I’d like to buy a moulder to do straight and circle moulding. Do you have experience whith that machine ?
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Replies
GERALD
THIS MOLDER IS A VERY VESITAIL MOLDER IT EVEN HAS A OLIPITCAL JIG OR YOU CAN MKE YOUR OWN. MY ONLY COMPLANT IS THAT YOU NEED TO BE CAREFULL WHEN USING HIGH PROFILE KNIFES FOR KICKBACKS(OUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
If you want a molder that can handle curves, I think W&H is the only game in town -- that is, unless you get into the really expensive industrial machines.
I don't own one, but I can tell you I have never read a single user complaint about the W&H.
I kick tires on a molder every now and then, and W&H would be my first choice.
I assume you know there are others available for quite a lot less money (but they only handle straight moldings).
********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Shop Fox and BridgeWood are selling clones of the W & H for 1/2 the price and seem to be just as good if not maybe better. Same knives I believe. Also in the industrail line is Mikron and the top of the line is
http://www.usconceptsinc.com/index2.html
thanks for all yours reply.
Now !!! Wich one the original or the copy ?
I saw Shop fox offers variable speed, not W&H. But what about quality of Shop Fox did any body know ?
Never have used one but Norm on New Yankee workshop has one and it looks like a niffty tool. Good luck
Troy
Gerald
I have a W & H moulder, and use it alot. I also had the opportunity to use the Shop Fox knock off recently, and there is no comparison in the quality of the machines. The W & H is quite a bit better. Any side to side wobble (slight) will produce "tracks" across the moulding, and the W & H is great at producing nice clean runs.
With deep profiles, like bar moulding, or 7" crown moulding, you want to take light passes. I take 1/16" at a time, and sneak up on the final profile. With smaller profiles, like miter door frames, or chair rail, you can wack most of the wood off in one pass, and then clean it up with 1/16 in the last past. As long as you keep your knives sharp, you won't have to do any sanding when you're finished.
My machine paid for itself the first year I had it. Now, several local contractors have me make their mouldings, and it's a pretty good profit center, all by itself.
It's worth the extra money to get the real thing, in my humble opinion.
Jeff
Thank Jeff for all those informations
Based on your experience how long could it take to produce 1000 linear feet of maple casing 3/4 x 3 1/2 and 1000 feet of 3/4 x 5 1/2 maple base with the W&H ?
For an ovale casing do i absolutely need the elleptical jig ?
Assuming that your stock is ready to go, you could mill that in 2 passes each piece in less than a morning. Most of my moulding stock is 12' long for the builders. I just don't have good access to 16 foot long boards, and, they are a pain to move around.
84 pieces, 2 passes each, about a minute per pass, including coffee breaks (LOL), that's about 3 hours. Add about 30 minutes setup time, setting the knives and parallel feed fences, and running a test board or two to make sure you're aligned properly. 4 hours with plenty of time to spare gawking out the window at the beautiful scenery.
Jeff
Edit: I almost forgot. I have not used it for eliptical mouldings, so I can't comment. I do remember the salesman's demo, though. The jig made it pretty easy. I don't see how you could keep the stock aligned without it, but I'm sure somebody here has made their own.
Edited 1/19/2006 11:53 pm ET by JeffHeath
I have a Williams and Hussey molder myself and although I don't use it a lot. I would highly recommend it. I've used mine for making picture frame moldings, a little bit of crown and some door casings. I also have some panel raising knives for making raised panels for doors. I can second what JeffHeath said about the machine being robust and well-built even though when you first look at it, you wonder how it could do such a good job. It is simple to operate and is not as noisy as other machines. I will add some links for you to look at from companies that sell knives and accessories. I know you'll find more if you start looking.http://www.cggschmidt.com/index.htmlhttp://www.wmooreprofiles.com/
In your post about molding deep profiles you said to creep up on the final pass. I was always under the impression that you should make it in one shot, and that's the way I always make them. Do you make adjustments to the feed rollers between passes to maintain contact with the wood? I bought my machine, about 1990 and the infeed and outfeed rollers are of rubber. Are yours the same, or you have the serrated metal one on the infeed side? And would that make any difference?
My moulder is from the 90's as well, and has the yellow hard rubber infeed and outfeed rollers. I made a long infeed/outfeed continuous table out of 3/4" melamine that I screw my runners to. This has caused the mouldings to not feed as well, but the reward for this is I eliminated snipe at the beginning and end of the mouldings. Alls I do is give the stock a little helping hand along the way. No big deal, to me at least.
