I picked up this shaper cutterhead today and took a chance I could get knives for it. I am attaching a link to a couple of pictures. Any ideas where to get this style knife?
Thanks
http://www.mgstocks.com/images/cutterhead.jpg
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Replies
This appears to be a head designed to use bevel edge steel knives. The last steel that I bought came from "The Simonds saw co"
The material comes in various widths and in lengths of 24"I have used these heads for years for short run mouldings and other shaper work.The material that I have bought was made from "high speed steel"
A material that can safely be ground to shape without fear of burning or drawing the temper.The head shown uses steel with a notched edge. A feature that allows for fine adjustment of the knife projection.
I have not seen this material in catalogs for a long time,however a mill supply company should be able to get it for you.
Let me state that,in my opinion,these heads should not be used by inexperienced operators.
Work safely¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬PAT¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
http://www.wmooreprofiles.com/shapcol2.htm
The term is lock edge shaper cutter and lock edge knives.
Like Pat says...not for inexperienced operators. Haven't seen them listed much over the last few years. Corrugated heads are a lot safer. The older bevel edge cutters didn't have the locking feature and could throw knives easily.
Edited 4/3/2004 7:04 am ET by rick3ddd
I have just found these knives in an old catalog from "Wood WorkersTool Works"in Chicago. They may or may not still be in business. What I liked about this shaper set up is that only one knife had to be ground to the exact profile.The other knife was ground somewhere close and is used for balance. This is a quick way to run a few feet of that special moulding. I would NEVER use this method on a table top machine.My heavy shaper has a spindle diameter of 1" Using the smallest diameter possible for the shape at hand,This machine at a speed of 10,000 R.P.M.Makes a loud roaring sound when started up.
Scary,but safe when properly set up and used.
Work safely ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬PAT¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
http://www.wtwchgo.com/
Still in business but they don't show those cutterheads on the website.
http://www.wmooreprofiles.com/shapcol2.htm
These folks still deal with that cutterhead it appears. Used to use them a lot years ago but haven't seen any around for some time now. The french head cutter was even simpler but I know they were banned in Europe a few years ago and most woodworkers in this country don't even know what they are. French head cutter could be ground to the exact profile. I certainly am not advocating use of the french head cutter. With the lock edge cutters there is some complex figuring to grind the profile.
http://www.cggschmidt.com/
has book that goes into the particulars on figuring out the proper profile compensations. Years ago FWW had an article on it as well.
Edited 4/3/2004 3:06 pm ET by rick3ddd
The complete layout for grinding these knives is shown in the old Delta publication"Getting the most out of your shaper"
Would you believe that the copyright date was 1954.
It was a book in a series known as the "Deltacraft library"Being the packrat that I am,I have many books on the trade now long out of print. For anyone needing to grind special shapes,the layout is very easy. It is the same for grinding cutters for the 3 knife heads that we all use on the table saw or shaper. The shape is enlongated,the amount being determined by the angle at which the cutter meets the work.The angle on the 3 knife heads being much greater than on the pair of shaper collars.
Make a short piece of the desired moulding on a perfectly straight and square piece of stock.Now cut the end of it on the same angle as the knife fits in your cutterhead.The resulting piece is ####perfect template for the ground edge.Lay the template on the face of your knife and scribe the shape.
Sorry that I am not better at written directions,but maybe you can understand what I am trying to say.
Work safely ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬PAT¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
I have that book as well. Kind of forgot about it. Have to admit it has the best chapter dealing with bevel edge knives I recall.
Michael,
I haven't got mine in front of me, but that looks like a standard Schmidt lock edge pinch collar head. I have three which I use all the time. You can get them where the top collar is a huge rub collar with roller bearings inside.
The ones made by schmidt are still made by them today and are as safe as corregated back knife heads as far as I'm concerned. Forget about grinding your own knives, however. I get mine ground by Connecticut Saw and Tool, (203 378 1220) who sold me the heads, within the past ten years by the way. They will cut knives from a fax, so long as you include measurements point to point. Faxes will distort things slightly. They also ship UPS daily.
The knife blanks are far more expensive than corregated back blanks, so I use mine mostly for things most suited to their use - such as curved and bent raised panels, or cutting profiles on curved hand rails and the like.
