Cope and stick insert head suggestions

I think that I have finally talked my boss at the cabinet shop that I work at to buy some insert tooling this go around instead of continuing to invest in brazed cutters which eventually need replaced. He asked for me to do some research and find out the best value for the money. So far I have looked at Freeborn (the most expensive but probably the best), Schmidt, Freud, Amana, and Infinity just to make a few. I doubt that he will go with the Freeborn due to their price.

We need something that can run ogee, cove, round over profiles on the cabinet doors. It appears that some manufactures that I have checked into require a special separate head set for running the 22.5 degree shaker profiles. It would be nice if we could find a set of heads that could run the standard ogee, round over, cove and 22.5 degree shaker profiles all in one head. If not we will buy one set of shaker heads and one set of the other profiles heads.

Anyone care to chime in? It looks to me like Amana might be the best cost to performance ratio. I personally tried some Infinity cutters several years ago and did not like them performance wise. They might be better now though. They would be the cheapest.

Bobby put "shaper tooling" in your thread title. That should help generate more responses. I have a couple shapers but do not own any insert tooling for cope and stick. I have one set from Amana for mission style doors that I probably would not buy again as I have other ways to make these type of doors now.

I live in TN, but have ordered most ofmy cutters from Whitehill in the UK. Shipping is not too expensive and delivery is reasonably quick.

They have a good online website so you can browse all the different types of cutter heads and inserts that go with each.

https://www.whitehill-tools.com

You didn't state where you are located, so I'm not sure if you'll be charged customs duty or not. I placed an order for about $1200 worth of stuff and did get a call from US customs. I explained what the items were and for home use and they released the shipment with no import tax due.

Hi Bobby, at one point I thought about getting an insert style cabinet door set for kitchens but decided I wasn't interested in moving enough doors to make the expense worth it for me, so I do all my cabinet door work with HSS knives in a limiter head. https://youtu.be/MDgZ3r1LPg4 Usually one set of knives will do both cope and stick. I can get a couple of kitchens at least from a set of knives and of course they can be custom ground to whatever profile I might want.

That said, when I was looking around for insert style systems I found that Whitehill was the most cost effective and flexible of the Pro grade kit because their set was designed to produce tongue thicknesses anywhere from 5 to 9mm which means odd sized panels could be made perfect without special tooling. The tongue is also a full 15mm long so better glue surface area than some. The basic set that comes with the ability to do three common profiles (Ovolo, chamfer, lambs tongue) and adjustable groove is about $1800 USD and with cutters for mission style as well it's about $2300. There's a chance they could make just profile blades for your 22.5deg shaker profile which would mount into the mission discs which wouldn't be that expensive, but they might have to make new discs, you'd have to ask.

Rangate rents out a very nice shaper set for kitchen cabinets if your door work is not steady. I like the Great Lakes cutter body since I can get different backers and cutter inserts as/when I need. They also have a nice index system so change over time is quick. Price wise they are not wonderful.

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Originally Posted by Brad Shipton

Rangate rents out a very nice shaper set for kitchen cabinets if your door work is not steady. I like the Great Lakes cutter body since I can get different backers and cutter inserts as/when I need. They also have a nice index system so change over time is quick. Price wise they are not wonderful.

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Wow these Great Lake insert heads are wonderful. I will be calling them today since they don’t list their prices online. Might be out of my price range though. Maybe not. I just need a set of heads that will accommodate all of the standard cabinet door profiles and a set of heads for 22.5 degree shaker door profiles. Later on we will look into getting insert heads for our panel raisers, door edge details, and a general Moulding head.

we have the zuani sets from rangate, and they provide a far superior cut and geometry than my freeborn sets. rangate is great to deal with, and the engineering on the zuanis is exceptional. the beveled shaker is particularly nice.

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Originally Posted by Bobby Robbinett

Wow these Great Lake insert heads are wonderful. I will be calling them today since they don’t list their prices online. Might be out of my price range though. Maybe not. I just need a set of heads that will accommodate all of the standard cabinet door profiles and a set of heads for 22.5 degree shaker door profiles. Later on we will look into getting insert heads for our panel raisers, door edge details, and a general Moulding head.

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It would be interesting to hear what price they come back with and what each individual profile costs. Looks like the tongue thickness would be fixed. Also, especially considering this is in a workplace, you should consider MAN rated tooling as it's much safer.

B

You can get an idea of prices of the Great Lakes cutter body on the Weinig website. Knife costs are based on the profile. They do have minimums for inserts and cutters. https://tooling.weinigusa.com/category-s/1843.htm You are pretty much stuck with them cutting the profiles, but when you look thru the weinig catalog they do have a lot of different profiles since they are in the moulder business.

Great Lakes, from the weinigusa.com website, appear to be almost twice as expensive as the comparable head at Whitehill.

I just finished dealing with Rangate (bought a eurogroove cutter for some T/T windows)... I can confirm that they are absolutely excellent to deal with. I cannot speak to pricing (although the eurogrooce cutter was decently priced), but the quality of the tooling and service was top notch. Probably the best I've had in the woodworking industry so far.

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Originally Posted by Bill Kugler

I just finished dealing with Rangate (bought a eurogroove cutter for some T/T windows)... I can confirm that they are absolutely excellent to deal with. I cannot speak to pricing (although the eurogrooce cutter was decently priced), but the quality of the tooling and service was top notch. Probably the best I've had in the woodworking industry so far.

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I dont like their cabinet insert head for the fact you have to run the cope face down and the sticking face up.

Dimensions in tooling is another name in the list of manufacturers that make insert heads.

Jared, that seems crazy. Did you ask Greg why they think that a good idea?