# Tenoning on a spindle moulder



## rich1911 (3 Feb 2021)

I know there are a few threads on this, but just thought I'd ask again for this specific job.

This is the profile I want to cut for a sash rail:


 
I can cut the 10mm x 39mm slot with my wobble saw. It cuts a pretty clean groove, with a few tiny ridges at the bottom.

For the 30 degree scribed slot, can I fit a tenoning head to the spindle? Do they come with 30mm bores?

Could I take the bulk of the material out with my rebate block and then get some knives made for my 40mm cutter block to take out the remaining bit with the 30 degree bevel on?

I'm using a Felder BF6 with 4kw motors on and a decent sliding table.

I don't minding spending some £££ on tooling but I'd like to try and use as much as I already have (wobble saw, rebate and multi cutter block).

Any thoughts?



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## deema (3 Feb 2021)

You can buy a tenoning head for your spindle moulder from Whitehill.









Tenon Discs


Whitehill imiter tenon disc cutter heads designed to cut tenon profiles. Can be used independently or in conjunction with another tenon discs, with a spacer between, for tenon thickness. Ideal for cutting square or profiled scribe.




www.whitehill-tools.com





they have a standard range of scribing cutters, or alternatively just get a custom set made.
I would also have a groover on the spindle spaced with shims to cut the tenon in one hit. 

Thats an usual layout, I’d have aligned the tenon with the scribe for ease of cutting


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## RobinBHM (3 Feb 2021)

a qualified yes is the answer

30mm bore spindle moulders use 50mm dia spacers

you need a minimum cut depth of 48mm, so you need a block with a minimum cutting circle of 150mm dia.

unless you can use a block with a flush top -which is unlikely.

this company is one of the most reasonable for cutter profile grinding -he can do any cutters for Whitehill blocks

if you simplified your moulding to just a chamfer with no flat you could do a straight slot on your wobble saw and cut the scribe angle on a chop saw or panel saw (Deema mentioned above, posts crossed)


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## RobinBHM (3 Feb 2021)

out of interest why is your mortice no in line with the moulding -you have what looks like a strange step in the tenon.


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## Chunky Monkey (3 Feb 2021)

Robin, you mention a company for cutter profiling, now granted I don't have my reading glasses on, but I don't see a link or company name, I'm interested in who you recommend.

Thanks
Jon


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## rich1911 (5 Feb 2021)

Thanks chaps. 

I'll give Whitehill a look. I started looking through their catalogue and got a bit lost! LOL!

The slight offset comes from using a 5/8" mortice and the dimensions of the rail and glass etc, but yes it can be simplified by moving the tenon across a bit! I've been following Bradshaw Joinery's videos on sashes for my layout and he had the same step (and said the same thing!)


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## rich1911 (5 Feb 2021)

OK found the tenoning disks. Page 104 on the Whitehill catalogue. Is there any reason, other than price where a bigger diameter disk is worth getting incase I want to do tenons on a door for example? For the sashes I only need 40mm so the 125mm diameter disk is fine, but a 200mm disk would cut a 99mm tenon. My moulder hood can take 230mm max. (Edit: taking the cutters into account a 175mm tenon disk is the biggest I can fit inside the hood so that will cut a tenon of up to 87mm)

On the groove cutters, page 100, what does Turn Blade mean exactly? I see that fixed width cutters are £120 to £150 but an adjustable 4-15mm 3 part is £300. I guess getting a smoother cut at the bottom of the groove is worth the cost over my wobble saw?


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## rich1911 (5 Feb 2021)

Just had a chat with Whitehill. They suggested a flush combi mould/scribe head which allows for really long tenons as they can pass over the top of the cutter, instead of the tenon disk.

They also said to avoid adjustable grooving cutters and just go with a fixed 10mm grooving tool for the slot.


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## Ollie78 (5 Feb 2021)

I am a bit confused why you don't want to use a pair of tenon disks. 
Whitehill will do you custom knives, I get Tewkesbury saw to do mine, any proper tooling supplier will be able to do knives for you.

Agreeing with Robin about your joint looking a bit off ? 

The problem with the combi mould head you say you want to pass over the top of the cutter, passing the centre of the spindle, I have been told this is not favoured by HSE. Regardless of that, you should still have the guards and exyraction in place so realistscakly how much are you going to be able to sail over the spindle. Also this is a 2 pass method, a pair of tenon disks is one pass. 

I have no problem with an adjustable groover, it is more useful than a fixed one and certainly better than a wobble saw. 

For doors you really do want a tennoner, something like a 2 head multico or Sedgewick tesh is enough.

Turn blade just means you can use both sides oc the blade or 4 sides depending which ones.

Don't over complicate it, 125mm rebate head on top, spacer between with moulding underneath in a 96mm head. That does the mould. 
For tennon get 2 disks order the corresponding scribe ( in the catalogue by the mouldings it will state. For scribe see cutter no.xxx ) .
Effectively you are ordering 3 sets of cutters one mould, one scribe, and one square tenon cutter with length to match the scribe.

