Panel Raising with a W&H moulder

[Bradley Gray]

So, W&H has a panel raising knife set on their year end sale for cheap. I've never considered raising panels this way but I'm thinking of giving it a try.

Anyone doing this already? I'm mostly concerned about the cross grain cuts.

[Mark Bolton]

We have tried some open ended cuts on ours, not specifically panel raising, but multi passing would in my opinion be essential and Im not sure we could match the shaper without being able to clamp down the outbound side of the moulder. (we always clamp the outbound side of the moulder on the last pass to reduce chatter).

My guess is it would most definitely work with multipass and a super skim on the last pass if you dont have a shaper and feeder.

[Peter Christensen]

It's been a while but I've done it to make panels for interior doors before the advent of the variable speed or multi pass rollers. I left the panels wider, used the table saw to cut some of the excess, then ran the ends through the W&H. Once that was done I trimmed to width and then ran the long grain through to finish. I used Western Maple and Alder and there was somewhat of a rougher surface on the end grain cuts but it sanded out with fine paper in an orbital sander and I was happy with the results. With the multi pass and variable speed upgrades you wouldn't need to take the end tear out precautions I did and you could hone the knives before taking the last passes. You might like to practice with some scrap to get the hang of it before committing to good wood.

The W&H is a multi purpose machine that will never compete with a proper shaper but it is better than a router or a table saw for raising panels.

The W&H site is really slow loading tonight so I gave up trying to see what the sale price is. What kind of price are they asking for the knives?
I looked again and can't find any panel raising knives or any kind of sale. Would you be able to put up a link?

[Bradley Gray]

Since the knife set is on sale for $25 I think I will give it a try. Here's the yer end sale link:

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/fe62ef6666faaf15656a54745/files/910fdcc9-7b59-46f9-a52e-44849f34b7fc/KNIFESALE_YearEnd.pdf

[Peter Christensen]

If I didn't already have them I would spring for a set.