Power feeders are awsome!

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I just spent the last hour sizing drawer stock for a large project, and I am in for a quick break. By my rough calculations, the Felder saw and feeder just ran through 600 feet of cut, about 16" at a time. Yow! There is no way that I could have just run that quantity of product in that amount of time without a feeder! Usually a tool that gives you more capacity cost you in quality of output, or lots of cash, but power feeders seem to be an exception to the rule. Not ridiculously expensive, and actually increase both quality AND quantity.

I got to thinking, what other novel ways are there to use these things? I use mine to joint, saw and shape, what else are you guys doing with power feeders?

[David DeCristoforo]

Just wait until you use it on your shaper!

[J.R. Rutter]

I got to thinking, what other novel ways are there to use these things? I use mine to joint, saw and shape, what else are you guys doing with power feeders?

I have one set up on an edge sander for sanding/light dimensioning. I've put one on a spindle profile sander in the past.

They are almost as good (and sometimes better than) an employee...

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Just wait until you use it on your shaper!

Oh yea, it really shines there. It's amazing what you gain in accuracy. Every pass is identical. Every time.

[Tom Hintz]

I recently did some feeder reviews and wound up installing one permanently on my shaper because I was just as amazed as you with how well it works. The fact that it keeps me far from the major cutters on a shaper is good enough really. However, the smoothness of the cut you get from that stability and consistent movement is something you have to see to believe.
I've had to escort people from my shop when they start coveting my feeder.......

[Rod Sheridan]

Yes, I use mine whenever possible.

The increase in safety, work speed and accuracy is hard to believe until you've used one.

Regards, Rod.

[James White]

How does it speed up the work on a table saw? I would think that you can feed a board through just as fast as the feeder can.

I have a feeder that I have not set up yet. I just don't have enough work for it at the moment. I am not sure how I should mount it actually. Do you build a separate stand for it? I imagine it is too heavy to mount on an extension wing.

James

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi James, it speeds up work in two ways.

1) It can work continuously feeding sheet goods or other heavy material. A person cannot do that.

2) For small pieces, it allows you to put a piece under the feeder, grab the next piece to feed in. No down time.

The feeder takes the donkey work (pushing) out of the workers job.

Regards, Rod.

[John Thompson]

I will add to what Rod said, James. I do some for hire prepping of local's air dryed stock from time to time to make a little tool cash on the side. When I do I generally take in from 1000 to 4000 linear feet I have to rip in a one man show. That stock ranges from 8'-14' going on my TS to handle alone. I have a pretty good system but when ripping those lenghts you better have a good system as a slip-up in pressure to fence.. etc. can initiaate a kick-back pronto.

I don't have a feed but... I really need one and if I did these task more often I would. It is much faster.. it applies the same constant pressure and it is "much safer". If you have a SS you can avoid being cut but... a SS really cannot prevent kick-back which can also injure you. But... a power feeder avoids getting cut on a spinning blade.. it narrows the chance of kick-back and pretty much takes the risk of injury from kick-back out of the picture as you are not in a position with hands and body when using the feeder to get injured from it.

Sarge..

[Rod Sheridan]

Wow John, you sure are a bear for work.

I'm just a wimpy little guy so letting the feeder do the hard work appeals to me.

The other issue is tool life, which a feeder can greatly extend.

When setting up equipment we calculated the feed rate for material based upon cutter chip loads as supplied by the tooling designer, then varied them a bit for best results with the wood we were using.

If you run those calculations, you often find that for some material you're needing a feed rate in excess of 50 feet per minute. That's very hard for an operator to do for hours on end.

So the operator feeds slower, and the cutters wear out faster.

So feed it faster, extend cutter length, profits up on both ends of the equation.

Regards, Rod.

[Larry Fox]

How narrow of a rip can you make with one. I just scored one in a CL posting and am planning on using it on the TS. How are they typically mounted? Holes drilled into table top? Mounted in outfeed table?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I have one set up on an edge sander for sanding/light dimensioning. I've put one on a spindle profile sander in the past.

They are almost as good (and sometimes better than) an employee...

Thats clever JR!

[Steve Rozmiarek]

How does it speed up the work on a table saw? I would think that you can feed a board through just as fast as the feeder can.

I have a feeder that I have not set up yet. I just don't have enough work for it at the moment. I am not sure how I should mount it actually. Do you build a separate stand for it? I imagine it is too heavy to mount on an extension wing.

James

Rod answered that question well. Think about your work flow when you are using a planer, same applies to a power fed tablesaw.

All the sucessful mounting appraoches that I've seen have been on the cast iron. My saw is a big combo machine, and the feeder mounts on a folding base that is behind and to the right of the blade. It is here so that it can reach all of the other functions of the combo. I'd think that for ripping on a normal saw, it would make sense to drill and tap the left extension for the feeder to mount too. The feeder just needs to be able to get between the fence and the blade, so you could actually rip with the fence on the left side of the blade if it makes the setup easier.

Others have FAR more experiance with these, so I'll certainly defer to them on that issue though.

Larry, as for stock width, probably the width of the rollers is a rough estimate of minimum width. You could get creative I'd think, maybe a really low auxillary fence that the feeder can ride over and just contact the work? Seems like it ought to work, and you should be able to get pretty skinny.

Thats why I asked the question. It seems to me that feeders have a really wide range of possibilities, and I was curious how others use them.

[Steve Clardy]

How narrow of a rip can you make with one. I just scored one in a CL posting and am planning on using it on the TS. How are they typically mounted? Holes drilled into table top? Mounted in outfeed table?

I used to power rip thousands of linear feet of pine in 3/4" widths.

Hafta watch out where you position the feeder wheels, blade height

[Rick Fisher]

The other big advantage is safety. Especially when working with small stock.
I just finished running a bunch of 1 x 2 x 12" long stips through my shaper the other day, I just stood there and fed them in..