Just watched a bit of the Bradshaw video .He is making them reversed with internal bead, so that is not the regular way to do it. Normally you mould the inside and putty the outside.

Ollie


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## rich1911 (6 Feb 2021)

Ollie78 said:


> I am a bit confused why you don't want to use a pair of tenon disks.
> Whitehill will do you custom knives, I get Tewkesbury saw to do mine, any proper tooling supplier will be able to do knives for you.
> 
> Agreeing with Robin about your joint looking a bit off ?
> ...


Hi Ollie,

Re the joint, using the existing rail dimensions and 4/8/4 glass, a 30 degree bevel with a 2mm flat and a 16mm wide tenon (to fit the 5/8" mortice), set half way through the rail, gave me that little step.

I'm still drawing these, so I can easily simplify it my moving the tenon across, so it's no longer central.

Oliver at Bradshaw Joinery is defo fitting the moulded beading to the inside of the sashes and the 30 degree bevel (to look like putty) is on the outside. He fits the glazing from the inside with tape (2mm on the outside, 1mm on the inside) and then adds a small cap of sealant on top of the outside tape. Obvoiusly there are loads of ways to do this, but his videos are really detailed and are a good starting point for me!


I get what you're saying about using the flush combi head with deep tenons. There's a lot of tool outside the guard...

I only looked at it because the Whitehill guy recommended it and I'd not seen one before, so hadn't even considered it.

He was quite dismissive of adjustable gooving cutters. I've not done any spindle moulding yet, so I have zero experience of what works best. I just don't want to waste too many hundreds of quid buying the wrong tooling!

I'm using a Felder BF6 and don't really have much room left for a dedicated tenoning machine, but when I get to looking a doing a door, I'll look into the tooling in more detail. I just thought that using the flush combi head might be able to do really deep tenons too.


Thanks so much again for taking the time to help me out!


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## deema (6 Feb 2021)

I’m like Ollie, I also use adjustable groovers, in fact I don’t own a fixed groover just a set of adjustable groovers (3off) which cover 4mm to 30+mm. I don’t have any issues setting them accurately, I use metal shims. If however, I had specialised in say windows I can see the benefit of having one or two fixed groover as setup would be far faster. Having said that I would probably invest in a window line to be competitive!
The funny thing is, that normally (pre pandemic where woody stuff prices hadon’t gone silly) it would probably be as cheap to buy a secondhand Multico with modern heads as it would be to buy tooling for your spindle. Sedgwick Tesh tenoner are both slightly larger and far more expensive secondhand. I had a Multico myself for many years, they truly are fabulous machines. I liked that both heads could be moved in and out, the Sedgwick has only the top head that can move. There is no option to move both heads together up or down on the Multico, however, with a bit of practice (and making a spacer block for the common tennon sizes that fits between the depth stop and the bottom casting you can setup a Multico incredibly quickly.....as quick as the Sedgwick where the two heads can be moved together. I now have a three headed Sedgwick.

The Multico takes up very little room, I would seriously consider one before splashing out on Spindle tooling. I normally setup the spindle to make the rebate and moulding in one pass on the rails and styles and also setup the tenoner. My process is to tenon and then mould so I avoid blow out around the moulding. Having both machines setup means I can run a test piece and tweak which ever is easiest to get a perfect fit.

My favourite trick is to tenon to the wrong line when there is a scribe to be done, and end up with rails too short.......when you start you will know what I mean......it ruins my day. However, having all the machines setup enables the first test piece to normally be the only Billy do! Doing it solely on a spindle you can end up with a whole lot of firewood and only realise at the end!


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## RobinBHM (6 Feb 2021)

rich1911 said:


> Thanks chaps.
> 
> I'll give Whitehill a look. I started looking through their catalogue and got a bit lost! LOL!
> 
> The slight offset comes from using a 5/8" mortice and the dimensions of the rail and glass etc, but yes it can be simplified by moving the tenon across a bit! I've been following Bradshaw Joinery's videos on sashes for my layout and he had the same step (and said the same thing!)



My apologies, I forgot to atttach.






Home


whitehill spindle tooling, cutter profilers uk , cpuk, cutters, limiters, euro, serrated, moulder, profiled, bespoke, chip limiter cutters, made to order, tenoner tooling cutter profiling, cutter grinding




www.cutterprofilers.co.uk


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## rich1911 (6 Feb 2021)

RobinBHM said:


> My apologies, I forgot to atttach.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Cheers!


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## RobinBHM (6 Feb 2021)

rich1911 said:


> Cheers!


He is a one man band.

Paul the owner bought a CNC cutter profiling machine (cost about £100k). He works from a workshop at his house.


