Thoughts on Hook Angle for Shaper Heads

[brent stanley]

Good morning all, I've been wondering lately about how significant the hook angle for tooling is to regular users of shapers. I know Oella sells a dual hook head, but I'm not sure how popular they are? Do folks buy a head for softwood work and a head for hardwood work?

Just curious, thanks for your thoughts,

Brent

[Mel Fulks]

From what I've seen. NO. But "two heads can be better than one" since they will change the profile depth, and that is useful for matching a profile without having to grind new knives.

[Larry Edgerton]

I have a couple of dual angle heads from Dave at Oella. They work well as intended for soft and hardwoods. Dave has always treated me well.

[Warren Lake]

I think corrugated had 12 and 20 degree, likely im remembering my numbers wrong. Ive never paid attention to it and whatever angle the heads are I have and the knives i have they cut excellent im not running 1000 feet. If the angles guys are reading this what angle are the old Serrated heads Winconsin etc.

If you look up split shaper collars at least the last time I looked they have maybe 20 plus on the page. The bulk shown were sold an ion ago and photos still there, ive emailed but he left it the same. Looking is a waste of time, you dont know they are not in stock till you open each photo. Whats the point showing stuff you dont have in stock. Some you tube videos showing different cutter heads for sale remind me of those third world country unsafe practice thick loose leather glove stuff. Sure they know there stuff really well but just stuff I noticed.

[brent stanley]

Thanks Warren, I haven't looked at Wisconsin Knife works in a while. There's a really interesting chart on the bottom of the page for hook angles for different situations and wood species.

https://www.wkwinc.com/media/pdf/WKW_Sec3_C.pdf

B

[Warren Lake]

thanks I had a nice talk with an or the owner years ago,. I called to talk about corrugated and was shut down. I did the yah but yah but thing and he came around and talked to me for a while and even sent me a drawing for the original grub screw in those heads. Felt there was lots of negative for him and that is why he didnt want to talk. I convinced him im pretty diligent and not giving up things that work so well that we were introduced to at the beginning. I have two of their bearing heads, one is worn more than I would like and one has a sleeve in it and is some number of thou under not sure if someone made it this way for another machine I have but its just a hair undersize for the 1 1/4" spindle. I had to put blocks under one head and drop the spindle to remove it, home made wooden bearing puller.

[David Kumm]

Is the appropriate hook angle also dependent on the diameter of the head or cutter? As an example, a 6" vs a 3" head. Dave

[Mel Fulks]

Is the appropriate hook angle also dependent on the diameter of the head or cutter? As an example, a 6" vs a 3" head. Dave

I don't think so,but I've never seen anything.

[Rod Sheridan]

The most important thing for limited use is correct feed rate.

When I setup molders we did have heads with different angles.

Sometimes the "softwood" angle would work best on a hardwood, and vice versa. It's more an individual species issue, however if we were running a lot of something and wanted a thousand feet of some other species I wouldn't change heads if the results were acceptable since a thousand feet is done in much less time than switching heads.

Now that I only have hobby use I don't have different angle heads and don't need them..........Rod

[brent stanley]

Interesting, thanks all. I see in the chart from WKW that there are indeed large variations between the species and I expect this is just a starting point.

B

[Darcy Warner]

I run all dual angle heads.