Finger Joint Shaper Cutter?????

[Carroll Courtney]

Guys have ya'll used one of these cutters before and how did it work out?I look on the net for some and found them from 1/2 wide up to 1 1/2 wide.But I need it to finger joint 2"thick stock,can a person take a 1 1/2 cutter and raise or lower the cutter and accurately set it to do 2" thick stock by making overlap passes?I have never used a finger joint cutter before,but I want to joint two ends of contrasting woods such a maple and mahogany togeather.Any advice???Thanks for your opinions---Carroll

[Brad Shipton]

Carrol, these cutters are used a lot for custom window production and curved work. There are quite a few braized versions on the market that offer a stackable design (freud, amana...). So long as the cutter design is stackable, I cannot see a reason why you cannot simply adjust the spindle height to make the passes you need. It will be a bit tedious and you need to be accurate for this to work, but it is possible.

If you do want to complete the cut in a single pass and are willing to purchase enough of the stacking version, I would consider some of the higher end versions (Leitz, Royce....). They allow you to adjust the fit tightness and these are insert blades, so you can always replace cutters in the future if you do this a lot. Mine will do up to 3" tall stock in a single pass. I use the same setup for both the male and female joints. One face up, one face down.

Brad

[Paul B. Cresti]

Carrol,
I just used one for an exterior front entry I am building, the cutter worked well. I opted for a cheapy version from Grizzly but am limited to 1-1/2 stock.

In my case the unit is made of solid stave cores with "skins" to produce the total 2" thickness. I am not sure what your project is but remember the finger jointed stock does not look "pretty"...hence in my case I have 1/2" skins on each side with solid stock at the edges as well to hide the finger jointed core.

[Glen Butler]

I have looked at the freud, amana, LRH, and grizzly, and I am not terribly impressed. The finger size vs. length vs. taper just isn't right on these units. I am completely impressed with the Nordic Tool finger joint cutters but these start at $795 but that will get you a cutter that will do 1/2" fingers in 3/4 stock. You want 1/2" fingers in 2" stock - $1959. Oddly 1" fingers in 2" stock is less at $1725. So I am trying to find something less expensive to get me by. But I need to check out the Leitz and Royce brands mentioned above.

[pat warner]

Not a cutter for routers, way, way over power demanding, shaper only.

[Glen Butler]

Not a cutter for routers, way, way over power demanding, shaper only.
Unless you use the router bit in your shaper?;)

[Brad Shipton]

Glen, the Garniga 04-137 is a great cutter and not quite as expensive as the Nordic. I think mine was around $1000 or something like that. It does 11mm fingers. Rangate has some pretty good deals on these and Greg is great to deal with. If you do much of the radius work I found a great german clamp. It clamps the stock vertically, and it has another clamp that tightens them together.


http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/Shop/04-137_creeker.jpg

I assumed we were talking about a shaper only. I think he might be out of luck if he wants to use a router. I cant imagine a router table that would work very well for this.

Brad

[Carroll Courtney]

Guys,this may only be for a couple of projects.If it turns out good then more.I want to make a leg that is 2" thick and where it meets the stretchers it will be square.The 8" of square stock will be mahogany and the rest of the length will be maple.Instead of having a normal very low strength butt joint I would like to use finger joints.Where the finger joint is it will be turned round.Never done this,so it will be a first,appearance wise,I don't know.Has anybody done this before?Thanks Carroll