corrugated shaper heads

[peter gagliardi]

24k feet of flooring without a molder, or even a set of dedicated flooring heads like Schmidt sells is really brave Jeff.
Thats gonna be some hours!!
Best option long term would be the Schmidt flooring head- knives are mirror image and flippable. 4 cutting edges on one set of inserts.
That is what I now run on my molder when doing flooring.
They also end match well with the tenoning table.

[brent stanley]

You know I've never had a set of Euro knives ground. I know they do them, but just never even thought about it, just order corrugated, or sometimes modify an existing knife on the bench grinder. I need to run about 24k lf of flooring next week so will be having knives made up. I'm going to talk to the guy who does my knives and see how the pricing stacks up between the two. If they can match multiple sets to set in the head exactly the same it may be worth having the Euro head do the job. Figuring I'll need several knife changes even if I use carbide on the corrugated head, so maybe half a dozen sets for the Euro head.... but...it may save time on alignment if I can swap knives without touching the adjustment of the head..... something I'm going to think on a bit more.

I've only ever ground them myself or had Whitehill do it for me but I expect a good shop would be able to index off the pins for you and do the job.....it's not rocket surgery. I have had a few sets made for me for use in either man made materials or long runs in oak and had the knives tipped in carbide. 3000lf in softwood is not uncommon for the good plain steel in euroblocks (triple that for carbide perhaps) but unfortunately the most common knives available in NA are the dollar store variety 40mm or 50mm ones that are low grade steel. They have their place, but not good for long runs and the pin holes are sloppy compared to the proper thing. I bought a whole bunch of blanks in the good steel and am slowly going through them.

24klf of flooring is going to fill a few dust bins!

[jim mills]

Brent, can you be more specific on which knives are good, and which are dollar store variety? I see whitehill is in the UK. Not likely a practical source for me here in the US. Thanks!

[brent stanley]

Brent, can you be more specific on which knives are good, and which are dollar store variety? I see whitehill is in the UK. Not likely a practical source for me here in the US. Thanks!

The small knives commonly available in NA from Dimar, CMT and Tools Today (https://www.amanatool.com/products/s...r-cutters.html) are all mass produced by one company in Germany and retailed by many companies. Whitehill told me they won't carry them because of the poor quality steel, pin hole machining and grinding. I had a card-carrying machinist look at them and they are very poor, but that said, they have their role in my shop for short runs and I do own a number of them. Unfortunately I've been witness to people in NA forming opinions about euroblocks overall based only on experience with these K-Mart calibre knives, which is too bad. The manufacturers that cater to commercial producers typically use higher quality steel in their euroblock knives, Whitehill's is the same as their corrugated and I expect other manufacturers are the same.

I personally own both which allows for taking advantage of what each offers, but to be clear, corrugated can do everything that pin retained Euroblocks can do......they just may be less convenient and more expensive as Jeff mentioned above. There's no question that corrugated is more common over here for now, but when I need knives I just point and click on the web page, put in my CC information and they magically arrive in my mailbox in a few days.....my mailbox doesn't seem to care if they come across land or the Atlantic. Having both styles lets you optimize by taking advantage of the best each has to offer.

B

[jim mills]

I went to whitehill site, and found I had to complete order, and be invoiced before I knew the cost of what I was ordering.

[brent stanley]

I went to whitehill site, and found I had to complete order, and be invoiced before I knew the cost of what I was ordering.

Interesting, things have either changed, or it's different in the US. They need to add shipping manually I guess, but the total costs excluding shipping is in your shopping cart. You shouldn't have to pay their sales tax, just your own. To Canada, shipping often turns out to about 10% of the price in my experience, but that's all with very large packages.

B

[Joe Calhoon]

I went to whitehill site, and found I had to complete order, and be invoiced before I knew the cost of what I was ordering.

Jim,
see my post #30 above. I explained Hot Knives ( and probably some other US companies can make high quality replacement knives for the Euro blocks. They don’t use pre bored blanks but cut and do the holes in house. I don’t know if they use the water jet for this but they are very precise compared to the standard knives that come with these. They can also do carbide for these.They are overnight or 2 days to me. I have had a lot of experience ordering from Europe and air freight depending if it gets hung up in customs can be 2 days to 2 weeks. My order from Whitehill arrived in 9 days. And yes they don’t calculate shipping till the order is complete. I thought it was reasonable though.

I use a lot of different cutters, - braised carbide, high quality inserts for my everyday work, insert on sleeves for door, window and tenoning work and a variety of HSS limiter blocks and of course Corrugated. In my experience corrugated is going to be the best low cost solution for short runs.

[jim mills]

Thanks Joe. When I first read "hot knife" in your original post, I thought it was a type of knife. Now I see it's a knife shop, and not too far from me at that!

[brent stanley]

Jim,
see my post #30 above. I explained Hot Knives ( and probably some other US companies can make high quality replacement knives for the Euro blocks. They don’t use pre bored blanks but cut and do the holes in house. I don’t know if they use the water jet for this but they are very precise compared to the standard knives that come with these. They can also do carbide for these.They are overnight or 2 days to me. I have had a lot of experience ordering from Europe and air freight depending if it gets hung up in customs can be 2 days to 2 weeks. My order from Whitehill arrived in 9 days. And yes they don’t calculate shipping till the order is complete. I thought it was reasonable though.

I use a lot of different cutters, - braised carbide, high quality inserts for my everyday work, insert on sleeves for door, window and tenoning work and a variety of HSS limiter blocks and of course Corrugated. In my experience corrugated is going to be the best low cost solution for short runs.

I see they sell the cheap, round-back three holers too. They work out ok sometimes.

So how does it work if you want knives for a euroblock, are they all considered custom orders, or do they stock profiles too? I know for most companies the stock profiles are usually less than half of the price of ones ground to specs you provide.

[Joe Calhoon]

Not sure they sell the stock knives. I think the picture is there just so people know what they are talking about. They call them a two hole knife.

They are all custom and custom knives always cost more.
Looking at the knife I believe they cut the holes on a water jet.

hot knife.jpg

[brent stanley]

Not sure they sell the stock knives. I think the picture is there just so people know what they are talking about. They call them a two hole knife.

They are all custom and custom knives always cost more.
Looking at the knife I believe the cut the holes on a water jet.

Selling the rough, water-jet cut profiles that leaves the customer to finish grind is a really neat service they provide for shops set up to grind. I might use that service!

[brent stanley]

Just talked with Hot Knives actually and their prices are almost identical to custom knives, and they use the same grade of steel too. Custom is almost triple the off-the-shelf pricing for profiles which I think is pretty standard.

B

[jim mills]

So what, about $100 for a set of two hole knives?

[brent stanley]

So what, about $100 for a set of two hole knives?

Seems to be a little more than $2 per mm if that helps.....maybe $115 for a set of 55mm knives which is a common size. Seems very reasonable. They said they could do limiters too if you had a limiter style euroblock.

[Jared Sankovich]

Seems to be a little more than $2 per mm if that helps.....maybe $115 for a set of 55mm knives which is a common size. Seems very reasonable. They said they could do limiters too if you had a limiter style euroblock.

I pay $23/inch for corrugated m2 or custom ground 40mm Amana from my local guy. The corrugated is a better deal.

Here is a set I just had made last week, $80 to my door. Ill have to ask about custom blanks, since he cuts the profile on a water jet.
20190424_145427.jpg

As for cheap knives.. Yeah they are cheap, and for the roughly $7 i paid for most of them, they work great.
20190421_120452.jpg