Hi. This is a short video about my
new homemade slot mortising machine.
I shot that
video 4 years ago and I've gotten
much better at making videos
since so I thought I'd make another
video on this slot mortiser.
The machine has this X/Y sliding action
and the sliding for this is actually
using modified drawer slides. This one is a
center drawer slide. For this one
I used keyboard drawer slides
but really any non-telescoping type
of slide can be used. That is a slide that's
2 parts. The telescoping variety
like this one tends to have too much
play in them, so they're not really
suitable. You can't really see the slides
in the machine because I added these rails everywhere
to really cover it up to keep them away from the dust.
For vertical adjustment I have a 5/8th inch polished
steel rod and bronze bushings. And I've got a
threaded rod here for cranking the router up and down.
To keep this crank from moving from vibrations, I added a
detente mechanism in here using just a hex nut and
this piece of steel that pushes against it. And also to count
how many times I've turned this crank if I'm making
multiple cuts, I added a wheel
that counts the number of turns.
The wheel gets advanced
by a pin that sticks out the bottom of the crank
and every time that goes past the wheel it grabs 1 notch
and moves it. So as long as the crank is
not against the wheel, I can take that wheel and
change where my zero position is.
That sort of thing comes in very handy
if I need to make a multiple mortise joint
and I've got the scale marked on
here. I've got 32 teeth on the wheel
16 threads per inch on the threaded rods so 2 full turns
of this wheel is 2 inches of vertical
adjustment in the router. I've also got stops
that can be adjusted, which limit how far the router
can move side to side. And I just move that
against where I want it to be and just tighten this knob
and that acts as a stop. I've also got a depth
stop along the side here limiting how far this
can plunge into the wood. And I added a backstop as
well because sometimes I want to use
this as a horizontal router table
so just by moving the stops against each other
I can lock the router in place.
For attaching stock to the table, probably the quickest
is to just put the clamp in the slot
in the table like this. But I've also got this
funny sort of clamp
This is a adjustable C-clamp
that I got on clearance and it fits in here
and the cool thing is it sort of locks onto the table
So this clamp stays
put in place.
Another option is to just put a bolt in the table
and then use this drill press clamp and that holds this
stock very firmly in place. But it doesn't have a huge
opening so another option
would be to use something like my homemade clamp
that I made for Pantorouter, which has quite a lot of reach.
And I have blocks for raising it and
lowering it to give quite a lot of adjustment.
But this machine can do more than just cut mortises so
I'll demonstrate by cutting a finger joint
into the end of that piece of 2 by 4.
So, thanks to this stationary table
there's no limit to how large a piece
of stock I can cut with this machine.
The thing that this
machine doesn't do is put round edges on the tenon, which is
why I made my Pantorouter machine.
But my favorite type of joint with this machine has to be
cutting lots and lots of mortises, side by side.
So that type of joint just
makes for loads and loads of joint area, which makes for
super strong joints.
A few years after I built this machine, I invented my
Pantorouter machine. Now this machine can do everything
that this can do, and then some, using templates.
So, with this machine with the right
kind of template, I can do mortising
or finger joints, or dovetail
joints or tenons
even plantation shutters. So, some have asked
if the Pantorouter makes my Slot Mortiser obsolete because
with these templates you can do a lot of joints.
But the advantage with this machine
is, it doesn't need templates.
So, for any sort of joint that this machine can do
it's much quicker to set it up.