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DELTA 14-651 Black Friday Discounts!.
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I've impartial unpacked, assembled and tested this machine. Here's my two cents - packing was titanic, smothered in styrofoam and unpainted parts bathed in oil. Cleaned up easily. Instructions were well written and assembly took about 45 minutes. I bought this based on a woodworking magazine review as an upgrade for my the Delta drill press mortising attachment. Since I've been doing more mission style furniture lately its worth it to have a more gigantic machine. This machine earned the noble reviews by being well designed and constructed. The rack & pinion fence alone is worth the microscopic bit more that you will pay for this tool. The first mortises I sever were 1/2"x1-1/4"x2"long in white oak and were still sided and burn free. The 1745 rpm hurry slows your feedrate but pays a tall dividend in a quality mortise. Don't steal it unless you have enough mortises to interpret it but if you do you will be satisfied with this machine. I wonder how many biscuit joiners and dedicated hollow chisel mortising machines have been sold because "Norm" introduced us to them?
Having venerable the original Delta mortiser for two weeks now, I am relatively overjoyed with the machine. The cast iron table and fence are extremely solid. The depth adjust is sound and stays locked down so you don't have to disaster about cutting too deep. Bit changes are simple and your knuckles are top-notch. The sliding dovetail arrangement makes it easy to adjust the resistance in the head proceed to your liking. The lever locks down solid and is plenty long to rep that extra torque you need to launch a mortis in those precise hard woods. The bits supplied with the machine have worked well to punch detached mortises in everything from red oak to gancalo alves and cocobolo.
My only negative comment is the loss in sturdiness of the scheme when you install the 2" column capture. This raises the fence off the table and you lose some of the stability in the machine. This can be fixed with some blocks under the fence, but then you must sacrifice the ease of fence adjustment. Other than that, this Delta product has lived up to it's name and has been a solid addition to my shop that I would recommend to anyone. I can't imagine cutting mortises by hand anymore.
After looking at the Jet and Grizzly mortisers, I decided on the Delta based on my experience with their portable planer (22-580) . Assembly was not difficult, although as already mentioned, the hydraulic cylinder is tricky to establish. There are a couple of areas that I deem need improvement:
1. The fence gain down knobs are plastic and strip easily. Although the own down adjuster is metal, it too stripped the first time I attempted to expend it. Now it is difficult to score locked down.
2. When you exercise the riser block (a distress to do in the first region), you loose the ability to lock down the fence to the table. These lock downs have to be removed completely, which allows the fence/hold down to go up and down. I need to mortise a 5" beam, so I had to consume the riser block. If you are only mortising thinner material (I would guess about 4" and less), then you don't need to riser block and you don't encounter this jam.
3. When inserting the chisel bit, there is not an index so you can residence the chisel parallel to the fence. This is annoying as it takes some trial and error to regain it space nice and parallel.
4. The depth close is ragged and flexs a lot. I don't have tall confidence in the depth end and will replace it with something else soon (don't know what yet, probably a collar and rod) .
The machine is remarkable, and built heavy. The inappropriate is heavy duty cast iron, as are the rest of the befriend structure. It does carve decently in Red Oak. I assume that the chisels that are supplied with the machine are marginal (the 1/2" bit I have is very noisy, probably not straight, but the 3/8" is still) . I will glean a better quality bit for delicate furniture. So, overall it cuts square holes, but in my objective plan, it is the first share of machinery from Delta that I have purchased that I am not thrilled about. I would study elsewhere if I had to do it again (although the other brands may have similar issues) . The planer on the other hand is awesome!
