Who joints on a shaper?

[Cameron Reddy]

I'm not satisfied with my technique on the jointer and I'm thinking of jointing on my shaper. At present, I'm MUCH better with a hand plane than the power jointer, but I've got a lot of jointing to do and I'd like a mechanized system.

I see Amana has a few shaper cutters with indexed inserts arranged in a spiral around the head:

http://www.amanatool.com/shaperdetails/61292.jpg

http://www.amanatool.com/shaperdetails/61288.jpg

http://www.amanatool.com/shaperdetails/61282-img.jpg

These look pretty interesting, but I'm wondering if anyone makes one with the cutters set to shear the wood.

Or should I use something like this:

http://www.amanatool.com/shaperdetails/911.jpg

What do you guys use?

Cameron Reddy

[Peter Aeschliman]

I definitely don't joint on a shaper.

Jointing on a jointer really isn't that tough... I suggest practicing at it because you'll get better results much more quickly on a jointer than on a shaper.

Also, I'm not sure how you would face joint a wide board on a shaper.

[John Harden]

Cameron, I've never jointed on a shaper and wouldn't recommend it unless you were using a power feeder. Jointing can become repetitive and personally, I find myself getting a bit distracted. Not terribly dangerous on a jointer if you're following safety precautions, but being distracted on a shaper could be disasterous.

I do a lot of template work and recently bought a Byrd spiral cutter head unit with carbide inserts very similiar to what Amana offers. It is a true spiral cutterhead with a sheer cut and made of steel versus aluminum. As a result, it operates smoother and cuts cleanly.

You might check them out. Prices were comparable.

Look here:

http://www.byrdtool.com/SHELIX%20shaper.html

I bought a 4" high version, 3" wide with 1 1/4" bore. Paid $260 I think.

Regards,

John

[John Lanciani]

On the shaper can be quite fast, and super accurate, especially with a feeder. It's not worth the setup time to me, though, unless I have a boatload to do. Another twist is using an outboard fence (with a feeder being mandatory) for running rail and stile stock. You can start with stock ripped to rough width and effectively joint and size the stock at the same time. As for heads, Byrd makes almost any configuration you could need in their "Shelix" configuration.

John

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Cameron...I have used my shaper many times for edge jointing. The process I use is this. I swing my stock feeder around and use it to feed on my jointer to get one side flat on the board. Then I use mt 8 foot clamp and tool guide to get a straight edge on the board.(TS) With one flat side and two straight edges I move the feeder back around and joint both edges on the shaper with a straight bit. Next. I take it to the planner to finish up. This was all done with a thin kerf blade on my contractor TS. Since then I have bought a .130 30T Freud and after a few test it looks like I may not need to joint before glue up. I think with a contractor saw it needs a stabilizer for a thin kerf. I can see the marks on the edge where the blade get unstable. The .130 blade was just perfect. Makers me wonder how the 40 T blade that Sommerfeld has would work.

[Cameron Reddy]

John,

Thanks for the link! I'm thinking of a 4" tall cutter. Wonder if I should do a 3", 4", or 4 3/8" diameter... Ideas?

I do use a feeder. A big Steff 4 wheeler. Easy like a planer. Put wood in one end and it comes out the other smooth as silk. :)

[John Harden]

The smaller the diameter, the tighter curve you can cut before clearance becomes an issue. I felt that 3" was about right for me.

Another consideration is height. I tend to prefer to have my work on top of the template, clamped down. The sled it rides on has the profile cut into the edge. This means I have to have the ball bearing collor on the bottom of the cutter, which leaves the rest of the cutterhead above it exposed. If you work the same way and normally shape wood that is only 3/4"-1 3/4" thick, you might want to consider a cutter head that is shorter, or put the template on top.

I template route thicker stuff, so I went with the taller one.

Just a thought.

Regards,

John

[Jeff Duncan]

I've used the Amana head and it works flawlessly. We had 1" baltic birch ply with 3" x 3" end grain blocks glued down to it that had to be shaped. It left a perfect edge with no chipping at all.
Having said that I can't even imagine going through the trouble to set it up for jointing. That's why they invented the jointer. I'd recommend spending a little time working on your technique and re-checking your jointers alignment before going to such an extreme. Jointer use is WW 101, much simpler than using a shaper really.
good luck,
JeffD