Craftsman Moulder Blades / rosette cutters

[Jason Solodow]

Does anyone have any experience with the moulding cutters for tables saws from Craftsman? If so, good or bad? Also does anyone know where the best place is to get rosette cutters for a decent price? I only need to make like 50 of them so I don't want to spend a ton of money for them but I don't want a crappy job on the wood either.

Thanks for the help!

[Mel Fulks]

There is an aluminum head that will work well in a plunge router (lower speed) ,or in a good drill press . Uses corg knives.
We put low strength lock tite on the screws and corgs ,as the knives can move apart a little without it. Since it mainly scrapes ,its best to use knives ground with angle a little less acute than standard angle range. For stain grade we have also had them turned to avoid burns.

[Lee Schierer]

Does anyone have any experience with the moulding cutters for tables saws from Craftsman? If so, good or bad?

I've used the craftsman moulding cutters and they do work. HOWEVER, they can be dangerous to use. If you use the Craftsman throat plate with the huge opening you have a lot of cutter exposed. I made plywood inserts and raised the cutter up through them to make a zero clearance insert for each specific cut. You need to take shallow cuts because there are only three cutting edges (and in some cases only one). For limited work they are probably okay. I wouldn't recommend them for production work where you are going to run hundreds of board feet. Be sure to hone the cutting backs to get sharp cutting edges as the factory edges aren't all that sharp. Don't try to grind the profiles as that is a sure way to ruin them.

[jack forsberg]

turned rosettes are the best of quality. Do you have a lathe? I grind a scraper to the profile i like to make mine.

http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad111/tool613/wadkin/doors30003_zps737320ff.jpg (http://s927.photobucket.com/user/tool613/media/wadkin/doors30003_zps737320ff.jpg.html)

jack
English machines

[Rick Potter]

I don't use my molding cutters very often, but sometimes they are the only way to do what I want, with what I got. I make molding head inserts as Lee said, works fine, costs nothing. The knives are easily sharpened, as they are flat, and simply rubbed on a sheet of wet/dry sandpaper. Don't fool with the contour.

As has been said, take small cuts. These are my go to for making cove cuts, using the thumbnail shaped cutter.

Another important thing.......Use only on real wood, not MDF or Particle Board which will dull them real fast.

Rick Potter

[Ray Newman]

Moudling head cutters: http://corobcutters.com/

Read FAQs for ordering Craftsman

[John TenEyck]

I have both the 3 knife and 1 knife Craftsman moulding heads and have used them quite a bit. Being able to tilt the arbor allows them to make some profiles that would be about impossible except by hand or with an expensive custom ground router bit or shaper knife. Very nice to have in my arsenal. I have even reground some of the 1 knife profiles into custom shapes using my chainsaw and/or bench grinder. Not all that hard to do. As mentioned above, these things can be very dangerous and you should exercise great caution and every safety device and precaution when using one.

John

[Bruce Wrenn]

I've made a ton of replacement siding using my Sears molding heads. They do fill up the DC rather quickly.