Dave Cav
02-17-2010, 12:09 AM
Thanks for all the input on the plywood shaper ring inserts. I got the shaper up and running this afternoon with the power feeder and got my cabinet edges profiled, so the immediate issues are past. I do have a few other general shaper questions, though. The involve feed direction, power feeders, miter slots, fences and maybe a few other odds and ends.
First of all, I'm using an early 80s vintage Delta/Rockwell HD shaper with a 2 HP motor. I have both wings installed. My fence is the Delta split fence with the dust hood, and I have it installed perpenducular to the miter slot. The feeder is bolted to a piece of 6 x 18" oak and clamped to the rear of the saw with two C clamps. For some reason I have the shaper set up to feed left to right, but I will probably change this to right to left as this seems more common.
First an observation on the design of the shaper. It's obvious that Delta didn't have power feeders in mind when they designed the HD shaper, because without the "rear" or left wing installed, there would be no place to install a power feeder with the fence set parallel to the miter slot. Even with the rear/left wing installed I don't think it would be a good idea to install the feeder on the wing as I suspect the stress would probably cause either the feeder or wing mounting bolts to crack the iron. This means that to switch from edge profiling to end coping you would have to move the fence 90* and probably move the feeder, too. Grizzly and Powermatic seem to have fixed this situation by putting their miter slots along the front. So, for those of you with permanently mounted power feeders and fences that cross your miter slot, how do you cope end grain? Break everything down and move to the miter slot, or use a sled that rides against the fence or table edge?
Speaking of fences, the 80s vintage Delta fence is kind of a PITA to adjust. It only has an offset adjustment on one side, and it's pretty sloppy. The new PM fence and the fence on the Grizzly G1026 both allow more precise adjustments and both sides of the split fence are independently adjustable. I emailed Grizzly and found the G1026 fence is available for $112.50, which seems like a good deal. The other alternative is the Accura fence, but I haven't got any feedback on it. So, does anyone have any comments about either the G1026 shaper fence or the Accura?
The power feeder (Grizzly 1/2 HP) seems to work fine and be a solid piece of equipment, but one thing about it bugs me. I have it all set up, and I can get everything adjusted but the bottoms of the rollers parallel to the table top. The rollers are (axially) tilted a few degrees up on the side away from the fence. It looks like the only way to fix this would be to shim the back of the mounting bracket to angle the vertical mounting post over a little bit. Is this normal? As I mentioned above, I have mounted the feeder by bolting it to a piece of oak and then clamping the wood to the table top at the rear of the shaper. This seems to work fine, but it blocks access to the dust port. I suppose I should go ahead and drill the shaper top and bolt it directly to the table, but I'm just reluctant to start driling holes in cast iron table tops. If I am going to set up for "normal" right to left feeding, I want to bolt it to the right rear corner, correct?
Thanks again for the help.
First of all, I'm using an early 80s vintage Delta/Rockwell HD shaper with a 2 HP motor. I have both wings installed. My fence is the Delta split fence with the dust hood, and I have it installed perpenducular to the miter slot. The feeder is bolted to a piece of 6 x 18" oak and clamped to the rear of the saw with two C clamps. For some reason I have the shaper set up to feed left to right, but I will probably change this to right to left as this seems more common.
First an observation on the design of the shaper. It's obvious that Delta didn't have power feeders in mind when they designed the HD shaper, because without the "rear" or left wing installed, there would be no place to install a power feeder with the fence set parallel to the miter slot. Even with the rear/left wing installed I don't think it would be a good idea to install the feeder on the wing as I suspect the stress would probably cause either the feeder or wing mounting bolts to crack the iron. This means that to switch from edge profiling to end coping you would have to move the fence 90* and probably move the feeder, too. Grizzly and Powermatic seem to have fixed this situation by putting their miter slots along the front. So, for those of you with permanently mounted power feeders and fences that cross your miter slot, how do you cope end grain? Break everything down and move to the miter slot, or use a sled that rides against the fence or table edge?
Speaking of fences, the 80s vintage Delta fence is kind of a PITA to adjust. It only has an offset adjustment on one side, and it's pretty sloppy. The new PM fence and the fence on the Grizzly G1026 both allow more precise adjustments and both sides of the split fence are independently adjustable. I emailed Grizzly and found the G1026 fence is available for $112.50, which seems like a good deal. The other alternative is the Accura fence, but I haven't got any feedback on it. So, does anyone have any comments about either the G1026 shaper fence or the Accura?
The power feeder (Grizzly 1/2 HP) seems to work fine and be a solid piece of equipment, but one thing about it bugs me. I have it all set up, and I can get everything adjusted but the bottoms of the rollers parallel to the table top. The rollers are (axially) tilted a few degrees up on the side away from the fence. It looks like the only way to fix this would be to shim the back of the mounting bracket to angle the vertical mounting post over a little bit. Is this normal? As I mentioned above, I have mounted the feeder by bolting it to a piece of oak and then clamping the wood to the table top at the rear of the shaper. This seems to work fine, but it blocks access to the dust port. I suppose I should go ahead and drill the shaper top and bolt it directly to the table, but I'm just reluctant to start driling holes in cast iron table tops. If I am going to set up for "normal" right to left feeding, I want to bolt it to the right rear corner, correct?
Thanks again for the help.