The Framers Forum

I have an Alfa underpinner with a fixed fence for joining mouldings. It is fixed at 90 degrees. When I put two lengths of moulding on it when they are perfectly together there is a small gap indicating that the Morso is cutting fractionally under 90 degrees. Can anyone explain this, and does it mater?
Thank you

Is the small gap on the inside (rebate side) or the outside?

Have a search on the Forum for "left hand fence tweak".

I have similar situation we need to push the moulding together on the underpinner (u400) and to have a good join on the front of the frame we have a small space on the back.....anyone help?

If this underpiner has fixed 90 degree fences and the Morso is correctly set, then you need to check the underpinner fences for a build up of glue on the inside of the fences where the two fence angles come together. I would suggest that you may save yourself a lot of trouble, if you check to see if your problem is caused by a build up of glue, before deciding to fiddle around with the fence angles on the Morso. Find out where the problem is first, before trying to adjust the problem elsewhere! Fixing a problem by trying to adjust something that's nothing to do with the problem does won't solve anything.

In my experience this has more to do with the Morso blades set up than the underpinner. I have three sets of blades and of these I have one set that just sit perfectly on the Morso. Whenever this set is on my cuts are perfect and they join perfectly on my underpinner. I hate it when I have to send them for sharpening as with my other sets I have to mess around with a slight tweak on the left fence otherwise I also have a gap at the rebate end of my mouldings. Having given this some thought I believe it is more to do with the skill of the blade sharpeners than anything else. I actually spend a lot of time (hours sometimes) setting my blades on the Morso to try and get them right. It is worth it though as when my good set are on the machine I just know that my mitres are perfect and all is good with the world.

In my experience anytime I've ever had an issue with cuts/joins and I know that my underpinner & morso are set correctly it's always been the blades. If I have a set of blades that aren't right I just buy a new set, it might sound excessive but it's not worth all the wasted time fiddling about.

In my experience, as the blades start to get dull the cutting action sometimes starts to very slightly push the blades slightly sideways, but it's not always a consistent thing. It seems to happen more on harder wood mouldings. My morso is a bit old in the tooth and the left hand messuring scale has over time gradually developed a 1mm error in the indicated cutting length and generally cuts slightly better on the blade on one side compared to the other. I spoke to Simons about this, who then spoke to the manufacturers of Morso and they said that my morso can only be corrected by fully dismantling and re-assembling to the original assembly procedure.

It seems that this is a fairly rare occurence. To correct this is not a big deal, but it's has not so far been corrected. It does not make enough difference to really matter, so I've never had it corrected. Oddly enough some cuts are are better than others, but there is no obvious reason why. I'm only talking about a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter and with factory finished mouldings, I usually just rub a little paste wax into the slight gap. With bare wood mouldings it's not usually a problem. You usually need pretty good eyesight to stop any gaps and slightly resharpening the blades, makes the problem go away, so it's never been a problem to me.

The very small error on the measuring scale is just ignored, as it does not actully make enough difference to make any real difference. I bought my Morso as secondhard and it had already had a lot of use, before it came to me. There's lots of older Morsos around, which are still in use, but they do still seem to last well and just keep going and mine is no different. If I spent the money on a full service these prolems would soon be corrected. a good friend of mine, who is no longer still alive sat on my morso's left hand extension and slightly bent the extension out of alignment which may well be part of the problem. I will get a new left hand extension one day, but I have no done so thus far!

StevenG wrote: ↑Tue 23 Aug, 2022 7:02 am In my experience anytime I've ever had an issue with cuts/joins and I know that my underpinner & morso are set correctly it's always been the blades. If I have a set of blades that aren't right I just buy a new set, it might sound excessive but it's not worth all the wasted time fiddling about.

How many blades do you have?

I've been framing 10 years and I'm still using the two sets of second hand blades I got with the Morso.

I think that Steven's suggestion about buying a new set of Morso blades makes very good sense and should quite easily tell you whats going on! It does not sould to me like it is going to be the underpinner. Although it is sometimes possible to slightly adjust the fences on the Morso for slightly blunt blades, as the blades become even more blunt, just adjusting the fences no longer works and it's time to have the blades sharpened. When there's not much meat left on the blades, the heat from re-grinding the blade slightly softens the blades and the sometimes don't stay sharp as long during use.

There is some sort of golden rule about when the blades have lost enough material to be not worth re-sharpening. Framing suppliers who re-sharpen blades understand this. Getting your blades sharpened somewhere else, is not always as good as going to a framing supplier who knows all about re-sharpening morso blades only.

pramsay13 wrote: ↑Tue 23 Aug, 2022 8:05 am How many blades do you have?

I've been framing 10 years and I'm still using the two sets of second hand blades I got with the Morso.

At the moment I've got three sets. Any blades that I don't like I get them sharpened and sell on eBay. They usually don't make that much though but it still helps with the cost of the new ones.

I know it might sound excessive but in reality it only costs me about £400 per year (or thereabouts). For my peace of mind I can life with that cost.

At the moment I have two sets which are the original ones that came with the machine when I bought it new in 1984.

I have three sets of blades. At present I only know where one set can be found as I am still sorting out my shop, so I have been re-sharpen the set currently on the morso, when I need to. I'm a bit disappoited that Lion no longer sharpen Morso blades as they did a great job.