Power feeder

[Rob Carlson]

I want to purchase a feeder for my 3hp shaper.I would be useing mostly
for sticking ,panel raising and the occasional small moulding run (8ft or less).I need to decide between a .5hp with slowest speed at 9.5 fpm
and a 1hp at 13fpm .I am concerned 13fpm will be to fast causing tear
out ( I use mostly cherry some maple)and that the shaper may not
keep up with the feed rate . My concern for the .5hp feeder is the
power transfer.My cutters are 2.625 diamiter for stiles 10k rpm and
panel raisers 4.625 same rpm both on 3/4 spindles.Thank you in advance.

[Peter Quinn]

I have a 3HP shaper with a 1HP feeder from Grizzly. I found the slowest speed a bit too fast, so I bought a gear set from Comatic (the manufacturer of most power feeders not made in Italy) that gives me a slower set of speeds to choose from. I think it will go as slow as 6.5F/minute? It produces flawless sticking cuts with the little shaper. My problem was not tear out, but chatter, and that went away with the lower speed range.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Rob, the feed speed will mostly be dependent upon your required chip size and number of knives on the cutter.

For example a 3 wing cutter with a 0.010" chip thickness at 8,000 rpm will yield a feed speed of 0.01 X 3 X 8,000 = 240"/minute or 20 feet per minute.

The tool manufacturer will be able to give you a recommended chip thickness for different materials, which is a great starting point.

Then calculate the required spindle speed to keep your tool speeds in the 10,000 to 15,000 feet/minute range depending upon tool material.

Once you have your chip thickness and spindle speed, and number of knives, then you can select your starting feed rate.

I have a Felder HC-308 feeder with speeds of 2.9/4.5/7.5 and 11.5 m/minute. It works very well with 2 or 3 knife cutters in solid wood, as it has a good range of speeds.

Before selecting a feeder, do the calculations on your tooling and spindle speeds to see what speeds you need.

Regards, Rod.

[Mike Heidrick]

Peter, did you call comatic to get that gear set?

I just used my feeder on the Laguna shaper. I actually had it on the fast gearing setup but using the lowest speed. It cut pefectly using a LRH door lip cutter - 3 wing. I have since slowed it down.

[Peter Quinn]

Peter, did you call comatic to get that gear set?

I just used my feeder on the Laguna shaper. I actually had it on the fast gearing setup but using the lowest speed. It cut perfectly using a LRH door lip cutter - 3 wing. I have since slowed it down.

I found the gear set on the comatic web site and called a comatic dealer in Pennsylvania called Hamilton Tool and Supply (http://www.toolsupermarket.com/). I found them in a web search, their site is pretty limited so I called the number and got the owner on the phone! He actually answered the phone! I gave them the part numbers from comatic web site, asked them to look into whether they would work on my Grizzly feeder or not, and they called back quickly with an answer of yes.

The problem I was having was using 1 1/4" cutters bushed up for a 3/4" spindle on a 3HP shaper. Even at the slowest standard setting on the power feed I was getting a bit of chatter using an amana profile pro set (2 wing insert head) using the cope and stick set for passage doors. I think there was a bit of deflection happening. Slowing down the feed speed with the lower gear set eliminated the problem. It is a VERY slow feed rate, and I am asking a lot of that little shaper.

I'd hope this work around is unnecessary with that Laguna using a three wing head on the proper size spindle. The only time I use a similarly slow feed rate is at work when I have to spin a large molding head using two wing corrugated back knives in a little PM27. Its an 1 1/4" 5HP shaper but the old PM27 isn't really built to take out that much material in one pass. We have mostly 8 speed Steff feeders that have the low speed built in, and it can require using that speed on a smaller shaper with a profile in the 2"+ range. Normally I run the fastest feed rate that will do the work effectively.

[Rob Carlson]

Thank you all for the informative replies. It seems as though the .5hp
feeder has apx. same feed rate as Rods felder feeder 9.5fpm.Do you
think it has enough power to push a stick through a out board fence
takeing of between 1/16 and 1/8 of material with a 3wing cutter?
Thanks, Rob

[Rod Sheridan]

Rob, a .5HP feeder will certainly be OK for the work you've described.

As I'm sure you know, the mounting of the feeder must be very secure, as it has a lot of force on it.

Drilling and tapping the shaper top will probably be you best bet........Rod.

[J.R. Rutter]

Plenty of power - I used to use that 1/2 HP Grizzly commercially. The biggest advantage to a 1 HP feeder is the extra mass and rigidity, but this is more important with a bigger shaper and bigger cuts.