I got a mortising machine and the first time I used it, it didn’t work well. Should I return it? —Doug
The machine is probably fine. You most likely need to sharpen and tune your bits, hollow chisels, and the machine itself to get the best out of it.
More than a few times I’ve spoken to people who have wanted to avoid learning how to deal with hand tools, and buy these mortising machines to avoid learning how to set up and sharpen chisels. They find out soon enough that it takes some understanding to tune and sharpen and tune their tooling and machine.