Router table

[Trevanion]

Far from being jealous of your spindle moulders I have everything I need in my Router table and can get every cutter I need off the shelf, I am not a professional so I don't need massive production runs or the cost of very expensive cutters.

Yes, a router table will do pretty much most things a spindle moulder can do time, patience and the correct cutters. I personally think the SM was the better choice for Guineafowl over the RT simply because the calibre of work he was wanting to do would be better done and easier especially when it was coming to larger tenon work and panel raising.

As for cutters and blocks being expensive, you're not wrong, they are expensive. I always look at them as a bit of investment though and I don't really think about how much is being spent, if you look for secondhand cutters and blocks on eBay you'll see that they usually pick up 80%+ of their new price even in pretty well-used condition, try selling a worn out router bit :lol:. Cutters like the euro knives aren't too pricey for the life you get out of them compared to a router bit. I've used both quite extensively and I'd say you get at least twice the life out of a pair of HSS knives as you would out of a carbide router bit, and usually you'll just chuck the router bit since it's not worth trying to resharpen whilst with HSS so long as you've got a bit of skill with a grinding wheel you can get much longer life out of knives. But as you said, this really only matters if you're using the machines a lot in a production setting.

I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner but another thing that's nice about the versatility of the spindle moulder is having the ability to pretty much do any profile you can imagine without having to have a special router bit made. I did a small post on another thread about it here which might interest someone: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/making-custom-spindle-moulder-cutters-t115099-45.html#p1311340

 

[Beanwood]

I NEED a spindle moulder now. It's gone way beyond want. I'll have to sell a child, or a house or something, but there's no question - we're getting a spindle moulder.

Quite what I do with it once I have it - no idea. Certainly no work requiring it, but that's not the point.

This !! Just exactly this!! (I must stop reading this thread, and how much fun Guineafowl21 is having )

 

[guineafowl21]

Looking at the two machines, as I have done a lot these past few weeks, I seemed to find that the initial outlay is more for a SM, but the cutter knives are actually cheaper than equivalent router bits. A bit like buying a laser vs inkjet printer.

It certainly suits me well, because there’s a lot of setting and shims etc, as I like playing with machines as much as I like woodworking.

I may well get into custom knives one day. I’ve read ‘The Shaper Handbook’, by Lonnie Bird. It’s American, and definitely to be read AFTER Stephenson’s book since the safety practices and terminology are different. It has a good guide to custom knife grinding with drawings of 30deg projections and suchlike.

 

[guineafowl21]

I NEED a spindle moulder now. It's gone way beyond want. I'll have to sell a child, or a house or something, but there's no question - we're getting a spindle moulder.

Quite what I do with it once I have it - no idea. Certainly no work requiring it, but that's not the point.

This !! Just exactly this!! (I must stop reading this thread, and how much fun Guineafowl21 is having )

Mwahahaha! I’ve been having more fun today... I bought some ordinary saw blades to see how long tenons would work out. With some shimming, these seem to produce the long 12.7mm tenons I’m after, and I can cut the shoulders on the table saw or by hand. I’ll get some proper SM blades in due course.

The first mini table produced largely with the SM, that is: apron tenons, haunches, chamfers and arches; leg compound curves; edge planing of stock. I might add an ogee to the top, too:

 

[guineafowl21]

I might need a little help here, or you can call me an ***** (silly person? You can’t say i diot on here?... :? )

I have the 124 stile and rail cutter. I’ve scribed the end grain on the rails (lighter wood on right). Try as I might, I can’t get the profile to fit. In some desperation, I ran the entire cutter profile along a thicker piece of wood:

The scribe neither fits this way...

Nor this way...

What have I done wrong? You can see the tenon is thinner than the groove. Since the groove is fixed, does the tenon have to go all the way to the edge?

 

[guineafowl21]

Just trying to work out why the tenon is too thin. You can see here the first knife compared to the scribe...

 

[guineafowl21]

And the second...

So it looks like the knives are offset. This is resulting in a 4mm tenon from a 5mm knife slot, and a 6mm groove from a 5mm knife tab.

I remounted the knives to no avail, and there’s no play on the pins to adjust.

Please don’t tell me I have to send the cutters back to Scosarg. I must be like the customer from hell #-o

 

[Doug71]

If you take the cutters out and try them together are they identical? If there is a difference it's obviously the cutters but if they are the same it could be the block?

 

[Trevanion]

Looking at the two photos you put on it actually looks like the knives are sitting higher in the block on one side than the other if you look at how much the knives stick out below the block in each photo, which might mean you've got a dodgy block? I can't really work out why the scribe isn't fitting correctly either, it should be perfect.

I don't want to sound like I'm trying to teach a nanny to suck eggs but have you definitely loaded the knives and limiters correctly into the block?

 

[guineafowl21]

Thanks for the suggestions. @Trevanion I did remount the knives and double check. No need to worry about egg-sucking - I’m certainly not above doing stupid things and convincing myself the machine’s at fault!

Comparing the scosarg 124 knives, held together with two 6mm drill bits - they look exactly the same.

So here’s what I did:
1. Clamped a straightedge to the spindle and checked it was square both ways across the table. Dead on.

2. Mounted a variety of knives in the cutterblock. For each one, I dropped the block below table level, then brought it up so one knife just ticked against a straightedge held across the hole. Then I spun the cutterblock round to the other knife.