Here is is link to a picture of using one to cut a bent raised panel. It's hard to see the cutter, but you can see the jig used in conjunction with it to raise the end grain of the raised panel. Scroll down the page till you get to the pic "running the panel". To do that with any other kind of head would really be a pain. That is a standard powermatic with a 1" spindle in the picture. The good shaper was busy doing something else that day.
They are very handy to have - ESPECIALLY with the roller bearing top.
http://www.miterclamp.com/radius/pages/FabricationSection.htm
Clampman
Edited 4/6/2004 12:06 am ET by [email protected]
Jim ,
You are very correct in so much as these are called collars and collar knives. I have been using the standard type without the lock edge for 20 years or so . I can and do on occasion grind my own knives. I use them only for certain profiles and applications . While I don't consider myself an expert at the art of grinding , I have been able to re- create numerous profiles , that are not easily found . There is not a huge demand for custom shapes , mainly I think because people don't realize it can be done . When I first turned the shaper on it scared the heck out of me , I quickly learned the importance of balancing the knives . A scale can be used to weigh them. But having them set just right is the trick. Once with some larger raised panel knives that were maybe 3 1/2" long and 2" tall , 1000 lbs of machine vibrated and actually moved across the floor , balance is important . Now I know some of you may not understand this but only one knife does the cutting , so grinding a perfectly matched set is not mandatory for safe use . Think about it even on a 3 wing one piece carbide cutter , just the first knife that makes contact does the cutting . I know that does not sound right but it is so . High speed tool steel dulls a bit faster but when honed actually seems to produce just as smooth of results if not better than carbide .Just having the ability to hone change or sharpen is helpful . My favorite set of crown molding knives have never left my shop for sharpening , I can't even begin to work on carbide , as far as sharpening goes.I suppose what the other knives do is cut the chips up smaller on a 3 wing type cutter .Don't get me wrong most all the cutters for cabinet doors and raised panels that I use are carbide . I had a machinist pal of mine make me a special tool for making bullseye rosettes for older and some newer homes .I designed it with a # 2 Morse taper so I can use it on the lathe or the drill press .The cutter , yup just one,is removable so any pattern can be done by grinding a knife . The same steel as the collar knives can be used .By moving the cutter in and out the size of the circle or pattern changes .
dusty
Ditto CT Grinding. I send them an e-mail of an AutoCad LT drawing of cope and pattern knives, and I get the knives UPS. Their knife grinding equiptment works from my drawing. They will be at the New England Industrial Woodworking Show on April 23 and 24 in Hartford, CT.
RE Adjusting the profile: How much does the varying cutting diameter change a profile? By moving lock edge collar knives, corrugated back knives, etc. in or out, the cutting circle changes. How much does this change the dimensions of a profile?
Jack
Sash Guy ,
If I understand your question , the answer is by changing the diameter of the cutting circle of collar knives the profile doesn't change , it just gets deeper or shallower of a cut into the stock . The knife will only produce the profile ground on it regardless of the diameter of the cutting circle . I hope that answered your question.
dusty
Dusty,
You may have phrased it wrong when talking about only one knife doing all the cutting. One knife generally does the finish cut on shapers and molders without automatic knife jointing capabilities and hydraulically locking heads.
But presuming two knives were exactly identical, one knife would have to be held back approximately 30 thousandths on a machine running 6,000 RPM with a feed speed of only 10' per minute in order for one knife to be doing all the cutting. Thirty thousandths is roughly 1/32. With hand ground knives, that 1/32 would apply to that part of the knife closest to the nearest part of the cutting knife - so it would have to be held back much further than 1/32 not to cut.
The above figures also presume my math is correct.
Setting knives to within plus or minus one thousandth while in the shaper, with lock edge pinch collars, even with a cheap chop suey dial indicator, is relatively simple even for the unexperienced. With those tolerances both knives will be sharing the load of cutting (and reducing spindle loads, vibration and consequent chatter), even though only one will be giving the finish cut. This helps prolong the life of both knives before resharpening becomes necessary. It is the cutting of the cool wood itself which cools knives; rubbing causes heat buildup which degrades the knife edge.
With lock edge knives in particular, since the blanks themselves form most of the cost, I believe it well worth it to have a set of two ground professionally. Grinding lockedge is a little more expensive than corregated back because the blanks tend to have to be thicker than corregated, because of the profiles usually run on them. Nonetheless, I doubt CT Saw charges much more than $30 per profile inch to grind them.
