Which one or two shaper cutters would you have

[Tony Zona]

I ran across a Delta shaper 43-140 from the mid 1990's. It did not come with cutters.

If you had this and only wanted one or maybe two cutters to be all-around useful, which would you buy?

I already have two routers, but I'm pondering on whether to invest in shaper cutters or to just move it out the door.

[roger wiegand]

I have an Amana insert head with knives that you swap in. There are hundreds of profiles available or you can grind your own at a fraction of the cost of dedicated profiles. Along with that a panel raising cutter and cope and stick set if you make many cabinet doors. I have one from Freeborn that makes a tenon about twice as long as the usual sets.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, I would pick a 125 X 50 mm carbide rebate head for rebating and pattern copying.

http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Rebate-cutters/High-Performance-Rebate-Cutter-Head-RB-HW.html

I would also buy a 40mm Euro block head that takes steel knives, and uses limiters. This is one of the most frequently used cutters I own, a huge variety of knives are available, suitable only for solid wood.

http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Universal-Profile-Cutter-Heads/Universal-Safety-Cutterhead.html

Both of those should have a MAN rating for reduced kickback occurrence.

The third cutter head I would get in the future would be an adjustable grooving cutter, they can be used for grooving or flipped and stacked to cut both sides of a tenon at once.

http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Slot-cutter/Adjustable-Slotting-Cutters-RB-HW.html

I've include photographs of those types of cutters, you can buy them from many sources, always check the diameter and speed limitations of your shaper before purchasing cutters.

Regards, Rod.

[Mike Delyster]

Hi, I would pick a 125 X 50 mm carbide rebate head for rebating and pattern copying.

http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Rebate-cutters/High-Performance-Rebate-Cutter-Head-RB-HW.html

I would also buy a 40mm Euro block head that takes steel knives, and uses limiters. This is one of the most frequently used cutters I own, a huge variety of knives are available, suitable only for solid wood.

http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Universal-Profile-Cutter-Heads/Universal-Safety-Cutterhead.html

Both of those should have a MAN rating for reduced kickback occurrence.

The third cutter head I would get in the future would be an adjustable grooving cutter, they can be used for grooving or flipped and stacked to cut both sides of a tenon at once.

http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Slot-cutter/Adjustable-Slotting-Cutters-RB-HW.html

I've include photographs of those types of cutters, you can buy them from many sources, always check the diameter and speed limitations of your shaper before purchasing cutters.

Regards, Rod.

Rod the shaper the OP has is to small to run any of those cutters safely.
I would look into the Muti-profile head that Roger suggested, Amana makes a small one I believe it's 90mm.

[Rod Sheridan]

Rod the shaper the OP has is to small to run any of those cutters safely.
I would look into the Muti-profile head that Roger suggested, Amana makes a small one I believe it's 90mm.

Thanks, I looked up the model, it wasn't what I was expecting..............Thanks, Rod.

[Mike Delyster]

Thanks, I looked up the model, it wasn't what I was expecting..............Thanks, Rod.

From your post I didn't think thats what you where expecting.
I'm not sure if those light duty shapers even came with a 3/4" spindle, 90mm might even be a little big for a 1/2" spindle. I have some old Delta cutters with 1/2" bore and they are only about 2" in diameter.

[Tony Zona]

Thanks guys. I am getting the idea.

I thought, however, that this shaper I have is too small for those. It has both a half-inch and three-quarter-inch spindle. I don't know how much power it has though.

One my my router bits did not perform that well. I probably used the wrong bit for the testing.

I will have to see if I can find somebody near me who has a small shaper and see how useful it is.

[Mike Delyster]

Thanks I didn't know if those shapers had a 3/4" spindle. Tony how big is the hole in the table for the cutter to drop into the table and what size is the motor?

[Tony Zona]

I never paid attention to this, so upon closer examination I learned something.

The hole is two inches in a removable red plate. When the plate is removed, the hole is 3.125-inch hole. It looks like the shaper could be used with a cutter larger than two inches and, say, less that three and an eighth, but don't forget I don't have any experience with this. I used a huge shaper in a tech school near me. Not one of these dinky things.

The motor on mine, I saw after checking the plate, is one horsepower, 3450 rpm. And the cutter is belt driven.

That doesn't seem like enough power to do too much with a shaper.

[Alan Schwabacher]

Don't think of it as a big shaper, think of it as a much quieter and more pleasant to use substitute for a router table. Cutters are inexpensive, and available from corobcutters dot com.

[Mike Cutler]

Tony

If memory serves, isn't your shaper spindle assembly setup threaded to accept standard Porter Cable Router collet nuts?
Most any bit you can run in a router can be run on that machine, with a comparable cutter. The difference is the rpm of the bit and the speed of the cutting edges at the outside circumference.
A standard router bit, like a 3/4" straight bit, will be running too slow at the cutting edge because it's only about an inch in diameter. A similar shaper cutter will be 2 1/2", or more, in diameter so the slower rpm of the shaper will translate into a cutting edge speed similar to the cutting edge speed of the router bit at router speeds. If you want to use router bits, you need too slow down how fast you're pushing the material through it.

