Shaper Questions (long) - Speed, Tilt, Sliding, Tooling, etc...?

[Scot Ferraro]

I have started looking at Shapers and I have some questions for the collective wisdom here. I would like to hear about recommendations on features to look for and things that are the most important to consider based on real-world experiences (I know, a Power Feeder is an absolute must and I will certainly include this in my purchase). This is a great group of experienced folks and I very much appreciate your comments and feedback in advance.

A little about my needs and uses: I currently have a Milwaukee 3HP router in my router-table and I have used it for years. I seemed to have pushed its limits with my recent kitchen remodel and the power and functionality of a shaper is very appealing. My projects range from furniture to cabinets and I eventually want to make interior and exterior doors so I think a shaper fits nicely with my current and future needs. I am not really trying to stick to one price and would rather spend what it takes to make this a one-time purchase (I hate upgrading -- been there, done that). That said, I am also not one to want to spend extra money just because...if I spend more for a feature I never use or need rarely then that is money wasted and I would prefer not too.

1. Why do some shapers only have two speeds whereas others have four and five speeds? I know the purpose is to lower the speed for larger cutters, but it seems that 7,000 - 8,000 RPM on the low end and 10,000 - 11,000 RPM on the upper end is the norm for a lot of machines, even some of the bigger industrial units. Do you really need the extra speeds or is this more of a nice-to-have for that special cutter you might use?

2. Regarding tilt, it seems like this is another nice to have feature but not used all that often and with some of the new cutters with the ability to tilt the cutter itself I wonder if this is as useful a feature -- even though the cost of these cutters is pretty expensive, it is still far cheaper to buy a fixed spindle and one of these cutters than one with tilt.

3. How important is a sliding table? I know that SCMI has one that sits on the table for its T130 (I think JR has one of these bad-boys). Do other manufacturers make these as add-on accessories or is it best to spend the extra money initially? Outside of tenons and coping doors, how useful is a sliding table?

4. Is 5 HP adequate for most shaping operations? This seems to be the biggest motor in single phase and a good option without having to mess around with 3 phase, although I am not ruling this out entirely to get the right machine -- again, I would appreciate feedback -- I know that more power is generally always better for shapers, but I am not going to be running this all day, every day in a production setting. I suppose a variable frequency drive would work if I opted for 3-phase, but would need to research this further.

5. What is an acceptable under-nut capacity for most applications using 1 1/4 inch spindles? Also, how about the diameter of the tooling? I see table size openings ranging from 6-7 inches up to 13 inches or 14 inches for the bigger industrial units. Is 7 inches generally large enough to accommodate most tooling or is bigger always better? I suppose that the opening size is in relation to the motor power, speeds, etc... since this is the manufacturers way of preventing too big of tooling.

6. I know Garniga makes top-shelf tooling at top-shelf prices. What other manufacturers make high quality insert tooling that you would recommend? Are most insert knives high speed steel or are there carbide for the profiles? Any advantages to one over the other (outside of price)?

7. Finally, any brands/models of shaper recommended or ones to stay away from? I am going to try and head to the AWFS in July so that I can see them all up close but would appreciate pros and cons based on your experiences too.

Sorry this is long post -- this is probably the most involved purchase I have yet to make and there are so many different options out there that it leads me to more questions.

Thanks again for your input.

Scot

[Peter Quinn]

Wow, you are asking a lot of question! Great. Let me ask you one; what Volume of production are you considering? I think a 5HP heavy duty shaper with a good fence, 4" under the nut, 1 1/4" spindle would handle most light commercial and all hobby needs. If you want to get into LARGE tooling like door or window sets that cope and stick with integral tenons, you will need to step up to a 7-11HP 3PH machine, or if you are going into full size door production on a commercial basis you might want a machine that big as well. For cabinet doors and raised panels, 5HP is fine in most cases.

Tilting spindle? I have never used one. Might be fun to play with, not really a necessity for my work. Got extra money? Then why not?

Sliding table? Lots of people make them. SCMI, Felder, Minimax, Powermatic, Griggio, Paloni, Delta, Laguna, even Grizzly, and the list goes on. For any end grain work this is a better way to work then a miter gauge or a coping sled. So tenons, cabinet doors, passage doors, finger joints, etc. That being said I make passage doors for a living, and I do it on a few 7HP SAC jointer with a good miter gauge. I'm talking 20-40 doors at a clip. Cope all the parts for 40 doors in one session and your hands/wrists get a bit fatigued, but it works. Would I rather use a slider? You betchya. Do i need it? No.

