makita 7104l mortiser

[shackbuilder]

Hello, anyone have one of these that could tell me the actual length of the clamp rails on their machine. Or does anyone know about the older units having a smaller capacity? I have been looking for a used one for a few months with no luck, or just missing deals on CL, so i went ahead and took a gamble and bought one from a guy in Germany on Ebay. It was a bad decision, first the tilt feature of the tool was totally seized up, finally got it freed up and went to use it, to find out it will not even clamp to my 8x8s. Are these not supposed to clamp onto 12" timbers.  Thanks for any info anyone has for me.

[Jim_Rogers]

Here are two pictures of mine.

This first picture shows the over all length of the bar is 17"



 

This second picture shows how big a timber will fit in between the clamp jaws:



 

I hope that helps.

If your bars are not 17" long then you may need to replace them.

Jim Rogers

[shackbuilder]

yep, my bars are only like 12 1/2", ever heard of this on the older models?  think i could have them made locally any cheaper than ordering new makita parts?

[shackbuilder]

Easier to find than I thought, can get them from amazon for $35 for both, not that bad i guess.

[Phil H.]

shackbuilder,

I have the older model like yours, and sounds like I got mine from the same place (on ebay from a guy in Germany).  I was lucky I guess, because there weren't any big issues. But yeah, it only clamps to a maximum of 6 1/2". I made a jig so I could use the mortiser on larger timbers.  But I sacrifice 2" of mortise depth with the jig.  Would be great to replace the rails. I couldn't find them on Amazon.  Can you post a link to the item?