Euro block suggestion

[Susumu Mori]

Hi all,

I recently received my Hammer Saw/Shaper (30mm arbor). This is my first shaper and need your guidance.
I decided to buy a groove cutter, a rebate head, and a Euro block.
Among them, I have questions for groove cutters and Euro blocks.

For groove cutters, do you see significant difference among those with and without scorers? Those with scorers tend to have exchangeable blades and more expensive. I assume those are good investment? The cheapest one from Felder with scorers cost $320 (4-8mm) and additional blade (8-20mm) cost $160 more. I don't think Felder makes them. Maybe I should look at other places but 30 mm arbor seems a bit limiting, unless I go for European companies,,,

By the way, I'm a hobbyist and the cutters won't see miles of boards, but I'd appreciate long-lasting investments.

For the Euro blocks, I want a MAN rated one with limiters, but I don't see them from CMT, Amana, and other US vendors. Felder's universal cutter is at $130 and each blade seems around $50 with limiters. I guess these are reasonable. Those without limiters from CMT and Amana are cheaper. I'm waiting for my power feeder now but I expect to do manual feeding (with a fence) for smaller projects. So, I assume MAN-rated is a good choice?

I would appreciate any suggestions about selections of cutters and vendors.

Thanks!

[Mike Delyster]

The topic of Euro Block multi profile cutterheads was brought up in a recent thread and I don't remember a US vendor offering one with the chip limiters. Dimar (http://dimar-canada.com/products.php?m=56&idp=44) a Canadian company has a head with chip limiters that can run either 40mm or 50mm knives with limiters, with the exchange rate on the Canadian dollar being low at this time this might be an option. As you have a 30mm spindle you will most likely have to bush up to an 1-1/4" bore or else go with a European company.

I have 40mm multi profile cutterheads from CMT, Amana and Dimar and all the knives are interchangeable between the different brands of heads. I have no experience with any of the Euro brands so they may be different, but I don't know.

[Susumu Mori]

Thanks Mike.

So, I guess you are just fine with the cutters without limiters.
Do you have moments you wish to have limiters?

[peter gagliardi]

You will find groovers with scoring cutters much more useful, and worth the investment, on the first project you use groovers without scoring! :(

[Mike Delyster]

I normally use a feeder or a sled, my new shaper has a sliding table. So I very rarely ever hand feed, so in my case no I can't say I ever wished I had limiters.

If your going to be hand feeding you should never try and take as an aggressive of cut as you would when feeding with a feeder.

The next multi profile cutterhead I buy will be the Dimar one that I posted the link to, but more for the reason that it can run both 40mm and 50mm knives.

[Peter Quinn]

I've run insert heads without limiters freehand, it does work, just that in the back of my mind...well not really so far back....I understand and have seen what non limiting heads can do to a board and a persons hands when something goes wrong. So it's more dangerous than it has to be. From the last discussion of it here I think Felder may be the only option domestically. Their prices are fair. Usually the only time I'm running an insert head freehand is for curved work off a template. Even there I always try to use a feeder if possible. There are only a very few limited circumstances for any operation where I find freehand feed a better option as far as cut quality, so there are few incentives to feed freehand, even on small runs. The feeder is just too easy to set up not to use given the hold down and consistent feed rate benefits.

the issue with non scoring groover is tear out. Many species are very challenging to get clean grooves as the cutters want to lift the delicate material at the edges of the grooves. You can solve this by climb cutting, but that makes dust collection hard (chips get shot toward the outfeed direction), you can't climb cut freehand so stop grooves are out. The insert carbide groovers work so much better I wouldn't even consider buying a braised carbide grooving head today, and pretty much all the groovers I've seen have spurs. For a production shop the insert heads may prove cheaper versus sharpening and re tipping braised heads over the tools lifetime, in a home shop you will probably never achieve that benefit, but they still work much better.

[John Lankers]

I had the same dilemma, nothing on the North American market.
Dimar is as far as I know your best option for the knives. For the cutterheads, 40mm and 50mm. I went on e-bay and found them used at www.woodfordtooling.com (http://www.woodfordtooling.com) in the UK. I was a bit skeptical at first but when they finally arrived I was more than happy with the outcome. I believe the price for the 50 mm heads with limiters was 50 GBP + 6? GBP for shipping, no customs, no extras. Their website is rather useless, it's probably the easiest to find them on e-bay UK.
If you're referring to the dado set as grooving cutters, I have an 8" set from FSTool, and if you're careful you could use them on the shaper as well - no tearout in melamine and plywood.

[Mike Delyster]

I agree with the comments about the insert groover and have had much the same experience with the rabbeting heads.
I have an insert rabbeting cutter from Amana with scorers and find it to be far better than any of the braised carbide rabbeting heads I have. The cut is so clean that I never use the braised rabbet cutters anymore.

[Susumu Mori]

Thank you all!

I'm set for a groover with scorers.