Table opening size? I think 8" would be sufficient for most cutters I have ever spun, 7" would cover 90%. 6" would cover 70%. 11" is a huge very expensive industrial cutter I have yet to use or need. I'd also check that the fence opening is sized to handle the hole in the table. Frankly the fence is one of the most important aspects for me in terms of ease of use and accuracy, so take a good look at that too. A big table opening lets you spin cutters from below the work which some like for raised panels. I spin panel raisers from above the work using a shop made fence, so neither the hole nor the fence makes much difference to me in that case.

Insert tooling? Freeborn makes it, as does Wisconsin Knife Works, Schmidt, Freud, Amana, and others. Garniga stuff sure looks nice too. Most insert profile knives I have used have been HSS, most joinery tooling has been carbide.

Speeds? You said it, big cutters, slower speeds. 7000RPMs is good for around 6"? You can also change the feed rate with a power feeder to balance the equation, ie feed a bit faster with a bit bigger cutter. I have never needed less than 5000RPMs though the shaper at work goes as slow as 3000RPM's. I have seen some smaller shapers with fairly slow speeds that baffle me, speeds that would only be necessary for cutters bigger than they are capable of spinning effectively. I'm not an expert of spindle speed relative to cutter size, but its not that critical until you get into an industrial situation where tooling costs are massive.

[Jamie Smith]

While I don't have a shaper, I have been doing some light research on them myself, so take this for what it is worth.

I wondered some of the same things that you did-- I couldn't help but think that a tilt would be nice, and that the only thing that would make sense in this regard to me is the way that the felder tilts (backwards).

Don't forget to take into account the added advantage of using a feeder with the shaper.

With regards to speeds, peter talked about that, so I have nothing to really add there-- but I do know that the felder 700 series has interchangeable spindles, not sure about the other brands.

[Jay Brewer]

Peter pretty much covered it for you. I have four shapers ranging from a used $500 Jet up to a loaded Felder F700. They all serve the purpose I bought them for. I dont find a tilting spindle very useful. I have tilted mine once to cut the backs of crown moulding, but could have easily done it on the saw. I also dont use the sliding table very much. I really dont see the need unless your working with long or heavy stock or making large tenons. It is much easier to use sleds or devices that follow the fence instead of spending time setting the fence exactly parallel with the sliding table.

As far as tooling, I have slowly switched out my most used cutters to Freeborn insert tooling, the stuff is wonderful and expensive.

I think a solid 5 hp shaper with a 1 1/4" spindle will do 95% of anything you could throw at it. With the right tooling, feeder and bought or built sleds, I think you will be more than happy.

[Karl Brogger]

1. Big diameter cutter need to use a slower rpm. The speed at the tip get to be rediculous otherwise.

2. The only thing that I've really seen that I thought was practical for tilting was for raised panel cutters. Just because of the tip speeds again. I'm sure there is some niche needs for it, but I certainly don't have the need.

3. I'm not a fan. I just don't see the point. There are some really good pnuematic coping sleds/clamps out there that are far cheaper, and work really well.

4. For general cabinet shop duties, 5hp is plenty. Honestly for just about anything you want to run through a shaper 5hp is going to be plenty. If you need more than that you should be running a moulder. Alot of cabinet shops around here use a moulder for things that many would consider shaper duties. Stick+rail cuts are a common one.

5. Honestly I have no clue. I think my tallest cutter is 3-1/2" tall. I bought it for back cutting base & casing. Its loud and scary.:o If you're going to run mouldings through it then take a wag at what your widest profile would ever be and that'll give you a good idea.

6. Someone already mentioned Freeborn. I use mostly LRH stuff. Seems to be good quality stuff. Stays sharp. I would recomend buying insert tooling whenever you can afford it. Its cheaper in the long run, changing profiles is easy and most sets of knives for insert heads are around $30-$50 a set. VS spending $XXX.XX on another set of heads for different profiles. LRH doesn't have a stick & cope set that'll do shaker style and the profiles though, which kinda sucks. Most in the smaller heads are carbide that I've used, in the bigger heads steel seems to be more common.

7. I know I'll catch flak for this, but stay away from anything Grizzly. They're supposed to be better now days, but I wouldn't risk it.
If you want something used old Delta/Rockwell shapers are good units. Stay away from Powermatic 26 shapers. The drive belt is freakishly small, I don't know for certain they're all this way.
If you can afford to drop the cash Northfield stuff is awesome, but I can't afford it.
Not a fan of newer Delta stuff either.
Powermatic 27 shapers are a nice bang for the buck, but I think the quality has slipped in the past few years.
Whatever the new Powermatic shaper is, I don't know. People seem to like it, I see a dumbed down 27 with widgets. Although a digital height gauge would be nice.

