corrugated shaper heads

[brent stanley]

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.
Attachment 408595

As for cheap knives.. Yeah they are cheap, and for the roughly $7 i paid for most of them, they work great.
Attachment 408596

Lower price for more steel is always good! I bet the price difference has a lot to do with boring the holes if they start from scratch. I don't think water jet on it's own is accurate enough so they probably need to go in there as a second step and refine the holes but I could be wrong. When you buy blanks by the train load with the holes already bored, the cost equation changes.

I've been tempted by some job lot purchases of those smaller knives a few times, but never pulled the trigger. There will probably be one at my estate sale though.

B

[Jeff Duncan]

Ok so unfortunately my local guys don't do knives for the Euro head, they could source them elsewhere, just not something they do in house. More importantly they didn't think there was enough thickness to do a carbide knife with steel backer and I don't think I'd get very much linear footage per set of HSS so probably doesn't make sense. I'll have to try another company out if I want the Euro knifes ground so will keep in mind for next time.

I considered possibly getting the CG Schmidt flooring insert heads and having the inserts custom ground. Would certainly make changing cutters a breeze. It came down to price point though and I figured it would be almost double the cost of the carbide w/ steel backer for my corrugated heads. And realistically when am I going to use the heads again? This is the 1st flooring project I've done so probably not going to be getting a whole lot more. So I opted to get 2 sets of corrugated knives made in carbide, It'll take more setup time for sure, but I can live with that vs the extra cost. I'm hoping I can get the whole lot through in the two sets, if not I can have them do a quick touchup on them as the tongue is a wedge shape. They're going to make sure the knife ends are squared up perfectly and grind them so that in theory they'll set up easily.

Oh and FWIW yes, this is a large batch of material to run. I'm not milling from scratch though so no need for a molder, that would be too much for my shop to handle and honestly I couldn't compete in terms of cost. Without getting into too much detail, I'm actually taking existing engineered flooring with what looks to be a proprietary T&G, ripping in half, and re-milling the tongue and groove on the cut edge of the pieces. So while it's a lot of drudgery, it shouldn't be that bad. The worst part is going to be the physical movement of the material.

[peter gagliardi]

Well, good luck with the job.
Just be aware that some of the engineered flooring out there is finished with a product with Aluminum Oxide in it to help slow wear. Between that and the glues used to make the flooring, you may experience some frustration.

[Jared Sankovich]

Well, good luck with the job.
Just be aware that some of the engineered flooring out there is finished with a product with Aluminum Oxide in it to help slow wear. Between that and the glues used to make the flooring, you may experience some frustration.

I wouldn't let prefinished flooring close to any cutter i cared about or expected to last more than 100'. Ive killed enough saw blades just cutting for installs to know enough to stay away (in this context)

[Jeff Duncan]

Thanks Peter, I'm going to need it. Brought it in the shop today, 8 pallets 30"d x 87"l x 36"h.... I barely have room to work! I'll be watching the flooring carefully as it comes out of the shaper to monitor wear. The last batch they had run by another shop had some quantities that suffered a lot of tear-out and fuzzy grain. I want to make sure the cut stays clean so I'll probably slow down the feed rate and if that means an extra sharpening in between batches then I'll have a second set of knives ready to go. I feel it's better that than letting the glue lines abrade the carbide too much and ruining the knives and possibly finish cut.....we'll see though.

No worries on finish as this is raw flooring. After I'm done I send it back to the flooring guys and it gets sent out of state for finishing....in oil.

[Brian Ross]

I hope you are using a set of knives that is designed for flooring as opposed to a standard set of T & G knives. Flooring knives have the lower part of the grove shorter than the top part. With regular T & G knivesthe slightest high spot in your floor and you will not be able get the flooring tight. I have laid hardwood commercially and discovered this when someone milled their own flooring. I apologize if you all ready knew this.

[Jeff Duncan]

I hope you are using a set of knives that is designed for flooring as opposed to a standard set of T & G knives. Flooring knives have the lower part of the grove shorter than the top part. With regular T & G knivesthe slightest high spot in your floor and you will not be able get the flooring tight. I have laid hardwood commercially and discovered this when someone milled their own flooring. I apologize if you all ready knew this.

Thanks Brian, these are not typical flooring knives, could likely be a proprietary tongue and groove as they have a very distinct fit, when they go together the tops are just about perfectly flush and the joint is tight. I've laid a few types of flooring, (but FAR from an expert on it), and I've never seen this particular T&G setup before. It's going to be a lot of fun every time I have to change the knives out