When in a real pinch, I too have ground my own knives. And it has always cost me more than having them done professionally. Once while on a job in Mass., I needed a crown profile to match a smallbone kitchen crown, immediately. I called the owner of CT saw, admittedly a good personal friend by this time, at 2 pm. faxed him a profile -with critical measurements - an hour later, had my crown profile the next morning at about 9:30, installed my immitation cabinet, installed the crown, set the shipping box and knives on the counter under the cabinet, with a bill, and took great pleasure at the expression on the homeowners face when he came home for lunch that day.
That trick clinched the job I really wanted - which was building the homeowner a very nice library.
So I am biased when it comes to CT. Saw.
Anyway, good luck to all, and to all a good night.
Clampman
"installed my immitation cabinet, installed the crown"
And yet another woodworker doing a Smallbone knock-off.
I'd can't even count how many of "those" kitchens I've done over the years.
I've done a lot of factory work with shapers, and the idea of trying to do these parts on a shaper scares me -- and I'm fearless!
Much of the work might be able to be done on a shaper, but not without excellent jigs to hold the work, and a whole lot of setups. I would absolutely not try to freehand any of it. In twenty years of factory work, I think I saw more injuries from manual shapers than from any other machine, and this is just the kind of stuff that is most dangerous. (All saws were power fed.)
These parts have been done for at least the last hundred years on a pattern or duplicating lathe, with manual smoothing and finishing on equipment like pump sanders and brush sanders.
Much of the inletting can be done on a pin router -- again it is done with good jigs, no freehanding.
There are fairly inexpensive duplicator carvers on the market that use routers and would do your outside shaping safely, and while a pin router might be best for the interior, a table router can be used with suitable modifications.
The other observations about shaper cutters are consistent with my experience, except the math on the single knife bit. I've done some single knife cutting on short runs of custom molding, and the surface quality produced doesn't back up the 1/32" calculation. As long as you keep the cuts to about 12 to 16 per inch on a largish cutterhead, say a 4 or 5 inch cutting circle, surface quality is pretty good. The other knife or wings do help by hogging away some of the wood. I haven't run the calculations, but I'd guess that a difference of 3 to 5 thousandths would make the second knife not cut at all. I have to admit I've done some sloppy setups where a knife slipped out of adjustment by a few thousandths and you could see it by the lack of cutting wear on the low knife.
A molder with 3-knife hydraulic head (all cutters cutting equally) turning 6000 RPM at a feed rate of 80 ft per minute produces about 19 cuts per inch, and that's considered pretty high. Two knives would get you a little over 12 cuts per inch, and that's on the low end of acceptability. An awful lot of bad surfaces and ripples are caused by vibration rather than cutterhead or feed speed.
Michael R
Wood,
I agree with you on everything but the math on how far back a knife has to be to never cut wood.
Certainly, free handing on a shaper is one of the most dangerous things a person could do - analylgous to jointing with gloves on or flattening stock on a jointer without a fence while standing on a scrap pile. I use a power feed for everything but coping rails, including running bent door panels, curved railings and cathedral doors. Not only is it safe, the end product is several thousand percent better.
The rail coping jig on the little shaper in one of the pictures on that page is 1/2" blanchard ground steel weighing over 40 lbs, with the steel bar stock in the bottom set into a dado machined into the plate. And rail copes remove a miniscule amount of material. But a heavy coping sled with good holdowns cuts vibration, and like you said, it cuts down chatter. It also, especially going cross grain, prevents vibration from loosening the stock so it can get sucked into the cutterhead and explode.
I would not for a moment think of running that little stick of Michael's through a shaper without a power feed. And I should have made that clear my post.
Thank you for bringing it up, and pointing it out.
Clampman
Clampman, We're on the same page. Heck of a jig.
Just for fun, I ran the math on cutting circles. Assuming a cutting circle of 5 inches, and a cutterhead rotation that yields 12 revolutions per inch, I came up with the following:
At 12 cuts per inch, from its deepest cut to the beginning of the next cut is 1/24", or approximately .04. The amount that the cut will rise in this distance is proportional to this, thus:
Cutter travel .04" / Cutter radius 2.5" = Cutter rise "X"/ Cutter travel .04"
.0016 = x /.04
cutter rise X =.00006" before the next cut begins.
