Originally Posted by
Warren Lake
Here my thoughts Mike,
You stop a machine to reverse is mickey mouse if you are running for 2-4 hours at a time which I did. No chance id start and stop a machine 50-100 times or more to run stuff.
You reverse your machine, does your cutter reverse itself as well?
A router bit in a shaper is still router. Its now a 1,300 lb router table. The mass is good, the speed is less than half what the bit should run at. One machine I looked at was an inverted pin router, Onsrud inverted pin router. Router tooling, they call it a router.
The shapers here Grrigio SCM and Poitras non of them take a router bit. The 100 plus auctions I saw one shaper that took a router bit the Felder at B and G and I dont know if they had a collet. Point is 98 percent of the shapers out there dont take router bits. Maybe the new nippon Gacci stuff and high end like Martin have that. Two of my machines are original owner and have all the parts available at the time. No router collets.
Climb cutting on your router table that will go fine till you find one of your parts in your neighbours back yard. Most important I hand held to do template work because that is total control, you climb cut all day long with a router in your hand, not vise versa.
Warren
I think were approaching things fro a differing perspective.
I did mix up some thoughts on reversing. I was trying to emphasize the ability to reverse cutter direction, shaper cutters versus router bits, and climb cutting with a router bit, and screwed that sentence up. A router bit spinning in reverse on a shaper will not work at all, no matter what. I apologize for that mis-statement.
I've done a lot of climb cutting with router bits in a router table, router bits in a shaper table, and shaper cutters in a shaper table. Is it nerve wracking? it can be. Can it be done safely? Yes, I believe so.
I actually purchased a Festool OF 2200 just to be able use larger cutters in a handheld, template, application, as you have pointed out, so I do understand your point.
I've not yet spent 2-4 hours doing continuous climb cutting. That's a lot of time with a router in your hand, not matter which direction you're moving it.
The point I was trying to make is that people somehow have been led to believe that a router bit will not work in a shaper table, accepting of course that the shaper is capable of adapting to a router bit, and I have not found that to be a 100% true statement. Are there limits? Certainly there are limits, but it's not black and white.
Both machines are extremely versatile and adaptable. It's pretty much up to the ingenuity of the user to maximize that versatility, and adaptability.
"The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)