Replacement Cutters for Shaper Insert Tooling

[Patrick Kane]

I have a steel cutterhead that accepts replacement knives for a panel raiser cutterhead. It is made by Unique and i naturally reached out to them for replacement cutters. Maybe i am in the wrong here, but they want $70 a piece for the knives, which would be $210 to replace the three knives on the panel raiser. This is 3-4x more expensive than i was expecting. Is this normal? If not, are there other sources for replacement knives where i could send one of my blanks to be copied?

[Jeff Roltgen]

I just paid $196 for a set of 4 smaller inserts (2 cutters, 2 limiters) for a Euro style shaper head for a custom profile, like 1.25" square each.
Also very recently, pair of black nitride 4.25" stock crown profile knives for the W/H style molder was about $269.00.
My Innovators raised panel cutter like yours runs about the same. Try WMoore profiles. I think the last set I got for it was closer to $169, but that was pre-covid.

Yep. Tooling is just that expensive.


jeff

[Patrick Kane]

Sure, but I question how I completely new braised cutter from freeborn is $300, and 3 skimpy knives from Great Lakes/unique is $210. That doesn’t add up to me.

thanks for confirming this is just the way it is and I’m not getting hosed. Oddly enough, if I buy 6 cutters the price per cutter drops in half. They almost force you to buy 6 knives, which is more panels than I care to raise in the next decade.

[Dave Sabo]

A Freud shaper cutter is $175. Amana $110. NoName on the big river is $75. Should we conclude Freeborn/Freud/Amana are hosing their customers ?

Another thing to bear in mind is that GLT is a fairly small operation that has little to no automation on the scale of the big boys mentioned. That adds to the cost the end user sees.

Tool pricing is eye popping these days, but I don’t think many firms are minting money , like say, the oil companies.

[Jeff Roltgen]

That $300 Freeborn is mass produced and a pile of them on the shelf. It's a proven, fully developed product, bugs run out of the design and machining processes, and you'll see that profile everywhere you go. And for good reason- it's a good value. It's also likely imported, just built to the original design specs and standards.

For fun:
Lets design our own custom profile, and ask a machinist to personally produce some knives for us:

1> 5-10 minutes: Draft or proof the woodworker's CAD drawing they submitted
2> 10 minutes: Draw up a proof sheet and interpretation of the design that actually fits their CAM workflow - email and adjust if needed
3> 10 minutes: Cut out a master template.
4> 10 minutes: Grab a handful of tool-steel blanks , chuck up to machine
5> 15 minutes: Run that profile for the number of cutters, lets say 3, inspect, pack for shipping

Total estimated time: 1 hour (bet that's low)
Total for the tool steel and template material guesstimate: $30-60 (bet that's low too)

How much do you charge per hour? I've seen recent posts suggesting some of us are commanding as high as $120/hour for installation of cabinetry.(!)
In my region, that's almost double the going rate, but many are pushing into the $80-$100 range. I think we can allow the machinists at least an equal shake there.
Sounds like $160 is pretty close to reality, if you do not allow them any profit. Once we give them an average markup of 20-30%, looks like we hit about $200.

Not trying to defend, just walking through this to calm my own temper over the cost of it all.
It's pretty darned expensive being an American anymore...

jeff

[Patrick Kane]

These are fair points. Perhaps my initial post presented myself more affronted than i actually am. Before i reached out for a price, i expected $100+/- for three basic off the shelf profiles. Keep in mind, this is not a custom profile specifically for Patrick Kane. This is for stacked tooling that comes standard for Unique's shapers. I dont have a unique machine, but it stands to reason they make these in bulk and sell a fair amount of them on a regular basis. I suppose the only piece that chaps my rear is the cutterhead takes three knives, but they almost force you to buy 6, because they are the same price. 3 knives at $37/piece is in line with my original expectations. 3 knives at $70/piece kinda sucks.

[J.R. Rutter]

That is a Great Lakes head and inserts. I would try going direct to them. https://glct.com/ It may not be any cheaper though, unless you buy extra inserts.

[edit: GLCT makes tooling for Unique, and also sells direct]

[Bobby Robbinett]

Voorwood tooling is cheaper and vastly better in my opinion.

[Dave Sabo]

Voorwood tooling is cheaper and vastly better in my opinion.

What ,exactly , makes them better ?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

You guys have far more experience with shaper tooling than I do, so I may be all wrong, but when I set up a small cabinet shop years ago, insert tooling was cheaper than freeborn. I suspect demand for insert increased, so prices have too, now that dedicated tooling is less popular it is actually kind of a bargain. I tried to buy some Leiser insert tooling at an auction last week, dang stuff was bringing well over new price, and far over the cost of 3x freeborn for the same profiles. Doesn't make much sense in my mind. Unfortunate because I'd like to have a good insert cabinet door option in shop I'm pulling back out of mothballs. Oh well, back to the old freeborn.

[David Zaret]

You guys have far more experience with shaper tooling than I do, so I may be all wrong, but when I set up a small cabinet shop years ago, insert tooling was cheaper than freeborn. I suspect demand for insert increased, so prices have too, now that dedicated tooling is less popular it is actually kind of a bargain. I tried to buy some Leiser insert tooling at an auction last week, dang stuff was bringing well over new price, and far over the cost of 3x freeborn for the same profiles. Doesn't make much sense in my mind. Unfortunate because I'd like to have a good insert cabinet door option in shop I'm pulling back out of mothballs. Oh well, back to the old freeborn.

well, i'm putting cost aside for a second, because i don't think it's apples-to-apples. i have a bunch of freeborn cutters that i've used for years, but, they are small. insert tooling allows me to buy heads with much larger diameters, which run better on my machine. the difference between a 4" cutter and a 6" cutter is dramatic, and that's one reason i am willing to pay more for insert tooling. plus, the heads are versatile, so when i need a custom profile for, say, a passage door, i have the height to make it, dialing in the details of the profile any way i choose. yeah, the tooling is expensive, but i don't think that it's a fair comparison to do a straight "freeborn brazed to insert."

just my $0.02.

[Greg Quenneville]

I have been buying my insert tooling from Whitehill. They sent an email advising prices are increasing next Friday, but they didn’t specify by how much.

[Warren Lake]

cut quality of insert should be better than brazed as past always hear they can sharpen it sharper.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

well, i'm putting cost aside for a second, because i don't think it's apples-to-apples. i have a bunch of freeborn cutters that i've used for years, but, they are small. insert tooling allows me to buy heads with much larger diameters, which run better on my machine. the difference between a 4" cutter and a 6" cutter is dramatic, and that's one reason i am willing to pay more for insert tooling. plus, the heads are versatile, so when i need a custom profile for, say, a passage door, i have the height to make it, dialing in the details of the profile any way i choose. yeah, the tooling is expensive, but i don't think that it's a fair comparison to do a straight "freeborn brazed to insert."

just my $0.02.

Like I say, I'm no expert, but for the cabinet door profiles that I looked for most recently, they want you to buy a bead head and a shaker head to have most profiles available. It is half and half on the current crop of customers lined up for my cabinet shop version 2.0, so I need two sets of heads. I have no idea why they can't fit a shaker profile on a bead insert or vice versa. In my limited experience, bigger heads are fine and do a good job in a capable machine. However, a head that's too big for a particular shaper not so much. For my very finite $, I still think I'm better off buying fixed right now, and if I have any extra $ (haha) than another big shaper would be nice.