As far as the depth of cut is concerned, I used to run the mouldings in one pass, but would always have sections of small tearout as the knives got a little worn. I've completely eliminated this by making them in 2 passes. It also allows me to go longer between professional sharpenings of the knives, which gets pricey.
I don't know what species of lumber you are running, as you didn't state it. 95% of the work I do is either in cherry or maple. There's nothing worse to me than wrecking a beautifully figured piece of curly maple crown moulding by trying to hog off too much material in one pass. It only takes about 20 seconds to run it a second pass with a light clean up cut, so that's why I do it that way.
Jeff
Now I understand what you're referring to when you said you take multiple passes. I thought you were taking many passes through the machine. The same as when you are thicknessing lumber. I have done the two pass method when raising panels to get a cleaner cut going across the grain.As to the wood I've put through my machine. I've run Alder, Maple, Cherry, Oak, Mahogany, and Pine. So far I have run relatively straight grained wood through without any problems. I haven't been bold enough to try highly figured woods yet.And my rollers are black. So there! :)
So here we are again.................How did you decide on the W&H? Did you consider anything else -- Wodmaster, RBI, Jet/Powermatic, etc.?Am I right in assuming that W&H is the only molder that can do curved stock -- short of a big industrial machine?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
If you don't mind me climbing into this, all the other machines you mentioned can cut circular, oval, elliptical, and serpentine moldings. Before I go any further. I'll state that I have not yet done any of these moldings, but ordered today a little fixture so that I can.Circular moldings can be done without any special tooling, other than with a pair of boards that are cut with the inner and outer radii of the profile needed, mounted to a sheet of plywood.Pieces with changing radii require a fixture with three bearings or rollers to maintain continuous contact with the molding as it moves under the cutter. These are usually store-bought and so far as I've seen only made for the Williams and Hussey, with one exception that I know of. This is the unit that I ordered today and it sells for $99 Canadian. It's made by a French Canadian company called Viel Tools. They do not have a web site, unfortunately. Their telephone number is 418-898-2601. It consists of two parts, the first part is a bearing to mount on one side of the molding. The second part is a plate with two bearings and an adjuster, that is mounted on the other side of the molding. They're both attached to a sheet of plywood as required, and then placed under the molding head of the machine of preference. The Viel kit is designed to fit into a closed head plainer molder that is 12 inches wide, and that is also manufactured by Viel Tools. So it will also fit in the small planer molders sold by Busy Bee, Grizzly and Jet, as well as the machines you mentioned in your post. Once I get my kit I'll post some pictures.The reason I bought a Williams and Hussey was because sometime in the late 80s. I attended a small woodworking show, and Williams and Hussey were demonstrating their molder. And I liked it but couldn't afford to buy one at that time. In the winter of 1990/91 I took a timber framing course in Washington and had the machine delivered there to minimize the duties when I came home a week later. At that time, the only small molders that were available, were the ones made by Foley Belsaw, WoodMaster, and the Williams and Hussey. The first two were more expensive, and I had never seen them before, so had no frame of reference to judge their quality. If I were starting over again with the knowledge that I have now. I might possibly make a different choice. But I can say that I'm very happy with my Williams and Hussey. The only improvement I would like to see in the machine, would be that it was at least 12 inches wide. Bigger is better. ;-)If I jumped into the middle of a forum feud, I apologize, have at it. If I didn't, then never mind.
Mind?? Heck, I am delighted..............One of the minor limitations in the software supporting ths forum is that you either have to address your post to "all" or a single individual. I had you in mind as well as Jeff when I posed my question, but I probably should have said so in the body of the post.I am intrigued to learn that it is possible to do curved moldings with any machine, and that is not just the province of W&H. Why did you decide to buy the Viel fixture, as opposed to getting whatever device W&H sells for that purpose?I was browsing throught the W&H site a couple of weeks ago, and I see the machine is now selling for more than $1800 -- which I'll bet is a lot more than you paid back in the 80's.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Are you stalking me?!?! LOL. Just kidding.