I'll also take a look at the Euro block from Dimar. Additional 10mm (50mm blades) sounds very useful.
It is nice to hear that the pricing of tooling from Felder is reasonable, though.

The praise for the scorer makes me wonder if I should consider a Felder's dado set for the table saw, which is basically a shaper's groove cutter (I think), but yikes it cost almost $800! I wonder why Felder doesn't allow to share a groover for both the shaper and the table saw.

Anyhow, it look an overkill to pay this much for a dado set, although I need to somehow bore extra holes to make my 8-inch dado set to fit in the Hammer table saw....

[peter gagliardi]

Any decent saw sharpening shop can open the bore accurately on your dado set.

[Mike Delyster]

Is your saw arbour all so 30mm? Then you could use the dado set on both saw and shaper.

[Peter Quinn]

The Felder dado set is identical to a shaper groover and should be interchangeable if the bore is the same, the one issue is diameter, not sure what the max above table diameter is on a stock hammer hood? May be 220mm, maybe 240 now? If the dado is too big that's out, but even if it weren't that's a lot of tool to spin for most shaper grooving operations. Last job we had a Grigio sliding table saw with 30mm arbor and the euro two pin configuration, we got an 8" Forrest dado already bored at 30mm and paid a bit extra to have the euro holes punched in it, that may be a factory option from Forrest, and it comes in a lot cheaper than the nearly $1k for the Felder unit. You should be able to spin a Forrest dado on both saw and shaper,must be sure to have the appropriate rpm's for the tooling.

[John Lankers]

Peter's post made me remember something regarding the Hammer table. I had the old style Felder CF531 which had the Hammer trunnion and the Hammer table. That table limits you to a 18mm depth of cut unless you get creative with the file. In the shaper with the 240 fence I had no issues with the 8" dado set.

[Susumu Mori]

Thanks Peter.

The groove cutter I'm looking at is 160 or 180 mm diameter. So there should not be any problem for the shaper. I hope that will also work for the table saw. In my machine, both the table saw and the shaper have the same 30 mm arbor.

[Jeff Duncan]

I won't disagree with anything said previously, lots of good advice. However with woodworking there's always more than one way to skin a cat. I run a one man shop professionally so get a lot of mileage on the shaper. I use brazed carbide tooling for grooves as I don't use them often and so can't justify the expense of the high end versions with scoring cutters. Getting around chipout is very easy….albeit not efficient. Simply take a very shallow pass first, say 1/16" or so deep, then adjust your fence for the full depth cut. Not practical to do for a production shop, but for hobby use certainly an option.

A also run standard Euro blocks made by Amana, Freud, and Stehle and find them incredibly useful. I find that the profiles are generally, (though not always), pretty shallow and so not overly aggressive. I hand feed a fair amount and have not had any problems with the Euro blocks and sharp tooling. I wouldn't think twice about buying or using them, like any other cutter that goes on the shaper you just have to know what your doing and be cautious. If you get into corrugated tooling you can be running much more aggressive profiles and they won't have chip limiters either. Those you really don't want to do much by hand though;)

good luck,
JeffD

[Peter Quinn]

I very much respect Jeff's opinion and work, but I do have to disagree on this one. I have used a lot of 3 wing braised carbide heads at work because they are "cost effective", or that is the argument, but I'd argue they are not cost effective at all, just cheaper to purchase. A single freeborne braised groover runs $100-$150 depending on diameter and cutting height. And with that you get a single height. Need different heights, different cutter. It doesn't take too many different groove heights to equal the most expensive adjustable insert groover I can think of. They also make split braised groovers that are adjustable, and they are pretty much the same cost as a basic adjustable insert head from Amana. Sharpening a braise head runs $20-$30 per incident. Get a nick or a chip on a corner, could be more. The inserts on my 4Z groover are $3ea, they are two sided, so $6 to retip each time. Should I need to change them, it takes less than 5 minutes to change over the insert head, turn around on the braised heads are 1-2 weeks where I'm at unless you pay for expedited service. So sharpen a brazed head a few times over its life time, and you payed for the upgrade to insert head. But the best part is many of the insert heads are adjustable, and that is gold if you work with sheet goods that don't have the decency to be made to any consistent standard. We bid out our plywood to a few dirfferent companies, and occasionally have to search for something odd, up shot, thickness seems to be all over the place but almost never an even number. If you need a panel groove to match plywood, you can work around the problem, run a smaller groover, two passes, or 4 passes if you are running a light first pass. That is a lot of chances for something to go wrong. I just watched another mechanic in the shop I'm at make a house full of very large cabinet doors by running a 1/2" groove, shimming the plywood to the back of the assembly with 1/32" shims, they will get panel molding so the gap is hidden....at $65/hour shop rate, the time he spent on this probably bought 3 adjustable groovers! The shop owner see's a bill for $350 for a shaper cutter he gets tense. But when a mechanic burns up $1K of shop time over a week or two doing work arounds, that never gets seen, doesn't end up on an invoice, hard to account for it.

