Need help selecting cutter for T&G decking

[Chris Balton]

Hi,
I am trying something new and need to ask for some help. I have a large quantity of poplar that I want to mill into 2" car decking for a loft floor. The floor will be supported by 6"x8" DF beams every 4 feet. The underside will be left visible. I would like to mill the T&G on my SCMI T160 with a power feeder. I have not been able to find a suitable cutter for this, I am sure this is an easy question for many folks on this forum.

Since the planks will be rough ripped on my table saw, I hope that I can setup the shaper to size the final width on the shaper, maybe by putting a fence on the outside for the second pass?

I appreciate any advise you can offer.

thanks,
Chris

[William Hodge]

When I make plank walls I just use grooves and splines. It's simpler, one shaper set up. A table saw can rip wood to size. This also saves wood, the splines are made out 0f 4/4, not 8/4. Not shaping the whole edge of the 8/4 preserves the accurate width from the table saw.

[Rod Sheridan]

Yes an outboard fence will profile and dimension in one pass.

You should be able to order tongue profile knives, you can use an adjustable groover to cut the groove if you have one.

I’m making flooring, at the ripping with the feeder part"………..Rod

[Chris Balton]

Who do you guys buy your tooling from? This is a new to me shaper, my old machine was 3/4", so I bought cheap cutters from Grizzly. The new machine is 1-1/8" and I would like to buy a little better tooling.

thanks,
Chris

[brent stanley]

You can buy dedicated tongue and groove cutters with carbide tips (either brazed or insert style) but investing in a "one trick pony" for the amount you're talking about may not be worth it, and some of those don't have the capacity for a full 2". I would look at a limiter head that accepts HSS knives high enough (55mm) to do the whole profile as well as make a decorative chamfer on the bottom if you like the style. You can do it with adjustable groovers and stacked tooling (or dual spline) but proper T&G cutters offer gentle chamfers on the tongue end as well as the groove margins that make installation a bit easier along with the option of the "V" groove. You also can't mill to width with a outboard fence without full edge being removed. Going the limiter heat route leaves you with a head you can use for a million other things down the line too.

[Mel Fulks]

For t and g stuff I short the bottom of groove a bit so that any slight high places on floor will not make open joints at top side.

[Mitch schiffer]

I looked for a similar solution about a year ago. I ended up just finding some t&g already milled so I didn't buy a cutter for this task. I was looking for a v groove look since it was exposed on one side. I found 2 decent options i had gotten a quote to make a dedicated set from freeborn which was pricey (around 700$ if I remember correctly) but I like there cutters. And the other more cost effective option was to just stack a chamfer cutter and 3 plain square cutter with the correct diameter and thickness to produce the look and size of t&g you are looking for. I had drew it up in sketch-up to figure out what cutters I would need. I believe this ended up being about 300$ in cutters. If you have a molding head you could also just get knifes made to the profile you want for pretty cheap (assuming you cutts are not too deep to achieve with a hss knife)

[Chris Balton]

Hi Brent,
That sounds like what I am looking for. I would like to be able to add a chamfer on the bottom in a single pass. Do you have a recommendation on how and who to get a set of custom HSS knives from for something like this?

[brent stanley]

Hi Brent,
That sounds like what I am looking for. I would like to be able to add a chamfer on the bottom in a single pass. Do you have a recommendation on how and who to get a set of custom HSS knives from for something like this?

Hi Chris, I work with Whitehill now so that's where I get all that type of kit. If you want to send me a PM I can offer some suggestions.

Cheers,
B

[Greg Quenneville]

By 1 1/8” do you mean 30mm (which would be native to European machines not ordered with 1 1/4” spindles.

I get most my cutters and heads from Whitehill. Excellent quality and a wide range of stock cutters. They make a 55mm insert head as well as corrugated. When I buy US shaper tooling I use Oella Saw in Baltimore. Excellent service.

[brent stanley]

By 1 1/8” do you mean 30mm (which would be native to European machines not ordered with 1 1/4” spindles.

I get most my cutters and heads from Whitehill. Excellent quality and a wide range of stock cutters. They make a 55mm insert head as well as corrugated. When I buy US shaper tooling I use Oella Saw in Baltimore. Excellent service.

I've a seen 1 1/8" on an SCM machine before. Pretty rare though.

[Jared Sankovich]

By 1 1/8” do you mean 30mm (which would be native to European machines not ordered with 1 1/4” spindles.

