Shop Fox W1674 2 HP Shaper

[jeff friedman]

I picked up one of these used for $700. It was an impulse buy after building a kitchen of raised panel doors on a home made router table. Has anyone experience with these? I read that it can take normal router shank size bits and power enough to take on raised panel doors in one pass. Also the raising and lowering mechanism is much more sophisticated. Interested to hear thoughts.

[Matt Day]

I used to have the Grizzly version. Hate to say it but $700 sounds like a lot for it. Slow down the feed rate if you’re going to try one passes with it. You likely can find a router bit adapter, but it won’t be at the right speed for smaller bits - too slow.

[Paul Haus]

I picked up one of these used for $700. It was an impulse buy after building a kitchen of raised panel doors on a home made router table. Has anyone experience with these? I read that it can take normal router shank size bits and power enough to take on raised panel doors in one pass. Also the raising and lowering mechanism is much more sophisticated. Interested to hear thoughts.

I have a 3 HP Grizzly and had an older 1HP Craftsman shaper and I'll add a little here. First off, according to the catalog that shaper has a 5" throat opening while shaper 3/4" bore panel raisers run 4 5/8" inch. I happen to have a router bit spindle for this shaper, but I've never used it. If you plan to make raised panels I'd get a 3/4" bore shaper raised panel cutter and not use a router bit, much stouter and stronger than a router bit IMO. Remember the best router bits only have a 1/2" shaft on them.
As far as making a raised panel in one pass - I would not recommend it. You'd be taking a lot of wood off in one pass, putting a lot of stress on the cutter and cause a fair amount of tearout.
Here's how I make raised panels: First off, I make them face down. Cutting the profile on the front, I usually do it in 2 or 3 passes, raising the cutter each pass.
On the final pass, I add a spacer and back-cutter and raise the final amount of elevation on the cutter. I've made a lot of raised panels that way and they've come out fine.
Some people like using vertical cutters, and I have a couple of them. To use them you need to make a tall auxiliary fence and clamp a strip on the table to hold the edge of the board you're cutting. I had to use a couple of them as there was no other option for those profiles but it's definitely not my preferred method.

Hope that helps.