My point is, you have to add up all the costs, not just the purchase price, to figure out whats the most cost effective tooling solution. At home where I'm in charge of purchasing, I have to value my very scarce time for personal projects and paying side jobs, I cant make more time appear in my week, but I can maximize it with efficient tooling. At work time is money, at home time is worth even more.

[Rod Sheridan]

Thank you all!

I'm set for a groover with scorers.

I'll also take a look at the Euro block from Dimar. Additional 10mm (50mm blades) sounds very useful.
It is nice to hear that the pricing of tooling from Felder is reasonable, though.

The praise for the scorer makes me wonder if I should consider a Felder's dado set for the table saw, which is basically a shaper's groove cutter (I think), but yikes it cost almost $800! I wonder why Felder doesn't allow to share a groover for both the shaper and the table saw.

Anyhow, it look an overkill to pay this much for a dado set, although I need to somehow bore extra holes to make my 8-inch dado set to fit in the Hammer table saw....

Hi Susumu, the 8 inch dado won't fit your Hammer saw, they're limited to 180mm maximum.

I have an FS Tools 6 inch dado set for mine, works great, since it's 30mm bore I also use it in the shaper. ( I have 1 1/4" and 30mm spindle kits).

Buy the Euro head with the chip limiters, you will want to hand feed the work occasionally and the Man rated head is far safer.

Most of the tooling in the world is metric, Felder often have sales on tooling which is nice as the 30mm bore stuff is often the least expensive option.

Regards, Rod.

P.S. I have a Felder slotting cutter that's 200mm in diameter and can cut a slot or tenon 69mm long/deep. The cutter can make a slot, or cut both sides of the tenon at once, using a shim in between the cutters.

Here's a part number for it. http://us.feldershop.com/en-US/en-US/en-US/en-US/Moulding/Moulding-tooling/Slot-cutter/Adjustable-Slotting-Cutters-RB-HW.html

[Larry Edgerton]

You will find groovers with scoring cutters much more useful, and worth the investment, on the first project you use groovers without scoring! :(

I'll second that......

[Susumu Mori]

Thanks Rod.

That slot cutter does seem nice, but the range (8-15 mm) misses 1/4 and 3/4 inch, the most frequently used grooves,,,,

Rod, have you ever used the slot or groove cutters also for the table saw?
Because most of the shaper groove cutters are less than 180 mm (like 140-160 mm), they should fit but could be too small?

[Rod Sheridan]

Thanks Rod.

That slot cutter does seem nice, but the range (8-15 mm) misses 1/4 and 3/4 inch, the most frequently used grooves,,,,

Rod, have you ever used the slot or groove cutters also for the table saw?
Because most of the shaper groove cutters are less than 180 mm (like 140-160 mm), they should fit but could be too small?

Hi Susumu, I make my door panels 8mm thick.

If I need grooves outside that range I use my dado cutter.

You can order groovers that go from 8mm to 25mm.

I can't use any of my shaper cutters in my saw as they don't have the pin holes.

Now if you ordered the Hammer dado set it could also go in your shaper..............Rod.

[Susumu Mori]

ohh, that's right. Shaper cutters can't go to the saw because of the pin holes, but Hammaer dado (for table saws) sets CAN go to the shaper. That makes sense.

Then buying Hammer dado sets (for table saws), although it is expensive, may make sense because I can use them both for vertical (dado) and horizontal (shaper)....

[Jeff Duncan]

I don't disagree Peter, I guess I didn't make the point as clearly as I should have. There's a difference between production shops, one man shops, and hobby shops. I have 3 sizes of grooving cutters, 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2", then of course I can stack for several more options. The reason I have these 3 grooving sizes, (as you may have guessed already), is b/c they're the grooving cutters from my door profile sets! I probably use them for milling grooves less than once a year and there's only 1 set that is due for it's 'first' sharpening. Most of the grooves I run are on the table saw as it's usually faster and easier for the way I work. For door panels I never have to worry about shimming ply or undersizing the grooves as I use either mdf panels or solid wood so the fit is always good. On a side note….your company could save even more money buying veneered mdf panels and not needing the grooving head at all! You'd have a better quality panel and door….but I digress;)

With a good quality carbide cutter I'd wager the average hobbiest might not even need to have it sharpened in their lifetime. A set of door cutters for instance should easily run several hundred doors. I'm still on my original Freeborn sets the oldest of which must be close to ten years old. Of course if I ran doors every day it would be different, but I don't and most hobby shops won't either:rolleyes: Point being that when buying and using tooling, how the tooling is going to be used is the important factor. And it's not fair to compare a production shop to a hobby shop as the needs and goals are completely different. And no matter how much you value your time, it can only go so far more most people….even though it would be faster and save time your not going to buy dozens of corrugated heads to keep from changing knives for your home shop. A practice that some production shops still use.

Anyway I'm not arguing against the adjustable groover, just saying once again there's more than one way to look at things.

good luck,
JeffD