[MessaboutW] Don't get a Mortising Machine from Harbor Freight (2024)

The Building a Greenland Kayak book outlines a few methods of cutting mortises.

The first, most 'authentic' and labor intensive, is to use a chisel and carve out each of the ~ 50 mortises. I did not try this.

The second, using and jig and a brad point bit, along with a chisel to square out the corners, was the one I did try. I made a damn good jig, had new brad point bits, had a drill stop - everything to make it work right, and it was miserable. The brad point bit wandered. The chisel worked, but took a LOT of effort to get things clean. VERY time intensive and very difficult to replicate good cuts.

The 3rd is a drill press with special attachments. While we do have a drill press, I didn't have the attachment, nor was one immediately available. My experience with the brad point bit had sort of soured me on half-measures, so I skipped this potion.

The "fastest" method in the book was a Mortising Machine. Since I really, Really, REALLY, like the idea of making Northwest kayak designs, I thought it might be worth the investment. Most of these cost $350, but HF has one for $200 - and there is a HF right down the road. Since HF is usually very nice about returning their garbage products, I thought it was worth a shot.

There was a Mortising Machine on display, but no boxes to be seen. I had the kid get one from the back. The box it was in was pretty well mashed up, but I wasn't really buying a box, so I bought it anyway.

Assembly was pretty easy - not too many parts. The manual SUCKED though - less than minimal drawings and the typical translations from whatever language to English. Understand the fit and finish is also bad. The part that was most distressing was even the plastic parts were of cheap plastic.

Once all together, it didn't even function well. Pull the lever, and the lowest the bit would go was 1.25" above the base. Pull the arm all the way down, and it strikes the table before the stroke bottoms out. Yup, you want the full stroke, you have to either raise the piece up or stop the stroke, adjust the handle, and pull again. Then, there is a "hold down' thingy that helps keep the piece from sticking to the chisel. That piece has a little foot on it ~1/2" wide, meaning you can't put a mortise in the center of a 3/4" stick. Even then, the way the assembly goes together, the system can't even get THAT close - the bit for the chisel strikes the hold down thingy until it is about 5/8" out.

In short: To get this thing to cut the mortises I need, I would have to build up shims on both the X and Y access. Could I do it? Sure. Every friggin time. What good is a fence if it can't hold the piece? Why have a handle that can't do a full stroke? Could it have been worked around? Probably - with effort. Is that what I pay for? To have to figure out how to overcome sh*tty engineering? No.

And before y'all start chiming in with "did you read the manual?" and "I have one of those and I got it to work just fine by using a 17/64th piece of whale bone as a shim" or "Why don't you just use a narwhal tusk like the Eskimos do?" as helpful as those suggestions are, please . . . just don't.