I get most my cutters and heads from Whitehill. Excellent quality and a wide range of stock cutters. They make a 55mm insert head as well as corrugated. When I buy US shaper tooling I use Oella Saw in Baltimore. Excellent service.


+1 on the odd spindle diameter and another +1 on Oella saw.

For a limited run I'd just go with corrugated steel. I get my knives ground by MT tool in Baltimore.

[brent stanley]

Corrugated heads can also be had in chip limiting style for safety which isn't a bad idea, even with a power feeder.

[Jared Sankovich]

Corrugated heads can also be had in chip limiting style for safety which isn't a bad idea, even with a power feeder.

Can you get them in the US? I've only seen them in the whitehill catalog.

[brent stanley]

Can you get them in the US? I've only seen them in the whitehill catalog.

I don't think anyone in North America manufactures them, but you can certainly get them from Europe. I have two tall blocks and blanks right here. They can be run without limiters of course and I know some people skip the limiters for short, power fed runs, but invest in them for larger runs where the costs of them translates to 1/4 of a penny per linear foot. Or in scenarios where stuff needs to be hand fed, folks will often decide they like the limiters. Everyone's got their own thresholds.

[Jared Sankovich]

I don't think anyone in North America manufactures them, but you can certainly get them from Europe. I have two tall blocks and blanks right here. They can be run without limiters of course and I know some people skip the limiters for short, power fed runs, but invest in them for larger runs where the costs of them translates to 1/4 of a penny per linear foot. Or in scenarios where stuff needs to be hand fed, folks will often decide they like the limiters. Everyone's got their own thresholds.

Sorry I should have explained my question more. Though you answered it. I meant I haven't seen any limited heads available to order short of ordering directly from a euro supplier. Not trying to dissuade anyone from going the safer route, just a observation.

[brent stanley]

Sorry I should have explained my question more. Though you answered it. I meant I haven't seen any limited heads available to order short of ordering directly from a euro supplier. Not trying to dissuade anyone from going the safer route, just a observation.

Oh yeah, it's all good, I didn't think you were. I was just trying to share how some folks deal with the limiter side of the equation if they end up with a limiter-style corrugated block. Some folks aren't going to use them all the time, but appreciate the option to use them in situations where they decide it's worth it. I do suggest using them all the time of course.

[Warren Lake]

most of the used shapers ive purchased came with tooling, half the time I can find a thing I need or just grind and tweak an existing one. I use this for some cabinet backs. Mel makes a good point and Brian Muir was the first I saw mention the back cut. I doesnt matter in a cabinet back for a floor it makes sense. I usually shim or by eye leave a small space for expansion depending on what time of year or the material.

I dont cut to width on this for a cabinet its not worth the set up time. Joint rip to width and run it. Feeder is there but usually just use a feather board and hand feed. Nice you have a 160. Missed one at an auction but there was a guy that drove in from far on a mission and bought four or five of the main machines at that auction.

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[Warren Lake]

should have been Brian Ross, site wont let me edit or even see my post if I log on, other times it works perfectly.

[Kevin Jenness]

1 1/8" spindle is not uncommon on older American machines, Moak for instance. T bushings to 1 1/4" will work in most cases.

A corrugated head as in Warren's photo is a good investment and custom knives are easily sourced and not too expensive. For flooring a short shoulder on the underside as mentioned and a taper at the tongue entry are good.

[Warren Lake]

Never saw 1 1/8" on a ton of auctions but just as well as would not have fit my machines. I guess its a US thing.

[Kevin Jenness]

Never saw 1 1/8" on a ton of auctions but just as well as would not have fit my machines. I guess its a US thing.

To be clear, I have seen 1 1/8" spindles, not tooling.

[Warren Lake]

yeah cant see my posts so not sure of my words but meant 1 1/4" thinking shapers. Thats all ive seen at auctions for years one auction had 30 MM otherwise all 1 1/4" There was 40 MM and 50MM as well at companies with moulders

[Chris Balton]

This discussion has been very helpful to me so, I really appreciate all the information.I still have lots of work to do to get this all setup, but this will help me.

The 1-1/8" size in my original post was a slip - I meant to type 1-1/4". It might have been a Freudian slip, since I used to have a very old Yates American machine that was 1-1/8", it was odd even for a US machine. I don't actually know what my T160 is yet, since it is currently in transit, I expect either 1-1/4" or 30mm. (The seller was a dealer that was not very responsive about those details).

I am not familiar with "limiter" heads, I have used corrugated heads before, but have a hard time picturing how a corrugated head can have a limited cut with knives that could stick way out. I am assuming that a limiter head prevents too big of a cut for safety reasons. Can you provide an example photo or link to a head like that?

