If you had a shaper and a Woodmaster, would you ever profile on the Woodmaster?

[dirk martin]

Soon, I will be getting a Woodmaster planer/molder/sander...yada yada yada.

Besides making molding, my plan was to also use it to make some flooring, because of it's flooring accessory consisting of two routers on the outfeed side, to cut the tongue and groove.

Many have suggested that instead, I purchase a dedicated shaper. Even tho it means additional handling of the boards, I think using the shaper for this task will be a wise decision.

In any event, my question is, If you had a Woodmaster, and a dedicated shaper with stock feeder...would you ever do any profiling of trim, crown molding, tongue/groove, or anything for that matter, on the Woodmaster?

[fred klotz]

Having both a Belsaw and Woodmaster, and a small shaper, and having done profiles on both, my preference is to do edge work on the shaper and face work on the planer.

[Chip Lindley]

Even heavy-duty routers are not designed to run continuously and output hundreds, if not thousands of linear feet of t&g flooring. Something tells me that the alignment of two ripsaw blades, a top planer knife (or bottom flooring knife) and two routers with t&g profiles would be very tedious to bring together on a Woodmaster. Setup time by trial and error must be factored into total labor cost for a flooring job. Several test pieces would have to be run to check for consistency in all dimensions. "Close" only counts in horseshoes! Spot-checking output would have to be on-going to insure consistent results. Also, HSS knives must be changed at a given point so output will not be degraded. Then everything must be brought back into alignment again.

Since I already have several shapers I could set up for flooring, I would use what I am blessed with--unless I were going into the custom flooring business in a BIG way! Then, I would be looking for a nice, used 4-sided moulder!

[Jeff Duncan]

I don't have a Woodmaster but do have 2 shapers and think I'd have to agree with Fred. There's a lot I can do on my shapers, but some things I would very much like to have a W + H to run flat. Curved casings come to mind.
good luck,
JeffD

[Rich Engelhardt]

Sorry - my mistake in posting.

[J.R. Rutter]

Having both a Belsaw and Woodmaster, and a small shaper, and having done profiles on both, my preference is to do edge work on the shaper and face work on the planer.

Yes - even with a big shaper.

[Charlie Plesums]

I have two shapers, and am happy. When people heard I was getting a Woodmaster drum sander, I had several notes to be sure I wasn't getting their moulder/planer, with the advice that it wasn't a good machine - one person even returned it.

The Woodmaster sander is great. Somebody must like the Woodmaster moulder/planer, but nobody I know. The hint was that the table under the head wasn't sturdy enough to give consistent good results.

[Lucas G Hager]

I have two shapers, and am happy. When people heard I was getting a Woodmaster drum sander, I had several notes to be sure I wasn't getting their moulder/planer, with the advice that it wasn't a good machine - one person even returned it.

The Woodmaster sander is great. Somebody must like the Woodmaster moulder/planer, but nobody I know. The hint was that the table under the head wasn't sturdy enough to give consistent good results.

Sorry Charlie, but I have to disagree. I have a belsaw, and I couldn't love it more. I do agree with using the molder for face work and the shaper for edge profiling. The belsaw is nearly exactly the woodmaster and I just really enjoy the results when I use it.

[Peter Quinn]

I have a shop fox W&H clone and several shapers. I'd do the flooring t&g and most edge work on the shapers, including small moldings like base caps, bed moldings, anything below 2" thickness that I can run and rip from wide stock. Anything wider I'd prefer to do face up/back down on the molder, like crown or casings.

Question I'd ask on the flooring is how will you get the width perfectly precisely the same over the entire floor with two routers on the wood master. Its easy with two shapers and a back fence set up for the tongue, and a decent set of shaper cutters will easily cut an entire 4000SF of flooring. Not sure which router is going to run full out for a 4000SF floor, the dust collection will be a nightmare at least I'd suspect, and the small diameter of the router cutters are more likely to tear out QSWO than a 4" diameter shaper set. Think exit angle. A router bit is so small its almost running cross grain on exit, where as a shaper cutter with a shear angle is a whole different geometry.