How do shapers work, in regards to board sizing?

[Phil Landwer]

Ive never seen a shaper run.
If I want to use one to cut the edge profiles for flooring, and I'm after a final 5" face, how does a shaper do this? After I rip one edge straight, do I then rip my board to 5.5", and then feed into the shaper? What if the board is at 5.75" with one straight edge? Or 6"?

Is there some sort of setting on a shaper to get all boards the same width?

[Alan Bienlein]

Ideally you want to use an out board fence in conjunction with your regular shaper fence. The other variable is the infeed fence would ideally be sprung so that it would help to keep your stock against the outboard fence.

This type of setup should be used with a feeder.

[Stephen Cherry]

something like page 61,

http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=1060

updated, as Alan said, use the normal fence instead of what is shown as the featherboard, and a low outside fence so that the feeder can be over it, with the feeder steering the board into the outside fence.

[Stephen Cherry]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?135238-The-main-reason-to-have-a-shaper&highlight=shaper

[Larry Copas]

A YouTube may help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QQBsnpLR5Y&feature=vmdshb

I'm running "V" panel tongue and groove cedar. The stock feeder is holding the stock against a make shift fence while the cutter on the other side of the board is profiling the tongue, along with sizing the stock.

Your Shop Fox machine can do the back relief as can the Woodmaster.

A small used four sided moulder may be a better alternative for flooring. I've seen them sell cheaper than a shaper equipped with stock feeder.

[Peter Quinn]

A YouTube may help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QQBsnpLR5Y&feature=vmdshb

I'm running "V" panel tongue and groove cedar. The stock feeder is holding the stock against a make shift fence while the cutter on the other side of the board is profiling the tongue, along with sizing the stock.

Your Shop Fox machine can do the back relief as can the Woodmaster.

A small used four sided moulder may be a better alternative for flooring. I've seen them sell cheaper than a shaper equipped with stock feeder.


That is exactly what I was referring to when mentioning "back fence", also called outboard fence, maybe a few other names out there too. Typically for flooring you would rip your blanks 3/8" larger than your desired face assuming a 1/4" tongue. This gives you 1/16" waste on each edge to clean up the saw marks. You make the groove using a typical split fence, though you could also certainly use a back fence for that too if desired and your stock is very straight. Then you make the tongue cut second, running off the out board fence, feeder angled toward the out board fence. We have one at work made of plate steel, the table has been drilled on each side along the edge precisely at 1" intervals so changing sizes is quick, accurate, and repeatable. Pins in the fence lock into the holes in the table. The shaper is dedicated to making flooring too wide to fit in a molder, but you can make one that comes off quickly, you could attack angle iron to each edge with index holes drilled them, lots of creative ways to do it.

The principle is simple. A straight line is tangent to a circle at only one point. The straight line is the board, the circle is the cutter. So you set the distance between the back fence and the cutters arc precisely, it dimensions your boards precisely. You really need a feeder because the board is held captive between the fence and cutter, I would not want to be hand feeding that should something go wrong, though I have seen set ups with mechanical hold downs to accomplish this. This type of setup is handy for making door parts, or any operation where a precise dimension and repeatability is critical.

[Stephen Cherry]

For different widths, it might be possible to use multiple fences referenced to the miter slot or outside of the shaper table, with a bar on the bottom of the fence that goes in the slot or against the table. That way it would lock in place in a very repeatable manner.

[Jeff Duncan]

What size shaper are you running? Taking a full inch off to go from 6" to 5" is quite a bite and I wouldn't recommend it on anything short of a heavy industrial shaper with a big spindle! I've run a fair amount of stock using outboard fences and have shredded a good 1/2" off of hard maple with a 7-1/2hp motor driving a 1-1/4" spindle. Having said that 1" is more than I would want to attempt.

good luck,
jeffD

[Peter Quinn]

Just for clarity Phil, before you use the shaper to accurately dimension you need a pretty accurate blank of rough dimension to start with. The most I would want to take off with a back fence would be maybe a heavy 1/8", but ideally only 1/16" per pass. You might find a massive shaper able to take off 1/2" per pass, but I doubt the wood would let you. Think jointer. The heaver the pass, the lower the surface quality generally. The issue with flooring is you need each corse to be VERY accurately dimensioned, no saw marks where two edges butt, this shows up. If you were off by .015" on width, thats a problem. If you are running a floor with a slight ease or some sort of V edge, the edge quality is some what less critical though I would still not take chances with it. I the boards are square edge meant to be butted, the standards are higher.