Agreed. At one time I received freight almost daily to my home. So I gave the UPS driver a key to my garage. After that all my freight was neatly stacked in side the garage door. Never a problem. Greg
For hobby level use, I've had very good results with Grizzly shaper cutters. I suspect they probably would be found lacking for someone doing production runs of cuts, but for small amounts, they cut well and are priced right.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety Army General Richard Cody +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
You have a fully automatic power feeder shaper just for hobby use? Just had a look at the Grizzly web site and did not see any chip thickness limiter on the shaper cutters, thus disqualifying them for manual and even semi-manual feeding (Thats of course if you apply german regulations...).
Since I don't live in a nanny state, there is no requirement that I have a fully automatic power feeder shaper for home use. :-) OTOH, when using the shaper, I make sure the cuts are set up with appropriate hold-downs and featherboards. My "chip thickness limiter" is the fence and appropriate common sense when working with this machine.
In the future, I will probably try to add a power feeder, both for the added safety and the increased uniformity of cut.
I chose to add a shaper to my shop rather than a router table because a) I don't like the screaming-banshee noise that a router produces and b) by the time I put together a good router table with desired flatness and fence capability, I would be pretty close to the cost of a good Chiwanese shaper with flat table, quiet motor, excellent height adjustability, and the ability to run both shaper and router bits.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety Army General Richard Cody +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
A puzzlement. How can you overfeed something making contact 30,000/45,000 times per minute, short of throwing it into the whirling cutter?
A saw blade makes contact even more often and still produce nasty kickback!
Quite easily w/ freehand shaping if not careful starting the cut...essentially w/ a three-wing cutter of the old style there's no limit on the depth of cut beyond the length of the cutter wing. An inattentive operator or an improper setup can be nasty.
I have a couple of the Grizzly cutters too, and so far I'm satisfied with them. I would've bought from Griz this time, too, but they didn't have the profile I wanted.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
I take it you're not a physics type?
The issue is feeding more wood more rapidly than the cutter can remove. Doesn't take much to see that is not the same as binding and carrying on a sawblade.
30,000/45,000
That's throwing it into the blade. Anyone but a European uses a starting pin or a fence.
Well, even w/ a starting pin it's possible easily enough to get going a little too quickly initially...I've used one for nearly 30 years and have done a lot of pattern-following shaping and still get a little feeling when start on a new batch the first time after a while away from it... :)
I've never gotten injured at all, but have ruined a workpiece or two... :(
Shaper runs about 10k to 12k rpm.
As far as free-hand, one should always use a bearing (rub collar) and starter pin. If not doing a free-hand cut, the fence serves as the depth limiter. One other source for kickback is inadvertently twisting the piece such that a machined profile is moved into another portion of the blade, or pinches. Shapers have *real* 3 hp, so the piece is going to go shooting backward. OTOH, the same kind of issue can occur with a router in a router table, so this is kind of a safety wash so to speak when comparing router in table and shaper.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety Army General Richard Cody +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+Mark & Juanita wrote: ...
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Yep, and 3 times that for a 3-lip cutter is 30-36k cuts/min...just what George was speaking of...
Doh! [note to self, spend a bit more time reading original posting to avoid slinking off into corner]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety Army General Richard Cody +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
That minor oversight is OK with me... This as I liked your reasoning for getting a shaper instead of a router table... I did the same thing. :-)
John
Which feeder do you have? What makes it a pain to set up? I guess I'm asking for any kind of recommendations you have about what you would do the same or different when selecting a feeder and setting it up.
Thanks for any information.
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