Hello all,

I know that rec.woodworking might be a more appropriate place for
this, but I have been way to busy lately to waste time trying to
separate the wheat from the chaff in that group. Maybe someone here
has some insight on this one:

I do a bit of custom millwork here and there for people, and with a
sizable trim order in the works, I was thinking that it would be a
good investment to purchase a moulding cutterhead for my table saw so
that I could add a few profile options that are tough to achieve with
just a router and dado stack. Delta lists the exact thing I'm looking
for in the manual for my contractor's saw- (part no. 34-562) but I
can't find anyone who actually sells one of these.

I contacted Delta to see if I could track one down, but this lack of
availibility has got me a little spooked. It's not a cheap accessory,
and I'm wondering if anyone here has used one of these things. If
it's just more of the same old crap, where the manufacturers are now
considering anything more than a week old and without a laser pointer
glued to it obsolete, that's one thing- but if it has been
discontinued because it does not work, or is actually too dangerous to
use, I'd rather not pay $100+ for a fancy paperweight.

I know the standard answer is probably to buy a shaper or to get a
huge router with a variable speed control- but I paid a lot for my
saw, I'm comfortable with it, and I just don't have room to get a
stationary tool for every single step in every woodworking operation.
And as well as a router may work for a lot of guys, it's not always
the answer for what I do- I can grind custom profiles on a cutterhead
with replacable knives, but that's a fool's task on a router bit.

It doesn't have to be a Delta product, either- any cutterhead that has
a 5/8" arbor hole and is designed to be used in a table saw would be
fine- in fact, with Delta's continuing decline in quality and customer
service, I'd almost prefer a Freud or similar quality product.

Any advice or input?

"Prometheus" wrote in message
...
I do a bit of custom millwork here and there for people, and with a
sizable trim order in the works, I was thinking that it would be a
good investment to purchase a moulding cutterhead for my table saw so
that I could add a few profile options that are tough to achieve with
just a router and dado stack. Delta lists the exact thing I'm looking
for in the manual for my contractor's saw- (part no. 34-562) but I
can't find anyone who actually sells one of these.
Any advice or input?

I had a molding head once. Don't know where it is now, don't care. After
it whacked, splintered and flung a piece of wood with climbing grain back at
the wall I decided that something moving at 3450 with three knives was too
easy to overfeed. Makes too big a bite, leading (On Topic) to a catch too
easily.

You'll note that the trend in router and shaper bits, which move at an
average of three to five times the rate is to limit the bite by adding
structure ahead of the cutters to help with overfeeding tendencies.

Now if you have an automatic feeder and dual-direction hold-downs, maybe.
Personally I'd go shaper for long runs, router for short, using multiple
cutters to produce complex shapes. Takes a bit of planning to get the cut
series down, taking advantage of good points of stabilization, but it's well
worth it, in my estimation.

Made a hell of a scary noise, too.

I think that they have dropped out of favor as kick-back-prone, and
perhaps also finish-quality-problem-prone.

The fact that I don't see any on Lee Valley's site is somewhat damning.

but here's a couple (not cheap) that claim to be available via Amazon...

....OK, screw that link, it's a half a mile long.

Go to amazon, search for "molding blade table saw" in home improvement.
There are two purple arbors, plus a bunch of cutter profiles.

Me, I'd go the route of multiple-pass setups on the router table for
patterns that were not available as a a one-pass profile, given the
constraints of not buying a shaper and not having a CNC router to make
the multiple passes for you. Or not worry about it - all depends on how
hard you want to try to be the area's millwork supplier, but you have to
figure that a serious millwork supplier is running a 4-sided molding
machine with automatic feeders, and charging enough to cover the
machine, the stuff that comes out wrong and needs to be tossed in the
burn pile, and the original stock.

The other direction would be to run the profiles with hand planes, and
charge a premium for the authentic touch, while being able to listen to
yourself think as you make them.

http://ruckus.law.cornell.edu/mailman/listinfo/oldtools

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In article ,
Prometheus wrote:

Hello all,
.....

It doesn't have to be a Delta product, either- any cutterhead that has
a 5/8" arbor hole and is designed to be used in a table saw would be
fine- in fact, with Delta's continuing decline in quality and customer
service, I'd almost prefer a Freud or similar quality product.

Any advice or input?

