Multico model K mortiser - general questions

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guineafowl21

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This has been put into service in my little shop and I’m very pleased with it. There was some play in the xy table that I took out by loosening the sliders and tapping them inwards, but there’s quite a lot of backlash in the up-down lever, mainly where it passes through the pinion.

I can almost live with it, but it might be a nice rainy Sunday project to sort it. Has anyone fixed this and how?

I had some trouble ploughing drawer and door grooves due to some wild grained larch. So I used the mortiser to start the grooves by making lots of shallow cuts, and it worked very well. It got me thinking: what other things can I do with the machine? Square hole patterns/inlays? Square tenon pegs? Cutting tenons?

In others words, what have people on here used their mortiser for other than straightforward mortices? And is it mortice or mortise?!
 
guineafowl21":23bazh06 said:
but there’s quite a lot of backlash in the up-down lever, mainly where it passes through the pinion.

I can almost live with it, but it might be a nice rainy Sunday project to sort it. Has anyone fixed this and how?

Is that play between the rack and pinion mechanism that it takes about a 1/8th or more of a turn to engage with the teeth when you go up or down? You could always shim the back of the rack so that the pinion seats more firmly against it.

guineafowl21":23bazh06 said:
I had some trouble ploughing drawer and door grooves due to some wild grained larch. So I used the mortiser to start the grooves by making lots of shallow cuts, and it worked very well. It got me thinking: what other things can I do with the machine? Square hole patterns/inlays? Square tenon pegs? Cutting tenons?

In others words, what have people on here used their mortiser for other than straightforward mortices?

Yes, anything you can pretty much think with a square hole involved up you could do with the machine. I've even seen some people use them without the auger installed with a 45-degree wooden bed put in place and used them for trimming mitres. In the hands of clever people, they can be made to do quite clever things! The only problem with using them for making square peg holes for example is that the auger tends to wander outside of the box, the older British pattern chisel sets like the Clicos and Ridgways were better at not doing this but for some reason the newer Harima Japanese pattern chisels tend to wander more despite the point on the end of the auger.

guineafowl21":23bazh06 said:
And is it mortice or mortise?!

I've always said it is mortice, but the old texts like Ellis' Modern Practical Joinery say Mortise.
 
The play seems to be where the shaft passes through the pinion. I can’t see, but there must be some splines or similar in there.
 
guineafowl21":3hxiliu4 said:
The play seems to be where the shaft passes through the pinion. I can’t see, but there must be some splines or similar in there.

Ah. Possibly there's a woodruff key between the pinion and the shaft that's worn either the key slot in the shaft or pinion or the key itself is worn. Take it apart and you should be able to see the problem clearly.
 

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