I have three shapers. 1-5hp 27 with a big table, 1- 5hp 27 with the smaller table set up for coping, 1- 2hp Rockwell that I got cheap and use for notching out the bottom of drawers for Tandem slides.
Realistically I hope to have about 10 shapers. Having seperate left and right copers is the way to go, plus not having to change all the profiles from job to job saves alot of time. You need to have one that isn't dedicated to anything, set it up for those odd-ball scenarios so you don't have to mess with the settings on any of the others.

[J.R. Rutter]

An add-on sliding carriage would not be too hard to fabricate from Thompson linear bearings or something similar. I got by for many years with some solid coping sleds with toggle clamps. The bolt-on cast iron version that I use for coping now is great and like an integrated slider, it controls (prevents) tilt on long pieces as well as angle and stroke.

I also run panel cutters above the table to control edge thickness, so usually table size isn't an issue. One thing to look at though, is how much space is under the table at the spindle. Being able to stack cutters and crank the bottom one down below the table is quite helpful. The less you change cutters, the longer the spindle and cutter bores will stay tight. I would try for at least 4" spindle capacity to allow for a bearing and big spiral flush cutter. These are great for cleaning up table legs, etc.

Tilt might be handy, I don't have any experience. Several tooling companies make variable angle straight cutters. The Garniga looks particularly nice.

Insert tooling is great. You can get a universal head for thin knife carbide that uses custom ground steel backers to match the profile. Corrugated steel heads are the original insert type tool, I guess. You can get a lot of mileage out of steel, but it will need sharpened at some point. Local moulder shops can sometimes grind knives for you based on a template that you supply. I have CGG Schmidt head and had them do knives and templates for me.

I asked Freeborn about the raised panel insert heads that I have and they gave a max RPM of 8,000. My biggest cutter is 180 mm, max RPM is 6,000.

I have enjoyed the Italian shapers that I have had. When I sold my older (early/mid 90s) T130, I checked the spindle runout and it was 0.0005". Better shapers use high quality steel for spindles.

[David DeCristoforo]

Most of the "nuts and bolts" stuff has been covered. I would like to add that there is a relationship between spindle size, cutter mass, cutter diameter and horsepower. Common sense rules here! A large cutter running on a 3/4" spindle with 5-7 HP behind it can put you well into the danger zone.

Generally:
More power - Gooood!
Sliding table - Gooood!
Tilting spindle - Good but not necessary.
Interchangeable spindles - A must.
Power Feeder - Joy

Also, look at the difference between a Felder or SCMI spindle and one from a machine like the smaller Deltas, Generals, etc. The Spindles on my Felder are massive:

http://www.felderusa.com/us-us/products/shapers/f-900-power-drive.html

Yes, that whole thing you see with the step pulleys and bearings? That's the spindle! Compare that with this:

http://www.toolmarts.com/del_43-811.html

to get an idea of what some extra dough buys.

[Scot Ferraro]

Thanks for the replies so far -- some great information and more stuff to consider. I am not going to be running anything in a production setting so it sounds like the 5 HP is going to be fine as far as power. I agree with what everyone else has said about quality spindles and the fence adjustments -- more $$, but worth it. Maybe a good used unit is the way to go -- there seem to be a lot of good deals out there and I am not in a rush. I really appreciate hearing real-world advice that cuts through some of the marketing hype. Thanks for your help!

Scot

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I'll toss out a rookie thought. I have a tilting Felder, and I actually use the feature fairly often. The most common use is to make a profile just a little different, without buying a dedicated cutter. For instance, I wanted a specific width of molding around the base of a recent dresser. I had a cutter that had a good profile, but didn't cover the width I wanted. Tilting the spindle stretched the profile perfectly. With my limited cutter selection, it worked.

One other thought, I use a 30mm spindle often. Seems to me that deals are there to be had on the metric tooling. 30mm is really easy on a swapable spindle machine.

[Jeff Duncan]

Most everything has been covered but I'll just add a thought on the tilting spindle. If your going to go this route make sure your buying a really good quality machine. You want to make sure when you crank back to zero degrees it hits a perfect 90 every time. I've got an Asian industrial tilt that takes a bit of fussing to make sure it hits its mark dead on. Not worth the headaches so I rarely use it. But while we're on the subject you'll find many of the high end shapers on the used market have the tilt feature, so it is fairly popular.
good luck,
JeffD

PS I don't want to bash anyones machines, but I found the Delta 3 hp machines to be too light duty in my opinion. The 27 is a good bit heavier though, and I would consider it a good entry level machine. It sounds like you want a good machine with less emphasis on price, so don't waste money on anything smaller.

[Frank Drew]

Scot,

Within reason, more is often better when it comes to machinery, but real world concerns such as available space and budget have to be considered.

