Morso without any extensions or scales

[Woodstock]

Hi all, I am an artist who needs to do only occasional framing of my own works. I have been looking at 2nd hand Morso machines. One near to me is available at a very good price, but is a bit neglected and has no extension table or scales. Can the machine be reasonably used in this format for very occasional framing (I recognise it will be slow process and will have limitations that need to be compensated for). Thanks!

 

[wpfay]

The short answer is “yes, but…”
Extensions can be built from wood, and peel & sticks measuring scales are available.
The measuring stops keep the material being cut from moving. You may not be able to cut accurately using hand pressure alone.

 

[David Waldmann]

I mostly agree with Wally. I would not be concerned about loss of accuracy without the stop, The standard extensions only go to about 60" and we are limited to about 96" on our main machine. We do lots of frames larger - just did one that was over 210".

Also, a note about the measuring scale - you will need one that has the lines at a 45°.

 

[Woodstock]

I mostly agree with Wally. I would not be concerned about loss of accuracy without the stop, The standard extensions only go to about 60" and we are limited to about 96" on our main machine. We do lots of frames larger - just did one that was over 210".

Also, a note about the measuring scale - you will need one that has the lines at a 45°.

Thanks David. If you do such a long piece, does that mean you manually (and by eye) nibble away at a scribed 45 degree line on the moulding?

 

[Woodstock]

The short answer is “yes, but…”
Extensions can be built from wood, and peel & sticks measuring scales are available.
The measuring stops keep the material being cut from moving. You may not be able to cut accurately using hand pressure alone.

Thanks Wally!

 

[David Waldmann]

Thanks David. If you do such a long piece, does that mean you manually (and by eye) nibble away at a scribed 45 degree line on the moulding?

We cut the first end, and then use a tape measure, holding it at 1" (or one of very few "Zero not at the end" options - sadly the Bark one is no longer available). and ADDING* an inch... make a mark where you want to cut.

We then put the cutting block all the way in, as if for the final cut. Line up your mark with the "bottom knife", hold the moulding firm and back off to start a normal cut. Usually at the next to last cut we do that again. Then, AT the last cut, do it again. Kinda like measure thrice and cut as many times as you need to

*we once made a $1700 mistake on a single frame (custom walnut job) by forgetting to add back the inch. This, in addition to the fact that it's a righteous pain (you insert where) to do this all the time, and SOMETIMES catch it before it's too late, caused us to spend $10,000 on a Tigerstop measuring system plus probably another $10,000 setting it up and creating the program to use it. It STILL does not eliminate all measuring problems, but it's likely reduced them by over 95%. We still have frames too large for the Tigerstop (it's 10', but has an effective use in our application at about 8-1/2') and the more frequent issue is that we use barcodes generated based on frame profile and frame dimension which then calculates the OD of each piece. The complication comes when there are multiple frames of various profiles and sizes on the same order - you HAVE TO SCAN THE RIGHT BARCODE!!!

 

[David Waldmann]

I guess maybe I should add - you have to bend over the moulding and look "backwards" to see the line and align it with the bottom knife.

 

[Woodstock]

Thanks David!