I’ve tried a few drill press mortise attachments and was not impressed at all. Drill presses are not designed to exert the proper amount of down force, have tables that are too small and high, and they’re too top heavy to be reefing on the handle.
I currently have a Powermatic stand-up mortiser. It is fantastic for repetitive mortising, as well as large mortises such as you might find on entry doors. Be advised that you need to do an awful lot of mortises to make the machine worth having. I love having mine and won’t part with it.
Before the PM, I used my plunge router and Tage Frid (the one that looks like a miter box) or shop-made base jig, or a bradpoint bit, drill press, and hand chisel. I’ve used benchtop machines in schools and prefer the plunger and jig or drill press and hand tools. The benchtop machines that I used were OK, and better than drill press attachments, but in my eyes, not better than the other methods.
If you see yourself as making lots of chairs or odd shaped furniture, a Domino might serve you well.
The cat’s ass of mortising flexibility and repeatability has to be the Multi-Router, but bring $$$! <g>
For typical hobby furniture making, a drill press, brad point bits, hand chisel, or plunge router work really well at little extra cost and time. A support block can be easily made to keep the chisel square to the face, and the slower stock removal of the hand tool allows sneaking up on a fit. Alternatively, you can fine tune the tenon to fit plunge routed mortises.
I bought my big machine to do a custom run of entry doors. If I hadn’t done that job, I’d still be happy with my previous methods. There is no way the big machine earns it’s keep at hobby volumes.
Have fun!
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