For what it's worth, I used a Powermatic model 26 (3hp?) with 1/2", 3/4" and 1" spindles and no power feeder for quite a number of years in my custom furniture shop. I certainly wasn't doing production, but did run raised panels, crown molding, etc. More machine would have been nice, but I got by with that one and was satisfied with the work it turned out.

[J.R. Rutter]

I had #26 and #27 Powermatics and likewise turned out a lot of work on them.

A couple of years ago, I got an eBay fixer upper SCMI T130. While I had the Spindle pulled to replace the bearings, I took a photo. When I did the same for my Powermatic, I took another spindle shot. I resized both pics to the same scale and combined them to give another comparison of spindles, FWIW.

If I were buying a high end shaper for home use, I would be looking hard at Felder. David - how fast is the spindle change?

[Scot Ferraro]

Hi JR,

Wow -- that is an amazing difference in spindle size! That drives the point home from David's comment -- thanks for posting. There are two used T130's in my area I might look at -- do you know if the older ones have the coping table available or was this a recent change with the newer models?

Scot

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I had #26 and #27 Powermatics and likewise turned out a lot of work on them.

A couple of years ago, I got an eBay fixer upper SCMI T130. While I had the Spindle pulled to replace the bearings, I took a photo. When I did the same for my Powermatic, I took another spindle shot. I resized both pics to the same scale and combined them to give another comparison of spindles, FWIW.

If I were buying a high end shaper for home use, I would be looking hard at Felder. David - how fast is the spindle change?

JR, I know you asked David, but on mine it takes probably two minutes. Slide the table back, slide the cover back, release the quick relase lever for the belt tension, then back off the two clamp handles that hold the bearings. Lift it out, and reverse the order for the next spindle. Pretty neat system.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

If I were in the market for a shaper I'd be looking long and hard at Grizzly and their Five Horsepower single phase option on their sliding table model.

What's is a shaper? A spindle that turns round on heavy bearings sticking up out of a table.
How stupid does a manufacturing facility and engineering team have to be to screw that up? Make the spindle square to the table, use good and big bearings, and make the motor strong and use heavy fasteners.
The things are so simple that they really ought to sell for peanuts.

[J.R. Rutter]

What's is a shaper? A spindle that turns round on heavy bearings sticking up out of a table.
How stupid does a manufacturing facility and engineering team have to be to screw that up? Make the spindle square to the table, use good and big bearings, and make the motor strong and use heavy fasteners.
The things are so simple that they really ought to sell for peanuts.

It's not the engineers, it's the accountants! Suddenly or gradually, the spindle and fastener steel quality drops, the bearing size and quality drop, the fit and finish is rushed, tolerances loosen etc, etc. Same for fence and electrical systems. Same for cutters.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...on mine it takes probably two minutes..."

Pretty much what it takes. It's a very easy swap. The "only thing" is that if you have a cutter on the spindle, the whole thing can be pretty heavy and awkward to handle.

[J.R. Rutter]

Hi JR,

Wow -- that is an amazing difference in spindle size! That drives the point home from David's comment -- thanks for posting. There are two used T130's in my area I might look at -- do you know if the older ones have the coping table available or was this a recent change with the newer models?

Scot

I have only seen the coping sled included on the newer ones. I remember looking at the SCM parts site (partspronto.com) and seeing that they new accessory was very expensive. A Jessem sliding setup might be a good alternative. I looked at them for one of my setups and it looked like you could mount it directly to the table top. If done precisely it could be removed and replaced accurately, or it could mount to the front in place of an extension wing...

[Jeff Duncan]

Most traditional woodworking machines are very simple in principle, jointers, planers, tablesaws etc are very basic machines. But if you've played with machines made by different manufacturers you know there's a huge difference between many of the Asian copies and some of the better quality American and European machinery.
I firmly believe you get what you pay for, especially having owned several of of those Asian copies. I'll take a 15 year old SCM shaper over any new Asian copy any day of the week, but that's just my personal preference. Precision costs money, quality materials cost money, quality electronics cost money. Quality costs money, it's about as simple as that. I learned the hard way, as many others have, buying cheap, new, shiny machines. Then having to buy again.....but now I know better:D
JeffD

[Peter Quinn]

If I were in the market for a shaper I'd be looking long and hard at Grizzly and their Five Horsepower single phase option on their sliding table model.

What's is a shaper? A spindle that turns round on heavy bearings sticking up out of a table.
How stupid does a manufacturing facility and engineering team have to be to screw that up? Make the spindle square to the table, use good and big bearings, and make the motor strong and use heavy fasteners.
The things are so simple that they really ought to sell for peanuts.

You're kidding, right?