learning about insert cutters

[andy photenas]

Hi again all, I have gotten some great advice so far from the all the ppl on the forum yet I still some questions.

First of all are all insert rail and stile cutters made to be on one tool? Online all i see so far are rail and stile stacked. I cant see how you can produce fast when having to reset your tool when you switch?

The other question along these lines are do they make a 3/4 bore insert rail and stile setup?

[brent stanley]

Hi Andy, not totally sure I understand what you mean, but the multi-part tools like you have are quite popular. I use limiter heads for rail and stile work and have the cope and sticking on one knife so resetting just requires adjusting the spindle height. Like this (https://www.whitehill-tools.com/catalogue.php?pid=4664&cid=1&c2id=52):

Regardless, typically all the sticking is run at once in one production run, and then the copes are done all at once (or the other way around, depending on how you like to work) so there's only one change up.

B

[Jared Sankovich]

They make both types. The better single knife heads allows coping and sticking with just a height change. I prefer 3 heads (left cope, right cope and sticking)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/jar944/20190927_145830_zpszz972ec3.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jar944/media/20190927_145830_zpszz972ec3.jpg.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/jar944/IMG_6523_Copy__84064_zoom_zpsykdqz1hb.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jar944/media/IMG_6523_Copy__84064_zoom_zpsykdqz1hb.jpg.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/jar944/61750-middle1-new_zpsjfinj0oz.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jar944/media/61750-middle1-new_zpsjfinj0oz.jpg.html)

[Mark Bolton]

Stacked tooling is plenty fast if you have accurate DRO on your machine (.0005 resolution). By far the fastest is several dedicated machines that once dialed in you never move them. You can bush down any tooling if your feeds and machine horsepower will handle the cutters. You can look at setups like the Stark small shop set that are precision aluminum so they dont require the HP of an 1 1/4 or 30mm spindle machine.

[J.R. Rutter]

Stark is good bang for the buck.

Insert cutters are also nice because the carbide formulation is sharper because it does not have to withstand brazing. So cuts are nice and clean. It is possible to remove and hone the faces on a diamond stone to squeeze a bit more life out of them, but they do last a long time.

The pro tip for a stack of cutters for cope and stick is to make a sled high enough that you can switch back and forth without moving the spindle height. Just shim between cutters so that it aligns properly. And use a fence clamped to the table to run the sticking rather than fiddle with the split fence. Now you can control the finished width of the parts and not worry about snipe. You can make some spacers to allow you to remove and reset as needed very quickly. The main shaper fence will then just control how much material gets removed from the rail ends during the cope. You need to build this into your formula for making a cutlist and can pretty easily calibrate it so that all of your door widths are spot on.

[Jared Sankovich]

JR beat me to it. Fastest is a stack with a sled matched to the cope knife height. No need for a dro, but a dial indicator on stand really helps setups

[brent stanley]

Ah, now I understand what you mean. Yes the elevated coping sled is a nice idea because you always think you're done with a settup before you notice that one piece that needs to be replaced! Nice to not lose your settings.

B

[Mike Cutler]

The other question along these lines are do they make a 3/4 bore insert rail and stile setup?

CMT makes 3/4" Aluminum insert blocks.
You might want to consider using a 3/4"-1-1/4" T-bushing adapter, and buy 1-1/4" aluminum insert blocks. This standardizes your tooling, and the mass of the aluminum block is much less than steel, so the wear and tear on the bearings of lighter duty machine is less.

[brent stanley]

CMT makes 3/4" Aluminum insert blocks.
You might want to consider using a 3/4"-1-1/4" T-bushing adapter, and buy 1-1/4" aluminum insert blocks. This standardizes your tooling, and the mass of the aluminum block is much less than steel, so the wear and tear on the bearings of lighter duty machine is less.

And when you ultimately upgrade to a heavier machine, it's readily portable to that machine.

[Mark Bolton]

Ah, now I understand what you mean. Yes the elevated coping sled is a nice idea because you always think you're done with a settup before you notice that one piece that needs to be replaced! Nice to not lose your settings.