One knife is always higher than the other, by about 0.5mm. I marked the offending side and I think I can see the knife is looking upwards on that side.

Is that a fair test?

 

[Trevanion]

One knife is always higher than the other, by about 0.5mm. I marked the offending side and I think I can see the knife is looking upwards on that side.

Is that a fair test?

Well, that sounds like the block itself is at fault. This is less than ideal because you really want that to be spot on if you want to be doing accurate work with grooves and such as you are. 0.5mm is quite a lot.

 

[guineafowl21]

Thanks. I confirmed with the dial gauge:

That’s the higher knife being measured. 0 set to the lower knife, so I make that 0.57mm.

Axial runout on the block body was barely 0.03mm, which is excellent and shows it must be the pins.

Bug ger! (Or Pipper! As this forum would have it). I’ll contact Poolewood tomorrow. Hopefully their customer service is good - their delivery speed was first class. Instead of a refund/exchange, perhaps I’ll ask to pay the difference towards a better cutterblock. This one’s a Charnwood.

In the meantime, on a more positive note, here’s a pic of the (nearly) finished spindle moulder table. Just needs one more coat of button shellac, denibbing and polishing. It will go to the very kind man who gave (yes, gave) me a 22” Jet drum sander, and wouldn’t take a penny for it.

 

[guineafowl21]

Looking at the Poolewood site, I think they only stock Charnwood blocks, so maybe I should go for a straight refund and put that towards a higher end block.

I’d like one that still fits the 40/4mm knives but could take larger ones, maybe for cornices. 50mm high? 55?

Current block is 98mm. Any advantage to getting bigger/smaller?

Steel vs aluminium?

Most importantly, brand? Whitehill, Trend, CMT seem good.

 

[Trevanion]

Funnily enough, Whitehill probably makes the best blocks you could buy and they tend to be quite a bit cheaper than most others. Their standard 96mm x 55mm x 30m blocks take any knife with a 24mm pinhole offset, which would be knives from 40mm to 55mm.

https://www.whitehill-tools.com/cutter-heads/limiter-heads/050A00050/
https://www.whitehill-tools.com/cutter-heads/limiter-heads/050S00080/

As for steel vs aluminium, steel has a lot more inertia which means it will take more load to bog it down once it's up to speed, but this also means it takes more power to get the machine up to speed and it will take a longer time to come to a complete stop. Aluminium is the opposite, it's easier to start the machine up and it'll stop quicker but it has little inertia to keep a cut from bogging down, but realistically if you're bogging the machine down you're taking too heavy of a cut anyway. In theory a steel block would be stronger and more durable than an aluminium one but I've never seen one that had been worn out by use or misuse.

 

[guineafowl21]

Thanks yet again. You should write a book.

I was drifting towards steel. It seems more durable, and any slight imbalance in the knife weights would be a smaller proportion of the overall rotating mass, perhaps leading to less vibration. The limiting factor is, of course, more the plonker operating the machine than small details.

 

[guineafowl21]

Poolewood have sent on a replacement block, which they’ve checked. I did ask for a refund but this is the next best thing.

I might keep the defective block and mount something commonly used, like a roundover, to save time swapping knives.

I might also get the Whitehill block. You need to have faith in your equipment, whether it be a cutterblock, square, multimeter...

 

[guineafowl21]

New block arrived today from Charnwood. My CMT tongue cutters are within 0.1mm (height) but the CMT stile and rail cutter is 0.29mm difference. Still, nearly half.

I have ordered a Whitehill block so will try them in that.

I made some rough cabinet doors for practice with the 124 stile/rail cutters. Is there a good way to set depth and height of cut with these multi cutters? I sort of eyeballed it, and it sort of worked.

I used the Axcaliber ogee panel raising cutter - brilliant thing.

 

[Trevanion]

I just had a look at those knives again on Scosarg's site and I think I see now why your scribes weren't fitting properly before! Were you using the very bottom of the cutter for making the tenons by any chance? It's a different radius for panels!

As for setting the knives, I like to use a steel foot ruler between the fences so that the very bottom depth of the cutter (in this case the tongue cutter) is just kissing the ruler at the apex. As for height settings, I'm afraid it's a bit of trial and error with test pieces to get it absolutely spot-on.

 

[screwpainting]

Just read this whole thread, excellent!
Trevanion =D>

 

[guineafowl21]

I just had a look at those knives again on Scosarg's site and I think I see now why your scribes weren't fitting properly before! Were you using the very bottom of the cutter for making the tenons by any chance? It's a different radius for panels!

As for setting the knives, I like to use a steel foot ruler between the fences so that the very bottom depth of the cutter (in this case the tongue cutter) is just kissing the ruler at the apex. As for height settings, I'm afraid it's a bit of trial and error with test pieces to get it absolutely spot-on.

No, I used the middle bit for the scribe :mrgreen: I haven’t used the panel raising bit at the bottom yet. The fit is better with the replacement cutterblock, but not quite tight.

I offered the workpiece up behind the knife and moved it forward while rotating the block, until there was no light showing at the back of the tenon cutter. Your way sounds better. I guess the best thing in the long term is to work with the same thickness of wood and cut some standard pieces to set the knives to. More jigs!