That's why you can get a good finish with a single knife cutterhead, and why the standard cuts per inch on a high speed molder runs 12 to 16 cuts per inch, depending on species.
I don't have time for pictures, but check it out. Draw it up for yourself, and see whether I'm right. If I am, it wouldn't take much to make the second knife cut at all. I think the reason that the second knife appears to be cutting is due to springback after the first cutter goes by. I'm pretty sure that springback on a shaper cutter is on the order of a couple of thousandths -- much more than the cutter rise between cuts.
I'd never taken the time to do the figures before, but the results are very interesting.
Michael-
The only manual duplicator carver I have personally worked with belonged to a custom gunstock maker friend of mine. It was very well balanced and was capable of much finer detail than that required by your pieces. I used it to copy some pretty delicate pieces. It was time consuming because you had to go to ever finer router bits to copy details, and there was a lot of finish smoothing to do. Still, it was basically a router and a follower, similar in principle to a key copier with the addional feature that the workpiece could be turned in synch with the model, and the router and follower could be angled to get into hollows.
I'll be very interested to see how your plan comes out. It wouldn't be my method of choice, but I'm always interested in something new. Good luck and be careful.
Michael R
Want to talk about terrifying shaper operations? I made these grips almost entirely on my shaper. I drilled the 1/4 hole with my drill press, all other operations were done on the shaper.
I slid them down a 1/4 rod into a straight bit and cut the tenon to +/- .008, each. Each end of the handle slides into a tiny metal ferule. That was the scary part, even after I finally made a guard for the cutter...
THEN, I made a little fixture that uses a straight pattern cutting bit to cut the round handle itself. The handle rotates parallel to the shaper table and below it is a a pattern of the shape that rides against the bearing on the router bit. I slowly rotate the piece as I move it over the cutter. I even tried using my cordless drill to give a more consistent feed but it was too fast.
It worked really well. I make 200 of these pieces.
http://www.mgstocks.com/images/Tippman.jpg
Edited 4/7/2004 2:55 pm ET by Michael
Did you ever think about using a router table set up for small work like that?
John W.
This is a VERY rough test piece to see how feasible it would be to make these items. They are about 6" long. The inside groove, the outside profile and the profile cut on the one end were all done on my little shaper.http://www.mgstocks.com/images/hg10.jpg
The rest were done on my drill press and a milling vise. I use a lot of milling cutters as they work VASTLY better than router cutters for this sort of work. They are VERY cheap if you get them from the right places.
Anyway, just thought I would share...
Michael,
Challenging work, there must be a dozen or more separate operations. I buy milling cutters also. I've read that the cutters made for milling aluminum work very well in wood, but I haven't tried them yet.
John W.
Interesting indeed. How many setups does it take so far? I'd like very much to see pix of the more interesting setups. It's so much different from how I would approach the same job, but it looks like it's working OK so far. Safe?
I really enjoy seeng differnet ways to do things. You never know when a different approach or technique will be useful.
Michael R.
I am on vacation for a bit so I can't take any pictures. How would you approach doing it? I am always looking for better, safer, and of course faster ways of doing things.
Michael
Depends a lot on the criteria.
I assume the inside channel is of consistent cross section and the outside is tapered?
Does the guard bear at the ends only with air space everywhere else, or is it bedded to the barrel?
If the part is relieved, does it have to touch the barrel at the top edges?
Is the outside shape perfectly circular in cross section or is it slightly squared or oval like most of the forearms I've seen?
If the inside channel is straight, I'd probaly rout it out on a pin router or table router. If the inside were relieved, that could also be done on the router,
It's the tapering of the outside and the possibility that it is not round that makes me not want to use a shaper. You can cut round tapers but it takes a lot of passes, I'd think.
If the outside were perfectly circular but tapered, I'd put it on a shop built mandrel that fit the inside channel and turn it by hand or on a lathe duplicator. Centers can be offset, if needed.
If the outside profile were tapered and not circular, I'd make a home-built copier that allowed the part to turn, fixed to a mandrel. I'd make a sliding carriage for a router with a follower to guide it in and out by riding on a master part, and I'd use it just like a poor man's copy lathe or more simply, a 3D key machine. Pretty simple to build, and it wouldn't be hard to rig up a lateral feed mechanism.
