I picked up the Steel City Mortiser about 2 weeks ago from Woodcraft at the Woodworks Show in Springfield, MA. With the $50 rebate and only 5% tax it came out to about $230 for the mortiser with 4 chisels. The packaging was exceptional, you just have to be careful opening the crate so that you dont slice the manual in half.
The first fence that was included with the mortiser had some corrosion and overspray, but SCTW responded within a few hours of my first email and sent out a new one. Great communications, hopefully as the company gets larger they will keep the great communications and customer service up.
Some of the great features of this mortiser include the horizontal feed rollers, the extension supports, and the easy access to the chuck to install the bit. The horizontal feed rollers work very nice for holding the workpiece to the fence and also do a pretty good job keeping the workpiece down to the table. The extension supports are a nice design. The giant opening in the front of the casting allows very good access to the chuck for installing the bit. The plastic door knob is a little hard to use, it has a washer on it that tends to fall back and get stuck meaning you have to pull it back out in order to close the clear plastic doors, I finally got fed up with it and just superglued the plastic washer to the knob. The fence ratchet movement is very smooth, and the locking mechanism works very well.
The mortiser has good power, it cut 1/2" mortises in Hard Maple with no problem. The chisels were sharp right out of the box, I plan to get one of those sharpening cone dealies at some point to see how much better it makes the chisels work, but it already works quite well.
After getting this I don't know how I got away without a mortiser for so long. This tool has really increased my productivity.
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