Well, my decision was an easy one to make. I'll try to give you the short version. My neighbor is a builder. The day I moved in 6 years ago, he came over when he saw the moving truck backed up to my barn. He saw my woodshop tools being moved in, and decided (he actually told me this) that I was going to be his new best friend!! 2 weeks later, he came over, and told me of a woodshop in my area that was closing because of a divorce, and gave me the guys name and #. It was like hitting the lottery. I bought the guys entire shop, including over 5000 BF of cherry, maple, mahogany, red and white oak, poplar, and ash for a song. Included in the deal was the W & H, which I had been looking at for a very long while. I was extremely close to dropping the $2k for a new one, and his (now mine) was only 2 years old, and he had 13 sets of knives to go with it. I sold the 18" Oliver planer, 8" grizzly jointer, Dewalt radial arm saw, and unisaw with slider myself for what I paid him for everything, and actually was about $400 ahead. He needed a quick sale because the divorce required him to liquidate everything, and he didn't want his wife to get much, so he basically was happy to be done with it immediately, rather than waiting for everything to sell. I gave him his asking price, and still made out like a bandit.
He also told all his remodeling and builder clients that I bought the moulder, and now they all do business with me. He relocated to North Carolina.
As far as I know, it is the only one with the eliptical jig. I've thought about getting it, but as of yet, have not. I have only had one request in 6 years for eliptical mouldings, so it really isn't necessary for me to have and still sell the mouldings I do. I think most of these builders buy the casings with their windows for round stuff, as I only make crown, base, chair, and casing for them.
Jeff
Edit: I did have a chance to see the woodmaster in action, and wasn't impressed. The guy who was running it at a local mill was having quite a few problems with it, as well as customer service. It was an easy elimination at that point. And, as you stated in an earlier post, I had never heard any complaints about the W & H, and bought it on reputation. I am completely satisfied.
Edited 1/21/2006 1:18 pm ET by JeffHeath
I'm glad to see that I wasn't jumping into the middle of a feud. But when Nikkiwood started his post with "So here we are again...",I thought things might get ugly. It is so easy to misunderstand what's been written. When you can't see people's faces, hear the tone of their voices, and read the body language.I have to admit that I've had the fantasy now and then of coming across a divorce situation where I could buy a bucket load of stuff for next to nothing. So I can see how JeffHeath had the delight and guilt of actually benefiting from a divorce. That 5000 board feet of hardwood alone would cost me $15-$25000 Canadian. Maybe you might sell more oval casings if you made a few and hung them around the shop. That is of course if you want to do those.When I bought my Williams and Hussey it was somewhere around the $1200 mark. And I still had to deal with duty (before "free trade") and taxes when I dragged it across the border. And that was just for the basic machine. No electrics, motor, or stand. So actually, the prices haven't changed that much. If I were going to do it again. I would buy the complete unit to save myself the hassle and the additional expenses of having to make the stand etc. myself.If you look at my earlier posts in this thread. I linked to a web site that sells an elliptical jig as an alternative to the one that Williams and Hussey sell, and there used to be one sold by a guy who custom ground knives by the name of Bonnyman I think. But I don't know if he's still in business. These ones were all made just for the Williams and Hussey and cost between $500 and $700 US. I remember reading a long time ago in Fine Woodworking about a homemade unit for doing oval molding, but I don't remember which issue it was. It's not in my index up to issue 100 so it was sometime after that.The elliptical unit that I just bought I chose because it's $100, and I can afford that loss, if it turns out that it doesn't work. As I said earlier, it just consists of the basics that you mount on your own sheet stock. The illustration in the catalog, wasn't that detailed. So when I get it I'll put up a picture so you guys can see and give you an evaluation on how well it works. It was designed to go under closed frame planar molders so it doesn't have the crank handles to adjust it in and out like the ones used on the WH. But I see no reason for it not to fit in the open frame of my machine. Which should be adequate for hobbyist like myself.Viel Tools also sell a knife grinding unit for making shaper knives and router bits, etc. that sells for about $900 Canadian. There is a Williams and Hussey knife holder as an attachment for grinding your own profiles from blanks. With the high cost of knives, it would pay for itself, if you are making lots of different profile moldings. Somewhere down the line, I may try to make a version for myself and grind my own knives. I also wouldn't mind buying the variable speed attachment sold by Charles Schmidt from the earlier mentioned link but that'll have to wait awhile too.Does anyone have any other links for knives and accessories? Or jigs or improvements for their machine that make it more versatile or work better? My tip when doing raised panels is. To keep from getting "chain stain" on the surface of your panels. Put some masking tape across the bottom of the drive mechanism to keep it from touching or dripping on your work.
QC
Nikkiwood and I are just engaged in light hearted discussion in a couple of other threads, and he was just laughing at it, as well as I, because we seem to have VERY LOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG discussions. It was more of a gasp for air than it was an exasperation of discontent. He's my bud, we get along fine.