B

Just my $0.02 but one thing to consider with the elevated sled issue is that before you invest in stackable tooling or move down that path, very accurately measure your machines spindle runout. Typickaly your runout will be the least at the base of the spindle. If your running a smaller machine, perhaps more of a commodity machine, you may have a touch more runout at the top of the spindle as opposed to the base. As already mentioned spindle/table alignment is also critical. But if you have a bit more runout up top on your spindle you will likley fight with any of your tooling that is up top.

The stackable "pro" thing is usually associated with a machine that is going to perform with that setup.

I dont have any problem with the DRO as we dont run cope and stick regularly enough to have 3 dedicated shapers and it allows all of the tooling to be down low. Its one of the main places where I have always scoffed at .001-.0005 accuracy in wood but if your trying to make a lot of something fast your in that world. you can have a $1000.00 head and inserts up top and if your dealing with a bit of runout your dead.

[brent stanley]

Just my $0.02 but one thing to consider with the elevated sled issue is that before you invest in stackable tooling or move down that path, very accurately measure your machines spindle runout. Typickaly your runout will be the least at the base of the spindle. If your running a smaller machine, perhaps more of a commodity machine, you may have a touch more runout at the top of the spindle as opposed to the base. As already mentioned spindle/table alignment is also critical. But if you have a bit more runout up top on your spindle you will likley fight with any of your tooling that is up top.

The stackable "pro" thing is usually associated with a machine that is going to perform with that setup.

I dont have any problem with the DRO as we dont run cope and stick regularly enough to have 3 dedicated shapers and it allows all of the tooling to be down low. Its one of the main places where I have always scoffed at .001-.0005 accuracy in wood but if your trying to make a lot of something fast your in that world. you can have a $1000.00 head and inserts up top and if your dealing with a bit of runout your dead.

Yes, good advice. I like the idea but personally have switched over to the Aigner contormax and really like it.

[Mike Cutler]

And when you ultimately upgrade to a heavier machine, it's readily portable to that machine.

Brent
Exactly.
One other point is if you decide to sell the block, or cutters,down the line. Plenty of 3/4" tooling on ebay, craigslist, and the like. The 1-1/4" tooling gets snapped up fairly quick.

[Mike Kees]

DAMHIKT. I foolishly bought a CMT head with a 1'' bore to match the largest spindle on my small Steel city shaper. Now I need another 1 1/4 head for my Minimax. At least it was only a hundred bucks,could have been worse...

[brent stanley]

DAMHIKT. I foolishly bought a CMT head with a 1'' bore to match the largest spindle on my small Steel city shaper. Now I need another 1 1/4 head for my Minimax. At least it was only a hundred bucks,could have been worse...

You might be able to have it bored.

[Mike Kees]

Ok Brent,where would you take it to get it bored ? Machine shop ?

[brent stanley]

Ok Brent,where would you take it to get it bored ? Machine shop ?

It should be quite straightforward for any decent machine shop. I would look to see if that exact same head is also available in 1 1/4" bore from the manufacturer. If so then you can assume the engineers have decided that the larger bore is acceptable. Make sure they reproduce the little chamfer on the edges of the bore and protect the outside from the chuck jaws, especially if it's aluminium.

[Joe Calhoon]

Mike, I don’t think it would be worth it to re size a $100 cutter. It’s not that straight forward and if you do it best to find a shop experienced at that and understands the ISO clearances for cutter and shaft.

[Erik Loza]

Mike, I don’t think it would be worth it to re size a $100 cutter. It’s not that straight forward and if you do it best to find a shop experienced at that and understands the ISO clearances for cutter and shaft.

Agreed^^^

I've had conversations with well-respected blade manufacturers about having the arbors on customers' existing sawblades re-bored to 30mm and almost invariably, they don't want to touch it for liability reasons and for the fact that you can get a perfectly sized new blade for <$150. And that's just a flat piece of steel, not a cutterhead. Just my experience,

Erik

[brent stanley]

Ok Brent,where would you take it to get it bored ? Machine shop ?

Mike, I assume you got the cutter used and it's replacement value is much more than $100 but I may be wrong. I've seen quotes in the range of 40-50 dollars to have it done. The machine shop I work with builds shafting for industrial machines running at 25 000RPM, heavily loaded and running all day. They find tolerances required for low speed, lightly loaded woodworking machines easy to hit. If they aren't familiar with the standards then you'll have to educate them, but if they're competent they should be able to do it.