The nice thing about a machine like that is that it could be used for a variety of similar parts. You'd just need to make up different mandrels, and with the stress levels that would be encountered, these could be turned out of wood. The work piece might be secured with hose clamps, adhesives, or something else I haen't thought of.
That's a first approximation, at least. As I said, it depends a lot on the specs of the part itself.
Michael R.
Michael,
I have a fairly expensive duplicator carving machine. That is how the majority of reproduction handguards are made. They look like 2X4s. Imagine trying to balance a 8 lb cutter head on a 14" piece of 1/8 thin walnut.
The originals were done on shapers just as I have described. I don't see why it is unsafe if held with proper tooling.
I will route the inside channel on an over long piece. Using clamps on the overlong ends, the piece will be clamped over a steel rod that matches the internal groove. This fixture will have a taper on the side and the pattern will be run against the bearing, not much different than cutting tapers on a table saw.
Michael
Here is the sort of items I want to make using custom knives. They are handguards for British rifles from before WWII to fairly current sniper rifles. The profile of the two is the same, the short one is from a No. 4 Enfield and the long one is from a No. 8 .22lr trainer. Anyway, they are very thin wood shells that cover the barrel.
The rule is a 12" rule although I couldn't get much definition on the ruler
http://www.mgstocks.com/no4hndgrd.jpg
Michael
I'll put in my two cents worth after seeing the pictures.
From what I can see, I'm almost positive that the stocks were originally done as lathe turnings. The inside could be bored out through a solid block, it looks like a straight cylinder for most of its length, or alternately, a half round cove could be milled down the center line of two blocks and then they could be glued together to create a turning block with a hole down the middle. After the block was prepared by either method, it would be mounted between centers on a lathe and the outside turned down including the step on the end and the groove.
Once the outside was shaped, the block would be remounted on the lathe using a three jaw chuck, with the outboard end supported by a ball bearing steady rest. The steady rest would allow you clear access to the free end to create the bell shaped opening with a turning chisel or a made for the job profiled spade bit. On the original the taper was probably created by a custom made reamer. After it was turned, the cylinder would be sawn in half lengthwise to create two stocks.
Making such a thin walled piece using a shaper for both the inside and outside profiles would be difficult and require jigs to make the job even reasonably safe. Also a shaper would only create a straight cylinder it couldn't create the tapered shapes, grooves and steps of the original stocks.
Hope this helps, John W.
Edited 4/6/2004 1:21 pm ET by JohnW
John,
Some handguards were done using a lathe, but these I don't think were.
The profile of these has a slight flat top to them and the profile doesn't change the whole length. You are right, they are tapered but that can be done on the shaper in a similar way to tapers being done on the table saw.
I know I will have to make jigs to do these. I figure I will take original barrels, plug one end, cut grooves in several places, drill holes in the grooves and in the other end, put a vacume attachment. Instant (well loborious) vacume clamp.
The one tricky part is the wide end which is tapered on the inside, still trying to figure out that one.
Thanks for everyone's input, advice, resources, don't stop, I am learning lots!
Michael
The grooves on the end I have done a number of times on the shaper. I make a fixture that has a verticle pin that is on the centerline of the piece. With a straight bit in my shaper, I slowly (very slowly!) slide the piece down the pin till it hits bottom. Then I rotate the wood slowly, the pin keeps the item centered and I then cut the groove.
The groove near the end of the longer piece was originally cut on a Blanchard lathe which is a cross between a pattern lathe and a circular saw. How I am going to do it, I am still not sure. I will likely make another vacume fixture to hold the wood, it will then rotate at a 90 deg to the cutter, that contraption will be mounted on something similar to a crosscut table. It will be a poor man's blanchard lathe.
John, your comments helped immensely. Sometimes I can't figure out how to do something till I have to explain how it was done. Then the solutions (well, at the time they seem like solutions, till I try them) pop into my head.
Michael,
I don't follow your vacuum stuff, but if you plan on cutting blanks on a shaper, I would first rip the sharp edges off the convex side as close to the finished diameters as you dare. Then I would run 3 or 4 saw kerfs in from the concave side as close to the finish diameter as you dare. I would then let the blank sit for a couple weeks to equalize before re squaring prior to cranking up the shaper.
Clampman
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