Best Place To Buy Power Feeders ?

[Rob Will]

Where are some good places to buy a power feeder?

I called a distributor in the northwest and a guy got on the phone whom I could barely understand. It seems that he had never heard of certain large power tools.

FWIW, (I think) he said that the Jointer Mate sreies of power feeders was a prototype. They had sold a few, some people thought they were great, others thought they were junk.

Who really knows about power feeders?

Rob

[Rick Lizek]

http://www.wmdusa.com/products.html
Maggi, Steff produce most of the European power feeders. Most are marketd under other brand names. Sunhill has good prices on taiwan power feeders. 3 wheel 1 hp is pretty much the most common configuration I've seen over 30 years in the business. www.westernroller.com (http://www.westernroller.com) makes the best after market replacement wheels.
The best jointers with power feeds are called facers and have spring loaded fingers to hold the wood down closely duplicating the hand feeding of wood.

[Rob Russell]

The Felder-branded power feeders are actually Maggi Steff's. They are typically less expensive than the MS-branded version, although none of them are cheap considering the exchange rate with Europe. The MS feeders are considered to be high quality. You just have to ignore the color of the Felder if it doesn't match your equipment or buy a can of spray paint from your machinery manufacturer.

[Jay Keller]

I know its important for me for all the equipment colors to match.

[Reg Mitchell]

Hi Rob
heres what I got and it works very nice
http://www.sunhillmachinery.com/Power%20Feeders%20AF38-48.htm My friend Thom has one and recomended it very highly. If memory serves me correct it is a steff made by sunhill
Reg

[Mike Heidrick]

Check out the Shaper fence thread as well for more feeder info.

Amazon has some 1hp Delta feeders on sale and the current $1226 4 roll feeder was below $700 earier in the week. These are commatic rebranded feeders. I like my 3 roll 36-851.

[craig lapiana]

i just got a delta 8 speed 4 wheel feeder in from amazon. it cost $850 delivered which was fast to my door but now i am trying to figure out what to do with it :) in that it is a HUGE beast. mike you where not kidding when you said these tools are big! i bet the foot print of this feeder is almost 1/2 the size of my 3hp delta shaper's table.

what books are out there which can help out with figuring out what to do with a feeder once you have one? 4 simple diagrams do not help that much.

[J.R. Rutter]

If memory serves me correct it is a steff made by sunhill

Comatic with Sunhill colors? The Maggi Steff has a metal cover. Otherwise it is a very close copy of the Italian design.

As for shaper references, I hace Roger Cliffe's Shaper Book, which has good info on power feeders. Lonnie Bird also has a shaper book that covers them.

Part of the appeal of the big huge feeder is that it guards the cutter very effectively.

[Rob Will]

So, in what situation is a 4-wheel feeder better than a 3-wheel version?

In the case of wheel type power feeders, which style of wheel has the greatest traction?
Does anybody offer a serrated metal wheel similar to what the jointer mate uses?
(in this particular case the feeder would be used to face joint some heavy slabs)

Rob

[Rick Lizek]

There are metal serrated wheels available. The ones on the joint mate are aluminum which in my opinion would get smoothed over very quickly. I'd have to look over my notes for the metal wheel source. Stock wheels are typically not very good. Western Roller has different durometer wheels available so that would be a good optional source. Lookat their super drive high traction roller...should be fine for any application you have. Non marking as well compared to the metal wheels.

Can't think of a time in 30 years where a 4 wheel feeder would have worked better on an application we were doing. 4 wheel feeders are more expensive and pretty heavy to move around.

[Mike Heidrick]

Lonnie and Cliffe make the two best books. I bought them both and they are two fo my favorite books in the library.
The Shaper Book by Lonnie Bird - ISBN-10: 1561581208
Shaper Handbook by Roger W Cliffee - ISBN-10: 0941936694

In the case of a three roller head the cutter goes between the 1st and second rollers. On a four roller head the cutter goes between the second and third rollers.

