one last night on Amazon...they had it on sale for $199,
and with the $20-off promo, that brought it in at $179, with free
delivery to boot. For that money, I couldn't say no. (Woodcraft sells
the same machine for $269.)

I just looked, and the price has risen to $229, but that now qualifies
for the $40-off promo, so your delivered cost is just $10 more.

I (obviously) haven't used the tool yet, nor any other mortiser, so
can't answer you about which is the best model, other than based on a
single review.

But I sure as ^%$# can't wait to get mine. It comes with four chisels
as well, which I figure are probably crap chisels too, but an
_excellent_ opportunity for me to learn to sharpen them, probably burn
the &^%$ out of them, then throw them away and get better quality once
I've gotten over the learning curve.