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The package was not damaged. I had to return two damaged machines to finally get a good one. I rated it 2 stars because of the quality contorl from the factory. It had to packed up already damaged. After the second unit that had a cracked casted yoke assembly, Amazon removed thwe item from their site and had the vendor investigate the problem. The problem was not with the shipper. I have to compliment Amazon for working this out and being very responsive. I finally got an undamaged mortiser yesterday and after the short assemby and a single test it does perform as expected.The actual mortiser is very well made and is easy to use.
DO NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF CRAP, Delta should bury their heads in shame for putting their name on this thing, the fit of the moving parts is horrible, I had to replace the gib adjusting screws because the factory rounded the phillips head out, the chisels that come with this are a joke, I tried the 1/2" chisel in a piece of walnut and the chisel points flared out, they are way to soft, so much for any heat treatment. do your self a favor and stay away from this cheap thing. I will most likely never buy a Delta product again.
It is firmly attached and had no trouble mortising a 2 inch stock.cut from both side to elimnate tear-out. Took care on the milling marks, but not quite the mirror finish that a 5000 grit stone does. After reading the instructions, ( which i usually don,t do) I had it put togeter in about 1/2 hr. Box was missing a banding strap and had a couple of perforation to the box.
Glad I sharpened them up. Not sure, as im kinda new at doing mortise with a machine. Not to bad for free delivery. A inch on each side, I must say, it took more leverage than i thought, but worked fine. But, your not gonna see the inside of the mortise.
Having a sore thumb, I used a quick clamp to hold the work tight to the fence, the Delta hold down worked for retracting the drill n mortise chisel.with a lil tug. I took other peoples advice n took the time to bolt it to my work bench. I did take the time to sharpen the 3/8" mortiser before use. Just a thought.
Received my Delta 14-651 Mortiser on Saturday, 4-17.ordered it on 4-11-09. I pleased the way the Delta cut the holes, beat a hand chisel in my estimation. Got 20 more holes to do in this project alone. I can see where I might be using the extension.was wondering; if after its installed, can I just leave it on all the time. It came with a handle for the cones, but after awhile, I chucked it in the drill. So, im glad I bought the Delta Mortiser, seems up to the job. But the machine inside was fine.
Free shipping helped too. Got a cone sharpener from Rockler. Finished the outside of the mortise with a 800 grit wet stone. Being used on my bench table, I,ll have to wrestle it to a storage spot, try making a table on wheels for it. Shipping and use of the mortiser has been a smooth deal so far.
That takes more grinding and filing to correct. This is an example where pretty good engineering is erased by lousy quality control. Now you get to actually use the machine - only to find that the chisel and bit don't line up with each other and neither is square to the fence. The machine work is extremely rough and the table and fence took hours of grinding and filing to get them half way smooth. Once the parts are smooth enough to be assembled, you realize that the fence isn't square to the table. Shimming the column square to the table and then shimming the motor to get the chisel and bit in alignment finally yield a useable machine.This wouldn't be a bad machine if there was some quality control in the machining and assembly processes but unfortunately there isn't. My mortiser finally works OK but I really wish I'd bought a General or Powermatic.
I too was one of the lucky ones that received this mortising machine "undamaged". I could never hold Amazon or the freight service responsible for this. The only real complaint I have with Delta is that it seems they make a great product, but then they short on the packaging.
Heavy duty (and I mean heavy, weighs almost 80 lbs). When I opened the box, the styrofoam was pretty much all disintegrated into little BB's. Haven't had a chance to use it yet, but it appears to be a very high quality machine.
It was a miracle that my mortiser survived the shipment at all. Mostly cast iron and solid steel. It probably took me longer than most to assemble it (2 hours) because I spent a great deal of time cleaning it up during assembly and removing all the cosmoline that Delta had put on it.
Something this heavy should probably be packaged using another method. No matter what freight service is used, the possibility of damage is high due to the method of packaging.
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