As far as the mouldings go, I never really intended on getting into the moulding business, but it has been a good find. More so because 2 of the builders have used me a few times for built-ins in the homes they were building.
How I came upon purchasing the moulder was really one of those once in a lifetime deals. It kind of reminds me about the story of a wife who sold her soon-to-be ex-husbands Lamborghini for $1000.00 just to tick him off. The guy I made the deal with, Steve, was so mad at her that he wanted a fellow woodworker to benefit instead of her. The sale of all his tools was the only thing keeping him around, and he was happy to get to North Carolina quicker. I had to use my dump truck from my other business to carry all the lumber, there was so much. My son and I got quite the workout loading and unloading that puppy.
Let us know how the jig works out. It certainly would be a find compared to the $600 for the W & H jig, and that price was from 3 years ago.
Jeff
I bought Williams & Hussey moulder in August. It is a solid machine. My only complaint is that somehow with light use I bent a sprocket. This was deemed my fault and cost me about $150 to fix. I don't know what is actually covered under the warranty but a bent sprocket ain't.
Like I said besides that it seems like good machine.
Gerald, I have the machine, and love it!!!! You can make variable speed cuts with an accesory. The company to buy the machine, custom knives, and the speed controller is CG Schmidt They are in Montvail NJ. Ask for Steve. He is a woodworker too and understands us better. Also If you purchase one, I would buy the knives from them (better steel and crisp profiles) and they will make custom knives.
-Lou
Do you really need variable speed feeder on W&H?
G, I don't know, they have the speed controller. Maybe for cleaner cuts.
Mine does not have variable speed, and I've never felt that it was required.
Jeff
I suppose with sharps knifes you don't need varialble speed.
With all the comments i received, i decide to buy te W&H with the elleptical guide becauce i also need to do oval mouldings. I'm from Quebec, at the end of the week i will go to New Hampshire to pick the molder.
Good decision. You never have to second guess yourself when you buy the best.
Jeff
Congratulations on joining the very exclusive and select W&H club.;-)It wasn't mentioned but the machine is a pretty decent planer too, as it has the power to take material to thickness quickly.If you find that you want to slow the feed speed down to get a smoother finish on your moldings, you could buy the 11 feet/minute sprocket kit from W&H for about $50. It doesn't look like it would be very difficult to install and would slow the feed down from the standard 15/16 feet/minute. Then if you still feel that you must go slower you could fork over the $500 for the variable speed unit.Outils Viel that I mentioned earlier in the thread is a little east of Riviere-Du-Loup. If that is anywhere near to you. I spent about 6 weeks in Riviere-Du-Loup in the spring of 1979 on the Budworm spray and had a great time. Should have spent more time site seeing instead of enjoying the bars and clubs though.
Edited 1/24/2006 2:32 pm by QCInspector
Shop Fox has an elliptical jig for their's also. I've had it for about 8 months now and have had good results and no problems. I have the single speed, the v.s. was'nt available when I got mine or I probably would have opted for it. That being said I've had no problems with the speed. I too do 2 passes.
Hey guys, You can also do curved molding too. here is a picture of a piece I had to fabricate for a counter edge. With a few adjustments you can run this piece.
-Lou Buy the w-h, dont buy knock-offs
Lou, what are we going to do with you!
This ones free, next one will cost ya!
Doug
Doug, this ones free the next ones gonna cost me. My question is How much? It may be worth it to pay you than try to figure it out on my own.
-Lou
Lou
Its very simple, all you need to do is go to http://www.Irfanview.com and download thier program. Its free and very easy to use.
Your over at BT, go into the photo gallery and there are several threads that talk about this.
It really is easy to use once you try it you'll see.
I dont know what specificly you need help with, if its the downloading of irfanview or the mechanics in using it?
Let me know, or try the threads over at BT, either way if I can help more say the word.
Doug
If you're running Windows and don't do much of this stuff, Windows Paint is capable of simply resizing pictures (and it came for free on your machine already). Just do the following:
Load image into Paint
Check the image size with Image | Attributes: Make sure the Units is set to Pixels, note the longest (Width or Height)
Select Image | Stretch/Skew
If you want to cut the picture to half size, in the Stretch box put 50% for Horizontal, 50% for vertical -- you basically want the longest dimension to be about 640, so if the long one was Height at 1280, then 50% for both dimensions is perfect
Select File | Save As... and change "Save as type" to JPEG.
Save it wherever you like.
Hope this helps in a pinch. Nothing against Irfanview or any of the other excellent graphics packages out there (I sure like Photoshop and use Polyview too).My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
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