Large industrial shaper: Fletcher FM 55s

[Bobby Robbinett]

So the boss man called me up this morning to tell me that he bought several really large machines this weekend for a song. Said he got them for under $1,500 and couldn’t pass them up but he doesn’t know much about them and wanted me to do some research and see what I could come up with. Two of them are shaper sanders and one is an edge bander. The last one I am trying to find info on but can’t seem to dig up any useful information. It is a Fletcher FM55s.

Do any of you guys know anything about this unit? It is listed as a large shaper on several websites. I am assuming it may be another shaper sander? What can this thing do and what is it good for in a cabinet shop? LoL

[Charles B Wilson]

So the boss man called me up this morning to tell me that he bought several really large machines this weekend for a song. Said he got them for under $1,500 and couldn’t pass them up but he doesn’t know much about them and wanted me to do some research and see what I could come up with. Two of them are shaper sanders and one is an edge bander. The last one I am trying to find info on but can’t seem to dig up any useful information. It is a Fletcher FM55s.

Do any of you guys know anything about this unit? It is listed as a large shaper on several websites. I am assuming it may be another shaper sander? What can this thing do and what is it good for in a cabinet shop? LoL

Fletcher and previously " Fletcher Talbert" (sp?) made and still makes Edge profiling machines both single and double sided models,and I think are also building machinery for cabinet doors. From the information you gave it sounds like a shape sand machine with foil capability. Typically a Shape Sand machine could be used to profile the panels of a 5 piece cabinet door or the outer edge profile of a cabinet door. Now Edge foiling takes it to a whole different level, not really something a small to medium shop would do.

CW

[Bobby Robbinett]

Fletcher and previously " Fletcher Talbert" (sp?) made and still makes Edge profiling machines both single and double sided models,and I think are also building machinery for cabinet doors. From the information you gave it sounds like a shape sand machine with foil capability. Typically a Shape Sand machine could be used to profile the panels of a 5 piece cabinet door or the outer edge profile of a cabinet door. Now Edge foiling takes it to a whole different level, not really something a small to medium shop would do.

CW

Thanks for the reply Charles. I believe that this one has two shaper stations and two sanding stations. We have three total shape and sand machines just because they were so cheap we couldn’t pass it up.

We were hoping to set up this Fletcher for panel raising and sanding of the raised panels. Setup another for stile profiles and sanding of the stile profiles. Then another we could do outside door profiles and have it sand those too. We have a company to make the sanding heads from a mold they make using our shaper cutters.

These things are huge machines and will require a lot of power from what I have read. The sanding heads are very expensive but should be beneficial to our operations as the boss wants to slowly move away from cabinet building and become primarily a door and drawer shop.