Steve Dewey
11-15-2006, 7:24 AM
This subject came up in another thread re router bits in a shaper. Jim Dailey sent me this writeup & picture. With his permission I am "reprinting" it here for the benefit of other's at SMC. Need to save my pennies for the (2) incra fences...
Attached hopefully is a picture of my modified Unishaper with two Incra Ultra Lite Fences Positioners. In order to mount the Incra's I added a extension
table behind the spindles. The original Unishaper dust cast iron collection hood was retained and slides independently of the Incra's on it's own mounts. I modified it further with some Lexan to close it off tight to the fence for better dust collection. I had the power feeder before I added the Incra's, if I was doing it over I would have positioned the base of the power feeder for more travel of the Incra's. This would be helpful only for router bits as the current travel of over 5" in greater then the diameter of any shaper cutter. Using this set up for example using with a router bit to cut flutes you can power feed a 10" board as fast as you can flip the lever on the Incra's.
This picture just happens to show a router bit with a single fence in the Incra's. For shaper cutters each Incra has it's own fence, one left, one right. With this set up you can make the opening as wide as necessary, or add a zero clearance fence to the face of these. You no longer square the fence to the miter slot with a combination square... once they are set up you can repeat to the 1000ths EVERY time. Need to micro adjust the out feed fence... no problem... need to zero that same fence out again... no problem. Need to do a cutter change (ever have to run extra rails for stile & rail.....).... open the fence opening, flip the lever on the Incra's, make the cutter change, position the Incra's right back to the 1000ths from the old setting, slid the fences to the required opening & your making rails.
Once I took the variability of the fence out of set ups, I realized the cutter height was the last variable. Thus I bought a machinist tool a Starrett veneer height gauge to set the height to the 1000ths. You literally can write down the cutter height to the 1000ths for each cutter (assuming you are planning to the same thickness), the Incra scale you used based on a zero position & repeat EXACTLY. No more scraps of wood around the shop marked "SAVE".
Attached hopefully is a picture of my modified Unishaper with two Incra Ultra Lite Fences Positioners. In order to mount the Incra's I added a extension
table behind the spindles. The original Unishaper dust cast iron collection hood was retained and slides independently of the Incra's on it's own mounts. I modified it further with some Lexan to close it off tight to the fence for better dust collection. I had the power feeder before I added the Incra's, if I was doing it over I would have positioned the base of the power feeder for more travel of the Incra's. This would be helpful only for router bits as the current travel of over 5" in greater then the diameter of any shaper cutter. Using this set up for example using with a router bit to cut flutes you can power feed a 10" board as fast as you can flip the lever on the Incra's.
This picture just happens to show a router bit with a single fence in the Incra's. For shaper cutters each Incra has it's own fence, one left, one right. With this set up you can make the opening as wide as necessary, or add a zero clearance fence to the face of these. You no longer square the fence to the miter slot with a combination square... once they are set up you can repeat to the 1000ths EVERY time. Need to micro adjust the out feed fence... no problem... need to zero that same fence out again... no problem. Need to do a cutter change (ever have to run extra rails for stile & rail.....).... open the fence opening, flip the lever on the Incra's, make the cutter change, position the Incra's right back to the 1000ths from the old setting, slid the fences to the required opening & your making rails.
Once I took the variability of the fence out of set ups, I realized the cutter height was the last variable. Thus I bought a machinist tool a Starrett veneer height gauge to set the height to the 1000ths. You literally can write down the cutter height to the 1000ths for each cutter (assuming you are planning to the same thickness), the Incra scale you used based on a zero position & repeat EXACTLY. No more scraps of wood around the shop marked "SAVE".