[Chris Balton]

Please disregard my request for a photo of a limiter head, I was too quick to post my last reply. Right afterwards, I looked on the Whitehill link, and see that they offer corrugated limiter heads. They had a nice little video that may have helped me understand how they work. It looks like it uses a second set of knives with the same profile, installed reverse to the first set and slightly recessed to control the depth of cut. Please correct me if I got that wrong.

thanks!

[Greg Quenneville]

The limiter uses the same position as the knife, it just projects about 1mm less. Whitehill etches their tooling so you can tell at a glance which is the knife and which is the limiter. Tooling sold in Europe has to have limiters by law, and even power fed operations are considered manual.

The British spindle moulder book I have explains it that you still get a nasty injury, but you keep the finger.

By the way, Whitehill makes all of their cutter heads in 1 1/4” size too…I have a couple for my big old Steton T33

[Carl Beckett]

What about one of those insert profile cutter sets that you can have a set of blades ground to any profile you want? Doesnt sound like you have a lot, nor does it need to be super precise. The profile pro head might have chip limiters

I happen to have a T&G set that came with my shaper, but no idea where it was purchased. I believe it was used for cabinet door making - so maybe another option to peruse (a simple rail/stile set but no profile, becomes a T&G).

If I had 1 1/8 post, I might be looking to have a spacer made to accommodate 1 1/4 tooling.

[brent stanley]

Please disregard my request for a photo of a limiter head, I was too quick to post my last reply. Right afterwards, I looked on the Whitehill link, and see that they offer corrugated limiter heads. They had a nice little video that may have helped me understand how they work. It looks like it uses a second set of knives with the same profile, installed reverse to the first set and slightly recessed to control the depth of cut. Please correct me if I got that wrong.

thanks!

You got the gist of it Chris. Chip limiting is achieved in a couple of different ways. With most insert tooling, the body of the whole cutter itself is so close to the geometry of the cutting edge that it acts as the limiting aspect. The second approach is "limiter blocks" where the custom profile knife is matched by knives ground and installed reverse as you say to achieve the same chip limiting. Both of these are capable of being fed stock at far too high a rate to achieve quality results so the chip limitation characteristics are in no way an obstacle to performance in normal feed scenarios. While those limiter knives are unique to each profile, they never wear out so will never need replacing.

Both their large combi head (which I use all the time) as well as their corrugated are considered "limiter style" tooling but differ in how the knives are retained in the head. The corrugated block can hold thicker steel and thus capable of more profiles, and knives ground for this can be had in North America easily. However, the large combi has many hundreds of profiles for far less than corrugated and of course gives you a shear cut rebate (rabbit) block at the same time. It can also be flush mounted to single sided tenoning if you wish. More and more grinding shops are offering custom grinding for this style of head too.

I have a few videos on my channel that show some of these blocks in action.

Cheers,
b

[Joe Calhoon]

I usually run large quantities of T&G on the moulder and small quantities on the shaper. A lot of ways to achieve this on the shaper with prices for tooling ranging from low to high. A corrugated head with custom knives would be the least expensive. Myself I don’t like to run counter profile- profiles with corrugated. It’s a fussy setup with corrugated. You could get both cuts on the same head as Warren shows above. I think a corrugated head with limiters would be extra painful to set up.

The next step up for cost would be to get a standard 2 hole Euro block and have someone like HotKnives grind quality 4mm thick HSS knives for it. Many others can grind these as well. The standard knives that come with these are junk.
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Whitehill blocks are better than these and more costly. I have a couple of these for cuts I don’t do often. A little work to change knives but OK if not a daily user.
Limiters are a good safety feature especially if you don’t have a lot of shaper experience. With limiters you will only cut a little bit of you finger off at a time instead of the whole thing. Bottom line is you just don’t want to get your hands close. Many methods even for hand feeding.
Myself, I don’t have employees any more and only buy limiters for larger cutters that may be hand fed or used on a table saw. Other wise I don’t see them worth the extra cost for low use cutters. Here are some of my limiter type cutters with and without the limiters. Hot Knives is able to make limiters for the Euro blocks. I also have them making a custom knife for my Whitehill block. They are the same pattern as the 2 hole euro block knives just bigger and a little different hook angle. Don’t have it yet but will see how it works.
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I make some T&G on the shaper using my Garniga Multiuse head. It’s expensive but very versatile for many other uses. I can do straight, rounded or v joint T&G with this. With this I can fine tune the fit for loose or tight. One thing to keep in mind is for flooring you need the groove about 0.3mm larger than the tongue or it will never go together.
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Keep in mind if you have cutters made you need to spec this clearance. I ordered some Whitehill knives to T&G exterior door panels using the NC shaper to go up and down for the cut. The cutters were too tight to assemble length wise boards. Would have been fine for a shaker style door joint but not edge gluing boards. I had another cutter made with clearance and it works fine.
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[Tom Bender]

Ok, back to the original post for a minute; Poplar flooring?

