Smoking morticer!!

[Roxie]

All learned followers.

Is it normal for the auger in a morticer to smoke and burn the wood? I have only recently used a morticer so not too sure if all is OK. I sharpened the chisel (10mm) and auger before use but on investigation after completing a couple of mortices I noticed the auger had turned blue.
Advice please.
John

 

[9fingers]

You need to drop the auger down a couple of mm to give clearance in the chisel.

Bob

 

[Hardwood66]

Pluss 1 for dropping the bit

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Your feed rate might be a little slow - I found it went against the grain (mine, not the wood's) to plunge the cutter harder and quicker than I thought it should have been. As per previous posts, make sure you have a large enough gap - it clears a lot of chips very quickly

 

[Bradshaw Joinery]

It can also be that the outer spur edge rubs the wood a very tiny bit as the cutting edge has worn/ been sharpened down. Do a shallow mortice and see where the burn in the wood is.