The design of the four roller head allows for more traction on the infeed side of the head. In shaping a four roller would work really well and if mounting on a cobination machine the 4 wheel would give more distance to the infeed side. If the price is the same go with the 4 wheel in my opinion. Since many times you angle the head slightly into the outfeed of the fence to keep the stock pressed against the fence the geometry of infeed line will be longer on the four wheel design.

As to mounting, I used four clamps for a few cuts to hold the feeder where I thought I wanted it on the shaper. After using it successfully there I then drilled and tapped the CI and permanently mounted the feeder. It was the first time I had ever used a tap and the first time I have ever drilled CI. I learned about tapping during the experience (used a drill - DO NOT DO THIS - Get a tap hadle). But it worked great and I had NO issues. BTW - the Gear Wrench ratcheting tap handle is one of the nicest hand mechanic tools I have ever used. They sell it at Sears - CHECK THAT THING OUT!! It is awesome. The SAE/Metric set is on my list of WANTS and will be obtained this year - how big is too big for fathers day??

The way I found the first good position was to use a grease pencil and I marked the extremes of my fence. Keep in mind the ribs underneath and the fact that a nut has to be screwed on underneath as well so do not get too colse to the ribs.

For $850 shipped for a four wheel 1hp model, if you do your research on tool prices before buying, you will find that is incredibly hard to beat for that stock feeder! Great job Craig, You SUCK!

The shaper books are worth the $27 for both as well!

[J.R. Rutter]

So, in what situation is a 4-wheel feeder better than a 3-wheel version?

When you have different cutters and/or situations where you will be feeding the shaper from both left and right side. This could be cutters with different rotations, or climb cuts. With a 3-wheel feeder, you need to adjust 3 different joints each time you switch. With a 4-wheel feeder, you just pivot the motor.

As for where to position the spindle, I have to respectfully disagree with Mike. I run all of my 3 wheel feeders with the spindle between the middle and outfeed roller. I prefer to have better control going into the cut as opposed to exiting. Maybe this is just a personal preference thing.

[Rick Lizek]

http://exoticwoods.com/product.php?productid=1348&cat=34&page=2
The Shaper Handbook by Eric Stephenson is the best book on shapers I've seen and there aren't many. The old Deltagram series had a good shaper book worth finding. One of the best books on machinery is "Machine Woodworking Technology for Handwoodworkers" by F.E. Sherlock The only book I've seen that talks about moulders, tennoners, pin router and even explains the five type of mortisers in Industry, Chain, Chisel, Slot mortiser, Maka and Alternax.

I tend to go along with JR on wheel placement but overall there is no right or wrong way. Whatever works best.

[Rob Will]

Here's what I want to do with a power feeder: I want to face joint huge boards starting with rough cut lumber. Some White Oak I have in mind measures 5/4 x 27" x 12' (will have to rip it down a bit first). I have a lot of rough sawn lumber that is 16 - 24" wide. Don't ask me what I'm going to build because I don't know......but for the time being, machining wide boards is great fun.

As you can imagine, some of these rough sawn boards are quite heavy and hard to push through the jointer. I'm thinking a power feeder would help.

Here's a pic from Western's site. Are these rollers double wide? Would something like this have the power to handle these heavy boards? What would you recommend?

Rob

[Mike Heidrick]

I was just gong by what my manual said = I am still new to using a feeder so...

Position the feeder assembly so that the
shaper cutter is between the middle roller and infeed
roller. The outfeed roller should be approximately
1/4" closer to the outfeed fence than the infeed roller

[Reg Mitchell]

Comatic with Sunhill colors? The Maggi Steff has a metal cover. Otherwise it is a very close copy of the Italian design.

As for shaper references, I hace Roger Cliffe's Shaper Book, which has good info on power feeders. Lonnie Bird also has a shaper book that covers them.

Part of the appeal of the big huge feeder is that it guards the cutter very effectively.
Yep...I went to look to make sure. They make if for sunhill
Reg
Oh and it a 6 speed

[J.R. Rutter]

Hey Mike - my Delta manual says the same thing, but has a pic showing it the other way - go figure. Whatever works, eh?