[brent stanley]

I'd love to see how it turns out! Depending on the species it can be lively stuff, and some mill better than others but usually pretty good.

[Joe Calhoon]

Poplar should be fine for 2” T&G decking provided the material is dry and carefully S4S before milling.
Just be sure you don’t get the joint too tight.
We were in a race with weather when building my son’s Yurt and bought pine decking from the lumber yard. Totally junk and fought it all the way!

[brent stanley]

[QUOTE=Joe Calhoon;3167711]I usually run large quantities of T&G on the moulder and small quantities on the shaper. A lot of ways to achieve this on the shaper with prices for tooling ranging from low to high. A corrugated head with custom knives would be the least expensive. Myself I don’t like to run counter profile- profiles with corrugated. It’s a fussy setup with corrugated. You could get both cuts on the same head as Warren shows above. I think a corrugated head with limiters would be extra painful to set up.[QUOTE]

Hi Joe, not sure how other manufacturers do it, but Whitehill grinds knives and limiters bottom referenced so if you slide them down to rest on the reference screw, the knives and limiters are all set perfectly with each other. Actually faster and a bit easier than pin retained knives. Of course that doesn't work if the knives isn't placed on the bottom, though other tricks can be used.

[Warren Lake]

you ask them to reference the ends when you get them ground. Then just do a scrape test, if they are not referenced then just do a scrap test on some cutting area in the knife.

[Bob Falk]

Not sure if they carry as large a cutter as you need, but I have had good luck with Infinity Tools T&G cutters. I have been milling a large amount of VG doug fir into wall paneling and using a climb cut (with feeder) I get a beautiful finish without splintering (which fir tends to do).

[Joe Calhoon]

Hi Joe, not sure how other manufacturers do it, but Whitehill grinds knives and limiters bottom referenced so if you slide them down to rest on the reference screw, the knives and limiters are all set perfectly with each other. Actually faster and a bit easier than pin retained knives. Of course that doesn't work if the knives isn't placed on the bottom, though other tricks can be used.

Brent, that’s a nice feature on the Whitehill block. What I do is get my corrugated knives ground axial constant then just set the cutter on a steel plate and drop the knives in. Sometimes have to fiddle a bit to get the same depth on the corrugated ridges. If I think I might use the knife again I just make a mark where it seats then I can write down the shaper fence setting to make it quicker next time. For me I only use corrugated for one time custom cuts on the shaper or W&H, need the knives quickly in one or two days and would never considered ordering from overseas on this type work.

[brent stanley]

Hi Joe, not sure how other manufacturers do it, but Whitehill grinds knives and limiters bottom referenced so if you slide them down to rest on the reference screw, the knives and limiters are all set perfectly with each other. Actually faster and a bit easier than pin retained knives. Of course that doesn't work if the knives isn't placed on the bottom, though other tricks can be used.

Brent, that’s a nice feature on the Whitehill block. What I do is get my corrugated knives ground axial constant then just set the cutter on a steel plate and drop the knives in. Sometimes have to fiddle a bit to get the same depth on the corrugated ridges. If I think I might use the knife again I just make a mark where it seats then I can write down the shaper fence setting to make it quicker next time. For me I only use corrugated for one time custom cuts on the shaper or W&H, need the knives quickly in one or two days and would never considered ordering from overseas on this type work.

The table rings on my machines still dial in really well so I used to set the block on the machine and use the table to set knives, if bottom referenced. Now I have a flat plate for the job and is a little easier to do outside of the machine.

Serrated is way more common on this side of the pond so I have people buy these blocks for that reason. Easy to get a local shop to grind, and then use Whitehill when they want limiters too. That said I have a number of folks who are booking so far out now with the amount of work they have, they don't care about waiting 2 to 3 more days for knives from overseas.....they still arrive before they can even think about using them! I have a customer sitting on $2500 in Whitehill serrated knives for is moulder, waiting for another supplier to provide upgraded hydolock heads for his machine. Lots of people working at capacity.