Drill Press / Mortiser Combo

[Bristol_Rob]

I've just noticed that Axminster sell a drill chuck for morticers and wondered if anyone here owns and uses a combo machine?
Or has had experience of one.

I work in a 1 car garage and have limited space. (getting one of these machines in mine is tight - but doable, with a re-jig)

The idea of a combo appeals to me and I just wondered if anyone had thoughts.

I don't do a lot of morticing and there are ways to avoid traditional morticing.

Which I guess means I'm more interested in a drill press for woodworking. But if I can get both - who wouldn't right??

Penny for your thoughts?

 

[Myfordman]

A mortice attachment for a pillar drill is pretty useless but a drill chuck on a morticer will only give you single speed drill and you will have to add a table. This would be the lesser of the evils.

 

[custard]

I agree with Myfordman. A morticing attachment in a drill press will have you tearing your hair out, the hold down facility isn't really strong enough so the workpiece tends to lift up as the chisel is raised. Even worse is that the bearings on a drill press aren't designed for the serious vertical pressure that a morticer needs, so in pretty short order the drill press itself will be kaput.

The key to successful woodworking in a very small space is a radically pared back tool collection and sticking to more modest sized projects. For many years I worked out of a small shed in a central London garden.The only machines were a bandsaw and a lunch box style thicknesser. They were justified because neither takes up much space, and hand planing to dimension and ripping are the two most arduous and time consuming woodworking tasks.

 

[Myfordman]

In retrotspect, I'd go for a decent pillar drill and use a router for morticing and lots of other jobs too.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Mine was the low-end Axminster morticer with the dual axis sliding table. The drill chuck was extremely useful. It's not like using a pillar drill - much more limited - but given that it is still really handy.

Strongly suggest you don't get a kit to convert a pillar drill to a morticer. They don't work at all well (I had one before I had a morticer), and are pretty frustrating.

 

[MusicMan]

I agree about not using a pillar drill as a mortice. But the other way round is fine. A few years ago I bought an Axminster AW19 FM Morticer from Cons of this forum (still going great, thanks, Bob), and sold my pillar drill to make room for it. Not regretted it for a moment. It is useful as a mortiser but spends most of its time as a drill. You need an adaptor for this, which clamps in the usual chisel/auger chuck and has a regular Jacobs chuck on the other end, outside the enclosed part. It works very well as a drill despite the single speed. After all, it works on a range of mortiser auger sizes. It's worked out fine for all my drilling; it would be too fast for very large drills but I can use a router for them anyway. One great advantage over a pillar drill is that the quill movement is huge, much larger than most pillar drills, it has accurate depth stops and very useful and strong clamps, and a good XY motion on the table.

If you go this route note that you need an adaptor the right size for the hole in your bushing. Axminster and Charnwood make them, of different diameters.

 

[Bristol_Rob]

Thank you for the insight. I hadn't considered the single speed of a mortiser

More pondering

 

[HamsterJam]

i have an old Multico PM12 with a drill chuck.
Makes a very sturdy drill capable of drilling very accurate holes but as Myfordman says only has one speed and it can be a bit limiting on things like throat depth.

 

[TheTiddles]

Yep, I do this.
A pillar drill is a way better drill, no denying that.
A morticer is an ok drill and has a lovely fence and stops, hold downs, table etc. already, but on small bits it’s a tad slow, on large a tad fast.
A pillar drill is a terrible morticer, but useful for hogging out material before going in by hand or router.
There are many ways to skin a cat, we often find our own ways, but the important thing is to kill as many cats as possible.

Aidan