Can a shaper be a biscuit cutter?

[Pete Bradley]

I have some window casings to glue up and I'm thinking of putting them together with biscuits, except that I don't own a biscuit joiner. Ordinarily this would be an excellent excuse for a new tool. :D

I'm wondering though if I could use my Delta HD shaper. I know there are router bits made for biscuits but they look to be a smaller diameter that would take some fancy jig construction to get right radius for a biscuit. I was thinking about a fence for the cutter depth and another to hold the workpiece at the appropriate angle.

Has anyone run a biscuit cutter in a shaper? Do you know what brands would fit? I have 1/2" and 3/4" spindles.

Pete

[Mike Henderson]

I forget how thick biscuits are but you could use a large slot cutter to cut the slots for a biscuit. I think the blades on a plate joiner is 2" radius so you'd need a 4" slot cutter of the proper thickness to get the right depth and width. You'd also need to make sure the cutting depth is correct. Many shapers have large spindles so you might not get the correct depth of cut with a 4" cutter.

But plate joiners are not that expensive. There's always someone getting rid of one when they find they don't use it enough. Might be easier than trying to use a shaper. And it'd be portable.

Mike

[David DeCristoforo]

Possible but maybe not too practical. Standard blades are 4" diameter with a 22mm bore. I believe the PC machine uses a 7/8" bore. The kerf is "somewhere between" 1/8" and 3/16" so you are not likely to find a "standard" shaper cutter that will the cut slot without modification. You can get "split" shaper cutters that can be shimmed but one of those would probably cost as much as a biscuit joiner and you might have trouble finding the correct diameter cutter (4"). You could have a biscuit cutter blade bored out (or bushed) to fit your shaper spindle but then you would need to construct a jig to safely hold your stock when you plunge it into the blade. I'm not one to squelch anyone's creative impulses but I'm thinking that this might be one of those situations in which it would make sense to just buy the tool...

[Josiah Bartlett]

His Normness did a cabinet project where the carcase had a slot cut in it to receive biscuits and he used a biscuit joiner to put the slots in the face frame. You don't really need to worry about making the slots a little wide, it won't affect strength. Biscuits are really best for alignment during glueup.

I would think a replacement biscuit cutter blade with the appropriate bushing would work fine on a shaper. Its basically just a saw blade. The one for the Harbor Freight joiner has a 5/8" arbor, I believe. A 5/8 to 1/2" spindle bushing should fix you right up.

[Rod Sheridan]

If you are really interested I'll take a look at my cutter tonight, and post the part #/manufacturer.

I did purchase a six wing grooving cutter for my shaper, however I can't remember if I purchased a 5/32" or 4mm cutter for use with biscuits.

It's large enough in diameter that it doesn't require you to slide the workpiece along, like a router slotting cutter would.

I don't use it very often due to my type of work methods, however I bought it so that I wouldn't have to purchase a biscuit joiner.

I had tried a couple of different makes, however the only one that I found that was accurate and precise was my FIL's lamello machine, and I wasn't going to spend that much money for a once a year machine.

The shaper provides perfect indexing up from the table of course, so when I use it, my work pieces actually line up.

regards, Rod.

[Pete Bradley]

Rod,

Please let me know what cutter you're using. It looks like a 5/32 or 4 mm cutter would be the right thickness, and at least the P-C machine uses a 4" diameter cutter for all biscuits except FF.

Pete

[Paul Johnstone]

I have some window casings to glue up

Pete, how tall are the windows. I am retrimming my windows now. Anyhow, some of them are about 6 feet tall. I think that would be pretty difficult to hold the piece of casing and accurately make the slot.
There's not a lot of room on a piece of casing (in contrast, using a shaper/router table for biscuit slots for a glue up on a panel would be more forgiving).

Biscuit cutters have a mark on them which allows you to line up a pencil mark (or a groove on the molding, that's what I do).. This assures that your slots on your miter joint line up..

In short, I think this is idea is possible, but would be very difficult and frustrating. You'd probably ruin some casing in the process (I would :) )
Get a real biscuit cutter, preferably the porter cable.. the FF biscuits (smaller size) work great on narrow casing and other stuff too.