B

[Mark Bolton]

The cost to have a head accurately setup and precision bored and then rebalance would be a joke. Throw it on Ebay and buy what you need.

[Mark Bolton]

There isnt a machine shop in the world that's doing precision profitable work (read 200/hr per man) that would bore a head in 15 minutes for 50 bucks. Forget about balancing. You couldn't walk the part from the office to the shop floor in 15 minutes (50 bucks) forget about setup, indicating it in, and so on.

I had a small 15 spline sheave bored, sleeved, and a key broached. The sheave was probably 3" diameter, 2.5" deep bore. It cost 400 bucks.

[brent stanley]

There isnt a machine shop in the world that's doing precision profitable work (read 200/hr per man) that would bore a head in 15 minutes for 50 bucks. Forget about balancing. You couldn't walk the part from the office to the shop floor in 15 minutes (50 bucks) forget about setup, indicating it in, and so on.

I had a small 15 spline sheave bored, sleeved, and a key broached. The sheave was probably 3" diameter, 2.5" deep bore. It cost 400 bucks.

$100/hr up here and it probably wouldn't need to be rebalanced with such a small amount taken perfectly symmetrically from the middle. I just had a steel head modified last week for $85 range taxes in. Depends where you are I guess. A guy I know works for Felder says he takes saw blades and tooling in to be rebored all the time.

By the sounds of things your $400 job is many orders of magnitude bigger and more complicated than a simple shaper head rebore. Prices vary around the world I guess, but I'm an hour from Toronto so we pay hefty rates compared to the Canadian average.

If it's only $100 to get a new-from-factory head with the proper bore then I'd say it's a no brainer.

B

[Rod Sheridan]

I use FS Tools in Markham to bore shaper cutters.

About $30 each and they're perfect............Regards, Rod.

[Joe Calhoon]

I’ll stress again, if you do this best to find a company with experience or else the fit might be too loose or tight.
shafts and cutters are not target size of 1.25 for example. Shafts are a hair under and cutters a hair over. Probably not measurable by tools we woodworkers have. This has nothing to do with load or rpm on standard woodworking machines. It is about getting the cutters on and off the machine. There are ISO standards for this.

Cost is not terrible. I had some expensive large 2 piece insert heads done a few years back to fit my tenoner and it was about $70 per hole. This included rebalancing which is necessary on larger heads. This was done by a machine shop that does reboring for Weinig. Have also had a few shafts made and again would go to a experienced company for this.

[brent stanley]

I use FS Tools in Markham to bore shaper cutters.

About $30 each and they're perfect............Regards, Rod.

I've heard good things about their work. Most machine shops with a good resume have the ISO standards on their shelf or have paid subscriptions for quick online access. I took a number of Italian and German heads in to have modified for a friend and they could tell that none of them were manufactured initially to standards that the shop found very hard to maintain. A good machine shop that does a variety of work will routinely work to levels of refinement more than sufficient for standard woodworking machines.

[Rod Sheridan]

I've heard good things about their work. Most machine shops with a good resume have the ISO standards on their shelf or have paid subscriptions for quick online access. I took a number of Italian and German heads in to have modified for a friend and they could tell that none of them were manufactured initially to standards that the shop found very hard to maintain. A good machine shop that does a variety of work will routinely work to levels of refinement more than sufficient for standard woodworking machines.

As you're aware, FS Tools is a tooling manufacturer. Their work is great and prices are very reasonable, and they're a 10 minute drive from me.

It doesn't get any better than that for me.............Rod.

[Mike Kees]

I probably will just buy a complete new head. It is just a euro block for the 40mm two pin knives. I think that I will buy an Amana one this time (steel). I might check at a machine shop here locally to see what they figure. Pretty sure that it will cost me as much or more to get this bored out. Makes more sense to me to buy another one and have two,one for each shaper.

[brent stanley]

I probably will just buy a complete new head. It is just a euro block for the 40mm two pin knives. I think that I will buy an Amana one this time (steel). I might check at a machine shop here locally to see what they figure. Pretty sure that it will cost me as much or more to get this bored out. Makes more sense to me to buy another one and have two,one for each shaper.

Sent you a PM. I got stuck with an extra one if you want it.