Corner bead router cutter

[Rob Morley]

Don't you mean die grinder?

[owdman]

Aim at 2 the same - but set one back slightly in the block - just a gnats

Make a sharp edge on a thin wheel - cuts a more acute angle when backing off rather than square on, or you can tighten the acute angles with a file

No just back off as you feel necessary - the angle must be acute enough so that the back of the cutter doesn't hit the work piece, thats the only limit

Do it by eye - have the block beside you with a cutter in place for visual reference.

Exactly the same procedure with exactly the same result + benefit of machine to do the work

Yes - you could file the pegs off but I shouldn't recommend that!

Yep

Yerss

Mostly short runs but some have been re-used for years and have done loads of work - particularly the glazing bar ovolo profiles, a bolection/dado rail cutter and various architrave/skirting designs.

cheers

Jacob

[owdman]

What's a die grinder? I use an ordinary cheapo 6inch double ended bench grinder with standard wheels plus 3 or 4 narrow ones with shaped ends - half round, sharp v angle etc. I'm talking low tech engineering here!

cheers

Jacob

[Andy Dingley]

It's not bad if you're doing a big cyma but you'll never get as good a reed from a spindle as you can with a single bladed hand tool. Besides which, how do you do neat stopped mouldings ? A spindle might be the easiest way to do repro mouldings, but surely the "best possible tool for accurate repro" is to use the same hand plane they were cutwith originally.

There's nothing wrong with pine, except that we rarely use it any more. You know how hard it is to even find pine of the same grade as was used a century or so ago. If the OP is talking about 200' then I assume he's doing skirtings or something and that will be in generic carpentry whitewood, which is pretty unlikely to even be a pine, let alone a good one.

[Andy Hall]

Thanks for all this, Jacob

much appreciated

[Andy Dingley]

Usually an air tool. It's a little "drill motor" that spins a small stone mounted on a shaft, but at some terrifying speed (20k rpm). You have to be careful using stones that are properly rated for it, and keeping them dressed and in balance.

I can't really see how you'd shape most spindle tooling on a bench grinder, because the wheel is just too big. I generally use either an angle grinder with a thin disk in it, a die grinder, or just a hand stone slip to finish up.

[owdman]

You can buy thin wheels about 6mm I think, and then shape the edge with a normal wheel dressing tool.

[owdman]

OK "best possible macine"

I use excellent quality pine for virtually everything I do. Not at all difficult to find; larger timber merchants stock Russian, Swedish redwood (scots pine) graded as "unsorted" i.e. would be 1st 2nd and

3rds if sorted. Excellent stuff, the trees haven't changed a bit. What is difficult is larger widths above 10 inches as virgin forest is less likely to be cut down nowadays.

[owdman]

Yes you can - spindle moulder does very fine work large or small and is much more consistently perfect than a hand tool, and quicker! Much Victorian and earlier joinery was done with spindle moulders - with "french" cutters its an old and primitive tool found alongside lathes and saws at woodworking mills

Besides

Stopped mouldings same prob whatever you use i.e. you have to cut in to start and pull out to stop, then finish the ends by hand. Just the same with a spindle moulder. And router too, though most people leave the ends bodged as you can't tell from a distance

[Stuart Noble]

My local Champions produce all their planed stuff and mouldings from unsorted redwood. Whitewood machines badly and blunts cutters so isn't a viable option for any merchant.

[robkgraham]

Sorry the 'only pine' bit was meant to indicate that it was soft wood rather than hardwood. I jealously guard some old pine I have and use it carefully !!

So in summary - I'm not going to get the router cutter I want ! And should therefore invest in a spindle moulder ! Hmm - that's not really an option is it? A round bead + V cutter is not recommended so perhaps what I'm going to have to look at is a routed round bead and a cutter for the moulding plane, possibly shaping the cutter myself. I'm not really that enthusiastic about scratching.

I do suppose it's not possible to modify a router to do spindle moulding ?

Rob

[Andy Hall]

Could be. There are secondhand ones around that don't conform to latest safety legislation or have been traded in. It becomes an issue of space and cost.

The closest would be a router in a router table. If you have a proper 1800-2000W 12.7mm one, you might find a router cutter that's good enough.

Typical spindle moulder tooling which can take cutters of the type being discussed is this type of thing

isn't really a safe and sensible way to fit that to a router, and the drive is normally through a belt on a spindle moulder.

If you don't have a lot to do, I guess the next option would be to find a joinery place willing to make the knives and run the pieces.

[owdman]

In summary I'd say take the nearest match of router cutter to a saw doctor and ask them to modify it to cut exactly the bead and sharp "v" you want. (nb v is called a "quirk" in this situation). Only buy a spindle if you are going in to mouldings in a biggish way - or if you want total control of design and details.

Router is essentially a tiny portable spindle moulder. Hence can do same as spindle moulder but very limited size of cutters - small work only. Spindle usually 30mm dia compared to router at 1/4inch or 1/2 inch, so tools not interchangeable. But some spindle moulders can take router cutters in an add-on head attachment, if it has enough speed, but max on SM is often about 8000rpm cheers

Jacob

[robkgraham]

Got a good saw doctor locally - I'll pay him a visit.

Thanks everyone.

Rob