[Pete Bradley]

The long legs are about 5.5 feet long. If I have a big cast iron table and rotation oriented to push the piece against the fence, I would think I could feed the casing along the fence into the cutter with a great deal of accuracy. The only other requirement is a stop to set depth. What am I missing?

Pete

[Rod Sheridan]

Pete, does this mean you are cutting a groove along the long dimension of the wood?

Regards, Rod.

P.S. This is an Amana cutter in 4mm

http://www.amanatool.com/shaper/61451.html

[Paul Johnstone]

The long legs are about 5.5 feet long. If I have a big cast iron table and rotation oriented to push the piece against the fence, I would think I could feed the casing along the fence into the cutter with a great deal of accuracy. The only other requirement is a stop to set depth. What am I missing?

Pete

I'm not sure you'd want to cut a groove along the entire mitre. If you did that, you'd see the groove guts where the cutter entered and existed. Also, you'd get a lot of slop laterally when biscuiting up the pieces.
Lastly, some pieces of casing are pretty thin on the inner surface. On the casing I'm using, there's only enough room for an FF biscuit on the outside thicker part of the casing.. the rest would blow out.

Oh, since I'm spending your money, be sure to buy four of these to glue up your casings (Clam Clamps).. they work awesome and are well worth buying. http://www.miterclamp.com/

[Pete Bradley]

I'm not proposing to slot the long edge or to cut along the entire miter. The goal is to use a biscuit cutter to create a biscuit-shaped recess.

I don't have the ability to upload a picture, but envision the trim fed end-on into a CCW cutter with a fence on the right to guide it, and the angle of the miter facing right. Think of a depth stop to the left and behind the cutter. The fence keeps the workpiece from being pushed sideways by the cutter and the stop controls depth of cut. Moving the fence left or right locates the biscuit slot. The only risk (that I can see) is keeping the tail of the workpiece against the fence to insure the cutter doesn't grab.

Rod, thanks for the link, but those insert cutters are almost as expensive as a joiner and they're 1 1/4" bore. Look nice though.

Pete

[Rod Sheridan]

I'm not proposing to slot the long edge or to cut along the entire miter. The goal is to use a biscuit cutter to create a biscuit-shaped recess.

I don't have the ability to upload a picture, but envision the trim fed end-on into a CCW cutter with a fence on the right to guide it, and the angle of the miter facing right. Think of a depth stop to the left and behind the cutter. The fence keeps the workpiece from being pushed sideways by the cutter and the stop controls depth of cut. Moving the fence left or right locates the biscuit slot. The only risk (that I can see) is keeping the tail of the workpiece against the fence to insure the cutter doesn't grab.

Rod, thanks for the link, but those insert cutters are almost as expensive as a joiner and they're 1 1/4" bore. Look nice though.

Pete

Pete, I think all the cutters of that size will be 1 1/4", you'll have to put a reducing washer in the cutter.

Mine was around $70 Canadian if I remember correctly.

Regards, Rod.

[Paul Greathouse]

Pete

I've had better luck on window and door casing joints with pockethole screws rather than biscuits. The first time I used pocket screws for casing, I was working with some custom cypress trim, which is notorious for joint seperation. It was part of a 3 piece built-up casing, so I wanted to reduce the chance of seperation as much as possible. The joints are still perfectly tight today, approximately 4 years later.

[Paul Johnstone]

I'm not proposing to slot the long edge or to cut along the entire miter. The goal is to use a biscuit cutter to create a biscuit-shaped recess.


Ok.. I misunderstood.

Good luck if you try it. I am a big fan of biscuit cutters (I know not everyone is).. For the relatively little cash you are saving, I think you are better off buying a legitimate cutter.

Personally, I would have trouble making consistent slots on a shaper on casing.. there's just not much room for error. But I know there's people on this forum that are much more skilled than I.

[glenn bradley]

Here's what I do: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=88325

[Rod Sheridan]

Rod,

Please let me know what cutter you're using. It looks like a 5/32 or 4 mm cutter would be the right thickness, and at least the P-C machine uses a 4" diameter cutter for all biscuits except FF.

Pete

Hi Pete, it's a Dimar 707N-125-4.

125mm diameter, 4mm kerf, labled MAN for hand feeding, 6,100 to 10,500 RPM.

Regards, Rod.

P.S. Shown with a #20 biscuit.