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## rich1911 (6 Feb 2021)

deema said:


> I’m like Ollie, I also use adjustable groovers, in fact I don’t own a fixed groover just a set of adjustable groovers (3off) which cover 4mm to 30+mm. I don’t have any issues setting them accurately, I use metal shims. If however, I had specialised in say windows I can see the benefit of having one or two fixed groover as setup would be far faster. Having said that I would probably invest in a window line to be competitive!
> The funny thing is, that normally (pre pandemic where woody stuff prices hadon’t gone silly) it would probably be as cheap to buy a secondhand Multico with modern heads as it would be to buy tooling for your spindle. Sedgwick Tesh tenoner are both slightly larger and far more expensive secondhand. I had a Multico myself for many years, they truly are fabulous machines. I liked that both heads could be moved in and out, the Sedgwick has only the top head that can move. There is no option to move both heads together up or down on the Multico, however, with a bit of practice (and making a spacer block for the common tennon sizes that fits between the depth stop and the bottom casting you can setup a Multico incredibly quickly.....as quick as the Sedgwick where the two heads can be moved together. I now have a three headed Sedgwick.
> 
> The Multico takes up very little room, I would seriously consider one before splashing out on Spindle tooling. I normally setup the spindle to make the rebate and moulding in one pass on the rails and styles and also setup the tenoner. My process is to tenon and then mould so I avoid blow out around the moulding. Having both machines setup means I can run a test piece and tweak which ever is easiest to get a perfect fit.
> ...



Multico TM3's appear to be £1600 on ebay, plus a VFD so getting on to 2k. One did go for £800 but 3phase again. Not sure if you'd 2 VFD's as I don't thnik you can run 2 motors off one?

I can see how a small error with the tenoning gives you loads of firewood! 

Thanks for the views on the adjustable grooving tools. My wobble saw seems to do an ok job be the bottom of the slot is slightly uneven. Not sure you'd notice it once the rail is clamped up to the stile...

18mm wide 30mm deep test:


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## LBCarpentry (8 Feb 2021)

I would seriously advise against tenonning on the very same spindle moulder you intend to rebate and mould with....You could end up wasting an awful lot of time and money.

If you can’t afford a small tenoner then I would personally make a jig which did all tennoning on the wobble saw, then router the 30 degree scribe on, and then feed through the spindle moulder. So so SO much better to have a dedicated machine set up for each part. Otherwise any mistakes/ gaps will only become apparent on your dry fit iE- when it’s too late!

Louis


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## Ollie78 (9 Feb 2021)

LBCarpentry said:


> I would seriously advise against tenonning on the very same spindle moulder you intend to rebate and mould with....You could end up wasting an awful lot of time and money.
> 
> If you can’t afford a small tenoner then I would personally make a jig which did all tennoning on the wobble saw, then router the 30 degree scribe on, and then feed through the spindle moulder. So so SO much better to have a dedicated machine set up for each part. Otherwise any mistakes/ gaps will only become apparent on your dry fit iE- when it’s too late!
> 
> Louis



You are right about this not being ideal but there are ways to make sure it's OK.

I just do a test joint till I get one perfect.
Once spot on, I make note of the spindle height and make a gauge for the moulding fence position by screwing a bit of scrap together.
Then I cut all my rails and glazing bars to length and do all my tenons.
Once all tenons are cut I switch to the moulding setup using the gauge to set the fence, swing the power feed in and mould all the stiles and rails.

Over time I have spelch blocks for the tennoning table with lots of different setups
eg. 44mm thick combined head 16mm rebate. I write on them with a sharpie, and hang them on the wall. These are used to get the setup very close straight away.
You can use the mould from the test joint check the setup.
Keep test joints for each pattern you do and setup is not a problem.

Also rich1911, the multico tm1 is the single phase version, a bit rarer though.

Ollie


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## rich1911 (9 Feb 2021)

LBCarpentry said:


> I would seriously advise against tenonning on the very same spindle moulder you intend to rebate and mould with....You could end up wasting an awful lot of time and money.
> 
> If you can’t afford a small tenoner then I would personally make a jig which did all tennoning on the wobble saw, then router the 30 degree scribe on, and then feed through the spindle moulder. So so SO much better to have a dedicated machine set up for each part. Otherwise any mistakes/ gaps will only become apparent on your dry fit iE- when it’s too late!
> 
> Louis



Not sure about my spindle being simple? It has a sliding table running on steel rails with roller bearings, tilting arbor, 4.3kw motor. No, it's not a twin head tenoner, but its a pretty good spindle. 

I'm using the wobble saw on the spindle. Seems to cut fine. 

No need for a jig. Just clamp the rail to the cross fence on the sliding table and run through. No reason why I couldn't do all the rails in one go, stacked up.

There are lots of ways to cut these rails and tiles and I don't need to worry too much about process time. I just want to use a safe method that is accurate!

Seems to be a toss up between a tenon block or a flush limiter scribe block, or both stacked up, if I want to run the lot through in one go.


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