"RonB" wrote
snippage
A confession: A few days after I returned my Delta Kit my wife mentioned
that Harbor Freight had a mortiser on sale for $99. My initial response
was
"don't need THAT one!" A week or so later we drove by the store, I went
in
and looked at one and decided "oh-well. Only $100. I'll give it a try."
The machine came with three bits that looked much like the delta, has a
fairly long plunge handle, has decent power and it makes square holes.
Granted the hold down hardware sucks but that can be improved. I have
used
the machine quite a bit and it continues to make square holes. I doubt if
it will be my life-long mortiser but the complete machine cost about $30
more than the compromise kit.

Read your post and got to thinking about slapping an x-y table on one, and
went to the HF site to poke around. They have one one with an integral x-y
table for $189. Hadn't seen that there before and wondered if anyone here
had one and could comment on it. Am I better off chopping them out myself?

mw