I'd probably set it up with a Tongue and Groove cutter set, a rebate cutter, glue edge cutter, etc.
Try a router rail and stile set if you have one.

[Tony Zona]

Mike,

I tested it with a half-inch collet and nut, and a quarter-inch-wide slot cutter, both from my router.

I was not smart enough to find a way to securely tighten the collet nut on the shaper shaft. There was nothing at the bottom to grab a hold of to tighten. Nor would I be able to hold anything to loosen the collet if it had tightened.

So, I tightened as much as I could for my test that lasted 15 seconds. I didn't want to run a finger-type tool. I should not have even run it for 15 seconds.

[Mike Cutler]

Mike,

I tested it with a half-inch collet and nut, and a quarter-inch-wide slot cutter, both from my router.

I was not smart enough to find a way to securely tighten the collet nut on the shaper shaft. There was nothing at the bottom to grab a hold of to tighten. Nor would I be able to hold anything to loosen the collet if it had tightened.

So, I tightened as much as I could for my test that lasted 15 seconds. I didn't want to run a finger-type tool. I should not have even run it for 15 seconds.

Tony

I'm pretty certain that you're more than smart enough, there's probably some "special tool, or something, to hold everything while tightening up the spindle nut.
I saw one of these for sale a few years ago in an antique shop, but it was missing a lot of parts. I remembered it because it took the standard router collets, and I'd never seen that before.

[Mel Fulks]

Some of those shapers are one speed ,8000 rpm. Too slow for carbide but sometimes you come across a box of used steel
cutters that are cheap. The two speed machines are 8000 and 10,000 and the carbide cutters are available from Grizzly
are others. A lot of commercial shops with big capacity machines have at least one of those small shapers and still find
use for them.

[Mike Schuch]

I believe the shaper is 1hp which limits its capabilities to smaller cutters.

I am trying to envision a porter cable router collet mounted on the end of a some what long 1/2" spindle supporting a bit that extends up from the the tip of the spindle. I don't see how this is safe but maybe I am envisioning it wrong.

I bought my first 2hp shaper to do lockmiters with a lockmiter cutter. I spent a day getting the lockmiter cutter dialed in and it has cut perfectly ever since. If there is one profile to justify a shaper my vote would be a lockmiter cutter.

[Joe Jensen]

I would get a cope and style cutter set and a panel raiser cutter. I prefer a simple cove on panels.

[Larry Edgerton]

I was not aware that some of those shapers had a provision for router bits. Can someone post a picture? I may buy one if it looks satisfactory and speed it up a bit with pulley changes. Personal impressions?

Thanks, Larry

[roger wiegand]

I suspect that in general the rotation speed on a shaper is going to be too low to get good results with router bits. Shaper cutters are typically many times the diameter of the typical router bit, I haven't done the calculation but suspect that the velocity of the blade hitting the wood is about the same between the high speed, low diameter router cutter and the large diameter low speed shaper. I'd expect you might have to use a very slow feed rate to get decent results with a small diameter bit on a shaper. That said, though my (used) shaper came with the router adapter, I've never tried it. (It also came with an extra 1/2" spindle, and I've never seen the point of that either.) If you have interchangeable spindles I suppose you could change the pulley on one to give higher RPM.

[Mike Cutler]

I was not aware that some of those shapers had a provision for router bits. Can someone post a picture? I may buy one if it looks satisfactory and speed it up a bit with pulley changes. Personal impressions?

Thanks, Larry

Larry

I personally have never used a router bit in a shaper myself.
I bought a Delta 43-375 from Todd Davidson a few months back and it has an OEM router bit adapter for the spindle sleeve. I put a largish router, 2 1/2" diameter, T&G bit in it and checked it out, and it seemed to work fine.
There are people on eBay that sell router spindle sleeve adapters for Delta Shapers that are apparently turned down and modified from the ones available from Grizzly.

The particular shaper in this thread came with a spindle sleeve that accepted not only a 1/2" and 3/4" spindles, but the end of the spindle sleeve was machined with a compatible Porter Cable router collet thread. I don't know if was standard, or a special order though. As I stated earlier, I saw one a few years ago in an antique store, but it was missing a lot of "parts", and they wanted some big $$$$ for it.
There are few really good photos of this particular shaper, Delta 43-140 on the Vintage Machinery website that make it clearer.

Here is a link with some pictures of the modified Grizzly router adapter for Delta Shapers;

http://artisans.homeunix.com:443/product_info.php?cPath=36_26&products_id=154