power feeders

[Bruce Koch]

Should I buy a 3 wheel or 4 wheel power feeder? Which brand cause they all look very similar? Going to use it on 3 hp shaper.

[Richard Wolf]

I like the 4 wheel. Two on each side of the cutter.

Richard

[Ben Abate]

For a shaper I'd buy a 4 wheel. I have a Steff Maggi on my Felder and it's nice. Steff makes power feeders for other companies under different names. Felder for one. 4 wheels gives you more options in positioning the feeder for different applications. Definitely buy a 1 hp or more. One HP is plenty but I wouldn't go under that. You can but why? That's all the feeder you'll ever need if you buy a 1 HP one. You can find used ones at really reasonable prices. If you're not in a hurry for one take a look around different sites and see what you find. I found a Steff for my jointer 1HP 3 wheel for $450 delivered and it wasn't used much. A new Steff Maggi 1HP 4 wheel will run you about $1000.00 to $1200.00. And a Univer is almost twice that. I've never had a Grizzly but it might be worth looking at.

hope this helps.
Ben

[Karl Brogger]

Four wheel is very nice.

[Jeff Monson]

I bought a 3 wheel delta, 1hp. If I had it to do over it would have the same hp but 4 wheels.

[Rick Fisher]

I have a 3 wheel Steff x 1hp .. Never tried a 4 wheel. Its mounted on a 3hp GI Shaper. When I was installing the Feeder, I was surprised how large it really is..

I would bet the 4 wheel would be about 25% better :)

[Peter Quinn]

I have a three and a four wheel, the three wheel is a grizzly and the four wheel is a steff. The steff came with better tires, more sticky, polyurethane I believe. I prefer the 4 wheel as the distance between centers is tighter which gives more control on smaller parts, and two wheels on each side of the cutter. The four wheel is larger (big thing in my way when not in use) and for many operations the difference is marginal. Otherwise they all perform pretty much the same function in the same way. There is more plastic on the the grizzly, there is more metal on the steff, but that might only make am difference if you are tough on tools or your environment is industrial.

The reason they all look the same is that there are basically two makers, Steff Maggi (Italian)' and Comatic (Tiawan). Most other branded versions are one of these two. Check out the Comatic web site to see all thenmodelsmthey make!

[Chris Fournier]

I have a 3 wheel Steff x 1hp .. Never tried a 4 wheel. Its mounted on a 3hp GI Shaper. When I was installing the Feeder, I was surprised how large it really is..

I would bet the 4 wheel would be about 25% better :)

Actually it would be about 33% better!