Adam Diehl wrote in message ...

I am looking to purchase either a drill press and mortising kit or a
dedicated mortiser to help me out with my furniture-making ambitions.

I think that most people here would agree that a drill press is a very
useful item. You won't be sorry to have one.

I started out making mortises with a Forstner bit and a bench chisel.
It worked okay. I later switched to regular mortising chisels
(Hirsch), and found those to be reasonably fast and (for me) more
accurately vertical and consistent in width than the drill
press/chisel method.

Then last week for the heck of it I took a spin on some of the
machines at the local hardwood store. Eyed the Jet benchtop mortising
machines ... sure, they look nice, but wasn't really all that
impressed. I mean, shop space is tight and I can do that job with a
chisel.

Um, then I took a spin on a Powermatic 719. Locking x-y tables with
stops, built in workpiece stop, cuts like butter ... more precise and
consistent than I can do by hand. Now *that's* a tool. Kinda got me
to thinking, if you know what I mean.