Spindle Moulders!

[Jacob]

If you have a spindle without very useful feature of tilt it can be overcome with readily available blocks, which is the solution I have. I have two heads to resolve the issue, first is a variable angle head, this takes standard carbide cutters and allows infinite variability of cut plus and minus 90 degrees from the vertical.

View attachment 176840

The second block allows me to tilt cutters 30 degrees, now this isn’t as flexible as a tilting head spindle and does require me to have in most instances custom made cutters to my own design of profile. However, custom cutters are not that expensive.

View attachment 176841

At the other end of the scale I can tilt and fine adjust my home made cutters anyway I like in my old Whitehill blocks, as long as a bit of the body of the cutter lies squarely behind the adjuster nut and is not likely to splay the clamps . They were the safety blocks of the day back in 1986 when I first got a combi with a spindle moulder. Very versatile, and everything I did (still do) was as directed by an earlier edition of the the Stevenson book.
I have modern rebate blocks however - they are brilliant, and very safe - could rip the skin off a finger but not remove the finger itself.

 

[johnnyb]

I can't help but feel that my scm t40n is a ideal machine forward tilt not to big. The fence is OK but not the best.
Mine came with nothing but the fence. I've since brought a ring fence and I'm trying to negotiate on a sliding table. An ideal machine would have rear tilt, reverse, all its add ons as there impossible to find after, maybe 3kw, High precision fence. The t40n had all of these(apart from rear tilt) with some as optional extras. (The slightly larger t45, and t50 are slightly upgraded but still not the huge industrial type)

 

[Adam W.]

It all sounds very complicated.

 

[Jacob]

It all sounds very complicated.

Modern gear is complicated.
The old Whitehill blocks couldn't be simpler - instead of tilting the whole block, spindle and motor you tilt the blade in the block. Much like a moulding plane but made circular to spin. Easy to make/modify cutters too and very cheap to run.

 

[Austin Branson]

I have a Scheppach 3000 - can anyone tell me where I can get a sliding table for it, please?
Lots of info in your articles, Deema, thanks.

 

[Against_The_Grain]

At the other end of the scale I can tilt and fine adjust my home made cutters anyway I like in my old Whitehill blocks

You can tilt the cutters in a older Whitehill cutterblock, but this changes the actual profile being moulded as the rotation of the spindle shaft is still in the same plane, where with a tilting spindle it changes the plane but the moulding profile stays the same. Someone asked me once why they don't make a vari-angle cutterblock for euro-style cutters, it took them a while to realise why that wouldn't work when I told them it was a daft idea.

Tilting the cutters has some small practical benefit if you are using the "hit and miss" method to replicate a moulding with a dozen existing cutters, but very little benefit compared to a tilting spindle.

 

[Jacob]

You can tilt the cutters in a older Whitehill cutterblock, but this changes the actual profile being moulded as the rotation of the spindle shaft is still in the same plane, where with a tilting spindle it changes the plane but the moulding profile stays the same. Someone asked me once why they don't make a vari-angle cutterblock for euro-style cutters, it took them a while to realise why that wouldn't work when I told them it was a daft idea.

Tilting the cutters has some small practical benefit if you are using the "hit and miss" method to replicate a moulding with a dozen existing cutters, but very little benefit compared to a tilting spindle.

My main reason for tilting is for fine adjustment, particularly as I used to do a lot of precise copying of old stuff*. Easy enough to make up an accurate profile but always needing a little touch or two to get it spot on in the block. This also means having only one cutter working with just a balancer in the other side, or same profile but set back a touch, as fine adjusting two cutters exactly, by hand and eye, is just about impossible
* my old stuff was mostly Georgian and later joinery, nothing as ancient as Adams spectacular stuff and generally quite small scale, glazing bars etc.

 

[Against_The_Grain]

This also means having only one cutter working with just a balancer in the other side, or same profile but set back a touch, as fine adjusting two cutters by hand and eye is just about impossible

You can do it with the correct equipment, but most workshops didn't have that luxury. A setting stand makes setting up cutterblocks a dawdle but was a serious expense as well as it took up a fair bit of room. For short runs one cutter working is fine, when you're doing larger runs particularly mouldings such as skirting, architraves, and the like, it's worth setting your blocks so that you have both or indeed more cutters cutting to provide a better finish and more importantly a higher feed rate for the same level of finish.

