The main reason to have a shaper

[Steve Griffin]

My shaper is one of the most important tools in the shop, but I use it for something which many in the hobby or business don't: cleaning up and squaring edges. Darn near every piece of wood in my shop goes through the shaper, and I can't imagine not having it. My setup is hardly new, and most bigger shops use a similar arrangement, but I'm constantly amazed that not everyone with a shaper is using it for this very important task.

In the bad old days, I would put in my sharpest, nicest table saw blade to cut wood to width, and then carefully sand the saw marks away, hoping to not loose a flat and square surface. Or sometimes I would set the jointer with razor sharp blades for a .032 skim pass and go slow and careful to get a nice square edge.

But with a well set up shaper, I now just stuff a board in and out comes board with a nice shiney smooth edge which is perfectly square. Maybe a little 220 hand sand is needed at most. Faceframes, glue-ups, door parts all are worlds easier when you have a perfect edge to work with.

With all the help I have received from Sawmill Creek experts, I thought that this tip would be a good payback.

Next post will be pictures and explanations--got to take care of our 1.5 year old.....

-Steve

[Steve Griffin]

The good news is, that setting up a shaper for edging operations only takes a couple hours and about $30.

The basic idea is to use a straight edge cutter and an outboard fence and climb cut with a power feeder. I typically take off 1/16 inch on each edge of the board. The fence is adjusted to the exact width you want by indexing with two steel rulers mounted on each side. When starting with roughsawn wood, I normally joint one edge and rip my wood to 3/16 wider than final width. Then, after face jointing and planing, I take one more pass on the jointer to take off 1/16 of an inch--(a little extra chance to insure a straight edge), and then off to the shaper to take off the final 1/16" from each edge.

Hopefully the pictures show my method well, and no doubt there are many other ways to make a fence or index system. My fence is 1/2" thick, so I can still run 5/8" thick boards without getting in the way of the feeder rollers. The metals rules are taken from cheap combo squares and set in a groove in hardwood. Since you will be so delighted with this system you will be running miles of wood through it, the metal rules need to be set perfectly so as not mar the wood.

Next post:If you still are not sold on this idea, I have a lazy mans method to get the same results so you can think about it further, though it has annoying drawbacks.

-Steve

[Jamie Buxton]

You're using a shaper as a jointer. Why is the shaper better at edge jointing than a jointer?

[Jason Yeager]

Thanks for posting this, what a great idea, now I need another shaper.....

Jason

[Steve Griffin]

Now one shop I have visited uses a variation of this system, which I find inferior, but has the advantage of less time and money to modify your shaper.

Basically he omits the outboard fence and sets up the stock fences to remove exactly 1/16 of an inch, sort of like a jointer. The wood needs to be ripped to EXACTLY plus 1/8" and the fence needs to be set EXACTLY for 1/16" wood removal. Needless to say, there are a couple opportunities for a little error to creep in.

But the worse thing is if you need to use the shaper for something else, you are faced with a somewhat tedious task of setting up the stock fences again for edging operations. With my setup, I can use the shaper for anything else in the world, and in 2 minutes return it to edging operation mode. Basically the stock fences are just glorified dust containers, and I just need to make sure the rollers roll in the right direction with about 1/2" angle towards the outboard fence.

Hope this helps someone out a little. -Steve

[Steve Griffin]

You're using a shaper as a jointer. Why is the shaper better at edge jointing than a jointer?

For the same reason you need a planer with a jointer. The jointer simply gives you a straight line, an edging setup on a shaper gives you a perfect width. Plus, not to question your manhood, but a 4 roller shaper compressing and feeding your wood in climb cut direction will result in a much more square and clean edge than you can get with even the best jointer. Not to mention WAY faster if you care about speed.

-Steve

[David DeCristoforo]

"Why is the shaper better at edge jointing than a jointer?"

It's only "better" in certain situations. Like if you need to edge joint a lot of sticks (especially if they are wide) in which case it's much easier work to joint them laying flat rather than on edge and much easier on the hands/arms/shoulders/back to have a power feeder! Steve's method for running stock between an outboard fence and the cutter is also great in certain situations but not all. For example, I mill all of my stock for cope and stick door frames this way, sizing, jointing and profiling all in one pass. But this is suicide to attempt this without a feeder, especially if you want to climb cut. This technique is limited however to relatively narrow stock unless you have a really huge shaper table.

[Steve Griffin]

Mine is a basic 3hp grizzly shaper. And yes, I use the same outboard fence and feeder for doing various edge profiles, grooves and even 45 degree bevel.

I disagree that it is only a good method for numerous pieces or thin pieces. My modest shaper can handle boards up to about 12" wide and I will go to it to for even a single board which needs to go to final width. It's faster than a pass on the table saw.

-Steve

[Chris Padilla]

Interesting stuff. A shaper is one of those tools that most hobbyists likely do not have. I have friends who have very well-equipped* shops and yet shapers are absent in all of them. Router table...sure...but no shaper!





*-Of course, those with shapers may disagree with my definition here....

[John Terefenko]

Todays router tables and bigger routers have put the shaper in the corner where mine is. One day I am going to unload that hunk of metal. The cutters are too darn expensive. Jointer will put a nice edge on any board and if you want you can use the router table. Maybe larger furniture shops find more use for them. To each his own as they say I guess.

[Rod Sheridan]

I use an outboard fence and feeder for the same sort of tasks that David has mentioned, such as profiling and sizing in one pass.

I also use mine when running small widths, since the feeder is the only thing in the danger zone.

I partially agree with Chris, many hobbyists don't have a shaper, they have a router table. I'm the converse hobbyist, I have a shaper, no router.

I find that since I only make things out of solid wood, the shaper is the least expensive tooling option, as I use HSS knives in an insert head.

Regards, Rod.

[John Coloccia]

I always thought the main reason for a shaper is to toss around pieces of wood that are too heavy to throw by hand.

[Rod Sheridan]

Well, that's the second reason.

The first reason is so that we can tease router owners

Regards, Rod.

[Karl Brogger]

I've considered setting up a shaper in this manner. I use a planer for sizing all of my material. Rip it an 1/8" big, take off a 1/16 on both sides. The advantage of doing it with shaper is obvious in that support on two sides of the material just about guarantees a square edge, and having the feeder push away from the cutter would all but eliminate snipe. Another advantage would be that most feeders can be set at some rediculous slow feed rates, but that also takes time.

Comes down to time though. I do think you could get a better product doing it this way, but when I size material with the planer, I typically run five pieces at a time through. Unless I only need one stick.

Not a bad idea, just not realistic in most smaller production enviroments. A shop I used to work for used two heads of a five head moulder for sizing material, but that was a single piece, single pass operation, and had some rediculous feed rates, yet still did a very good job. It was also a two man job, it would be impossible to feed/stack with one person the material went though so fast.

[Chris Padilla]

I find that since I only make things out of solid wood, the shaper is the least expensive tooling option, as I use HSS knives in an insert head.

Regards, Rod.

What do you have, Rod? Can you share a few pics? I'm very curious about your insert head. Do you make your own knives?