Who makes the best...

[Stewart Crick]

shaper blades?

Stu

[John Weber]

Stu,

I guess the best are Freeborn Tool.

John

Freeborn Tool (http://www.freeborntool.com)

[Stewart Crick]

Stu,

I guess the best are Freeborn Tool.

John

Freeborn Tool (http://www.freeborntool.com)

Thanks John.

Any others? Are you using Freeborn cutters?

Stu

[Steve Clardy]

Yep. Freeborn cutters here too. I run the raised panel cutters. Great, nice prices. Steve

[Stewart Crick]

Yep. Freeborn cutters here too. I run the raised panel cutters. Great, nice prices. Steve

I'm new to this shaper world, as if you couldn't tell. What are the pros, cons, or dangers of running my CMT router bits using a router collet spindle till I build up a collection of shaper cutters?

[Rob Russell]

The best shaper cutters are what is called "insert tooling". A typical shaper cutter that you're used to seeing is called brazed tooling.

On brazed tooling, the cutting blades are brazed (welded, if you will) to the base of the cutterhead. These cutters can be resharpened but the quality of the sharpening will affect the usefullness of the cutter. For example, if you have a straight-bladed cutter that you'd use for putting rabbets on door frames, the critical element is that the newly sharpened cutting edges for all 3 or 4 knives are in the same circle and that they are parallel to the cutterhead body. When you have a set of rail and stile cutters sharpened, you want the profile to mate cleanly afterwards and that's not the case if it's a lousy sharpening job.

In insert tooling, the cutting knives are removeable and replaceable by you. The knives are held onto the cutterhead by bolts or screws. When an insert rail/stile cutterhead set gets dull, you remove the old knives - toss them - and screw on a new set. The new knives will line up perfectly and you start running stock again. Dependin on the type of cutter, the knives have 2 or 4 sides and you can flip them before tossing them.

Insert tooling costs more than brazed tooling - like twice the initial outlay. The difference is that ongoing costs are limited to new knives and your down time is minimal vs. sending a cutterhead out tobe sharpened. Manufacturers are ones like Leitz, Freud has some, Freeborn has some.

If you're looking at the brazed tooling, Freeborn, Freud, Amana are all good quality names.

In terms of running a router bit in a shaper, there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the machine has an induction motor and the power to keep that small bit spinning at the RPM you set it at. You might have larger table space on the shaper unless you've built a nice router table. The disadvantage is that the shaper will spin slower, so your feed rate past the bit has to be a little slower than with a router. You don't want to go too slow our you'll heat up the cutting edges of the bit, lose the temper and then it will dull quickly (that's true witha router too). A sure sign of that is burning on your workpiece.

[Steven Wilson]

Check out www.ballewtools.com they carry Freeborn, LRH and others - all good stuff. Freud cutters are also good and consider the cutters that Felder markets. Felder has some good deals on their shaper cutters at the end of the year, you can get some nice insert tooling for fairly reasonable prices.