Mortising

Ahh the old rat/insert jig of choice debate.

I don't own a rat myself, not yet anyway ;-) but I know people who do and
have
seen enough demos of it to realise that your question is bit of an unfair
comparison.

The Rats are far more versatile than a single jig. The number of joints
which can be
produced with the rats is astounding, my favourite is the dovetailed mitre
joint, still
cant get my head around it but it looks superb. However I understand the
learning
curve can be quite steep.

If you only want to do morticising buy a dedicated morticser, however
you'll still
need some method of creating your tennons as the morticer wont, this is
where the
Leigh or Trend M&T jigs come in. If you want a versatile machine capable of
creating many different types of joints, buy a rat.

My tuppence worth...

Cheers

Signal



"Never Enough Money" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Anyone know the pros and cons of the Little Rat, Wood Rat, the Leigh
> FMT, and a mortising machine like the Shop Fox or Delta?
>
> Seems the Leigh FMT is the most vesatile and the dedicated mortise
> machines the cheapest. Right?
>
> Seems the Little Rat and Wood Rat are somewhere in-between. Would love
> to hear from someone whose used them all.....

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Never Enough Money) wrote:

> Anyone know the pros and cons of the Little Rat, Wood Rat, the Leigh
> FMT, and a mortising machine like the Shop Fox or Delta?
>
> Seems the Leigh FMT is the most vesatile and the dedicated mortise
> machines the cheapest. Right?
>
> Seems the Little Rat and Wood Rat are somewhere in-between. Would love
> to hear from someone whose used them all.....

The most recent Fine WoodWorking had a review of several of these.