One cutter working at 4800rpm with a feed rate of 24 feet a minute will give you a cut rate of about 16 cuts to the inch which is about the average for that kind of work, if you had two cutters you could increase that to 32 cuts to the inch for an exceptional surface finish, or double the feed rate to 48 feet a minute to maintain a 16 cut to the inch finish but be working that much faster. If you were lucky enough to own a four-cutter block such as the ones that Dominion produced and more commonly later the serrated blocks, you could have four cutters and be running at 96 feet a minute and still maintain 16 cuts to the inch, or if you were clever you could have two different sets of cutters to produce a more complex moulding with simple cutters.

One could also use two different cutters in a regular Whitehill block and produce a more complex moulding in a single pass provided the cutters were of a similar weight, this was a fairly common practice.

 

[johnnyb]

That sounds entertaining two different cutters.

 

[Jacob]

You can do it with the correct equipment, but most workshops didn't have that luxury.

and didn't bother for that very reason. The weight of the whole machine including the block means that a slight unbalance between the cutters would be unnoticeable.
Normal practice, if you had them, was to take a pair of identical cutters and set one up as desired and the other slightly behind it and not cutting, for balance, but much easier to set up. If you only had one then a different profile with similar weight would be OK but set back so as not to cut.

.....For short runs one cutter working is fine,

and for long runs too

....

One could also use two different cutters in a regular Whitehill block and produce a more complex moulding in a single pass provided the cutters were of a similar weight, this was a fairly common practice.

But a pipper to set up and rarely done

 

[Against_The_Grain]

and didn't bother for that very reason. The weight of the whole machine including the block means that a slight unbalance between the cutters would be unnoticeable.
Normal practice, if you had them, was to take a pair of identical cutters and set one up as desired and the other slightly behind it and not cutting, for balance, but much easier to set up. If you only had one then a different profile with similar weight would be OK but set back so as not to cut.

My point wasn’t about balance which is a negligible issue with circular cutter blocks, but the quality of work produced.

and for long runs too

That entirely depends on your definition of a “long run”, in factories I’ve worked in the past we were producing hundreds of thousands of feet of moulding so it was very much worth the time and effort of setting up equipment properly to get the longevity of the cutters and the smoother finish at a higher feed rate, a jobbing joinery workshop rarely produces anything more than a couple of hundred feet of moulding so the setup isn’t as crucial. Often mouldings produced by a jobbing joinery workshop are much cruder and require much more sanding and extra finishing than the mouldings we were producing which could’ve been finished with french polish without requiring any more steps after moulding.

 

[Jacob]

My point wasn’t about balance which is a negligible issue with circular cutter blocks, but the quality of work produced.

Not much in it in my experience

That entirely depends on your definition of a “long run”, in factories I’ve worked in the past we were producing hundreds of thousands of feet of moulding so it was very much worth the time and effort of setting up equipment properly to get the longevity of the cutters and the smoother finish at a higher feed rate, a jobbing joinery workshop rarely produces anything more than a couple of hundred feet of moulding so the setup isn’t as crucial. Often mouldings produced by a jobbing joinery workshop are much cruder and require much more sanding and extra finishing than the mouldings we were producing which could’ve been finished with french polish without requiring any more steps after moulding.

Long run for me would have been something like 5 sash windows in a batch. Several hours of spindle work. Most I ever did was 15.
Mass production entirely different and a big investment in the cutters more cost/time effective

 

[Sundaydriver]

So I’ve been lurking and researching, and got very very interested in dumping £2k on a Jessem excel table. But I’m aware I do get drawn in by gorgeous engineering and fancy shiny extrusions .
So now I think I’ve seen the light, and am tempted to look at spindle moulder options.
I had a kity 419 TS for about twenty years, and upgraded to a Startrite TS a a few years back.
I have a Startrite bandsaw, and a trim router.
I had cheap B&Q 1/2 routers which did get used twenty years back, but just found them noisy and innacurate to an annoying level, and sold them off dusty and unused.
So … I’m not a beginner to machines, and I’m very safety conscious. I suppose that’s why I’ve always talked myself out of a spindle moulder.
I’ve recently watched a few videos, and this write up is gold, Thankyou to DEEMA.

I guess I’m after a moulder that won’t take up a chunk of space. And I guess I’d like one with a brake on the motor, and obviously I want to only stick with safest cutter/blocks.

Could anyone help please with brands or models that I could consider ?
Ones to avoid, which era did motor brakes come in at for example ?
I have the Milwaukee palm router and I love the safety brake. I have memories of the cheap 1/2 inch router spinning away on the bench for seemingly five minutes lol.

Just need a few pointers if that’s ok please.

 

[deema]

Just about any SM will be a major step up from a router IMO. I would always try and buy a machine which is as heavy as possible. It’s a good way of differentiating between machines. For spindles looking at the max weight of the block it can swing is also a good indicator, the heavier the better. Mass damps out vibration and also indicates larger, thicker stiffer lifting mechanism for the spindle. I also, think heavy fences with chunky locking mechanism are your friend. I would also highly recommend getting a powerfeed.

Now, what would I suggest, it’s driven by what I’d be prepared to rebuild / repair. I’d select something with cast iron tables. Pick the biggest machine you can accommodate. I like and suggest almost anything that was built before 1970, or more modern, that was designed for commercial use. So, Sedgwick and SCM would immediately spring to mind (some spindles use manual brakes which are also brilliant) For hobby use, I would not be drawn to too much ‘automation’ like powered rise and fall. Just lots to go wrong / expensive to repair.

 

[JohnerH]

Just about any SM will be a major step up from a router IMO. I would always try and buy a machine which is as heavy as possible. It’s a good way of differentiating between machines. For spindles looking at the max weight of the block it can swing is also a good indicator, the heavier the better. Mass damps out vibration and also indicates larger, thicker stiffer lifting mechanism for the spindle. I also, think heavy fences with chunky locking mechanism are your friend. I would also highly recommend getting a powerfeed.

Now, what would I suggest, it’s driven by what I’d be prepared to rebuild / repair. I’d select something with cast iron tables. Pick the biggest machine you can accommodate. I like and suggest almost anything that was built before 1970, or more modern, that was designed for commercial use. So, Sedgwick and SCM would immediately spring to mind (some spindles use manual brakes which are also brilliant) For hobby use, I would not be drawn to too much ‘automation’ like powered rise and fall. Just lots to go wrong / expensive to repair.

Do you mean like this?

Wadkin Spindle Moulder EQ 3338 // Circa. 1969 coming in at 610kg.

Need a bit of cleaning and TLC, but can't wait to have this spinning and making what it built to do.

Btw this came in at around £800/£1000, I bought as part of a bundle, they are still out there and still fairly easy to get, if you have the patience to wait for them to come up.

 

[deema]

@JohnerH Now thats a Spindle Moulder. When looking shiny that will a brilliant investment when you come to pass it to the next caretaker

 

[Jacob]

Those big oldies can be in good nick - not much to go wrong, basically very simple; 2 bearings and a motor. Also cheap - we had an SCM T100 for £300 once. A power feed is more complex and could cost more than the moulder!
Brilliant machine.

 

[Doug B]

Do you mean like this?

View attachment 181688

Wadkin Spindle Moulder EQ 3338 // Circa. 1969 coming in at 610kg.

Need a bit of cleaning and TLC, but can't wait to have this spinning and making what it built to do.

Btw this came in at around £800/£1000, I bought as part of a bundle, they are still out there and still fairly easy to get, if you have the patience to wait for them to come up.

Hopefully you’ve seen it running

 

[Spectric]

So now I think I’ve seen the light, and am tempted to look at spindle moulder options.

Even if you end up down the router table route I think it is important to look into the spindle moulder options as then you have not ignored what might be the better option. This thread has been very informative and although I currently have a router table which I am looking to upgrade and thought I had a final decision, that has been on hold for a while because the spindle looks so much more capable and I like the idea of custom blades.

 

[JohnerH]

Hopefully you’ve seen it running

I haven't, only the thickneser (RM) was tested that was also bought,

Either way the plan was always to strip, refurbish and rebuild, so... I'll make it spin one way or another.