I don't know if the Sears unit interchanges, but I see cutter heads
still available there. Not bad, one was $12

--
--------------------------------------------------------
Personal e-mail is the n7bsn but at amsat.org
This posting address is a spam-trap and seldom read
RV and Camping FAQ can be found at
http://www.ralphandellen.us/rv

If you wanted to make enough trim to do a bedroom suite or a coffee
table, the molding head for a table saw might work OK. I have one, I
used it, I hated it. Not just a little, either.

1) When mounted on a ts, the head doesn't spin fast enough to cleanly
cut the wood. If you hit a tiny irregularity in the wood (that would
look good finished) you will have tear out, chipping, and in some
cases, this will be where the blade grabs your piece and goes for
launch. Make no mistake, either - unless your pieces are about 6 ft
long or less, this is a 2 man operation due to the necessity of
holding the materail perfectly agains the spinning head

2) If you are running presized material through the ts (like a 1X2),
then you have to use hold downs and featherboards on it (you should
anyway) not just to avoid shooting out of the shop, but when this head
hits the tougher areas of wood, it cuts slower and will lift the wood
away from the cutters, giving a more shallow profile

3) It is painful to sharpen the cutters, and they don't stay sharp.
Since the blades go slower and by their design don't cut as well, they
get dull MUCH faster. This is the death of your profile. If the
cutters get dull and you continue to use the tool, you will screw up
your material. When you sharpen, it will change the profile a little,
just a little, but sometimes that is too much. It is OK for some
ceiling moldings, but if you are matching trims on kitchen cabs it is
unacceptable

4) Even when mine was new, the blades were sharp, and the sun was
shining and the birds were singing, it didn't work well. The end
product didn't look really finished or consistent in the profiles.
The details of the profile were never really sharp and cleanly cut

The only one I know that still has this is one of my hardwood
suppliers. You leave him a drawing or a piece of molding you want
matched. He will take it back to his guy that will convert it to a
file for the CNC mill that will make the correctly profiled blades.
It is not cheap.

I ONLY do that when I have a remodel in an older home and we have to
match moldings.

I agree with the other posts, but with small difference. For a small
run, I buy something as close as possible to what I need. For a
medium amount of trim, the same. In fact, for all the trim, I buy
it. I have no clue how anyone makes money milling unless they can
really get their price for it.

Seriously though, if I were to have the urge to make moldings, I would
make small projects (a few cabinets) on my router table which has a 3
hp, 1/2 shank collet on it. I wouldn't consider anything smaller.

For a more than that, I would purchase a shaper. If you have a
sizeable order and will continue to use the machine, why not buy a
medium sized machine? The machine and cutter heads are expensive to
get into, but to me worth the quality of the end product you get for
the investment. Plus... it is much faster.

I don't know what is sizable to you since you didn't say. But the
last house I trimmed that had all custom molding inside had about 4500
+ of of molding in it. Two piece crown, two piece base (the six inch
with the colonial dust cap on it), 4" door jambs, profiled window
stool (think table top profile) with apron, etc. You get the
picture. To me that would have been a sizeable order to make. But to
trim out a house like that, it wasn't really that big of a job; the
house was just a bit under 3000 sq ft, so it wasn't like I was
trimming a monster.

For that much molding/millwork, a shaper is the ONLY way to go.

At this point with my experience with them, I would consider money on
one of those molding heads a complete waste.

Robert

On 3 May 2007 09:10:35 -0700, "
wrote:

I ONLY do that when I have a remodel in an older home and we have to
match moldings.

This is basically the only job I do- there isn't much point in me
trying to compete with the big guys who can run a house full of trim
in 20 minutes! What I bid for, and usually get, are jobs where I'm
matching 6-30' of trim to an exisiting profile that is no longer
offered at any of the local suppliers.

I agree with the other posts, but with small difference. For a small
run, I buy something as close as possible to what I need. For a
medium amount of trim, the same. In fact, for all the trim, I buy
it. I have no clue how anyone makes money milling unless they can
really get their price for it.

It depends on the amount of practice you have, I think. For my part,
I did the same thing I'm doing at home as part of my job a while back,
and got pretty fast at doing the setups accurately. Even so, the bulk
of my profit does not come from the milling itself, it is from the
sealing, staining, and topcoat.

Seriously though, if I were to have the urge to make moldings, I would
make small projects (a few cabinets) on my router table which has a 3
hp, 1/2 shank collet on it. I wouldn't consider anything smaller.

For a more than that, I would purchase a shaper. If you have a
sizeable order and will continue to use the machine, why not buy a
medium sized machine? The machine and cutter heads are expensive to
get into, but to me worth the quality of the end product you get for
the investment. Plus... it is much faster.

I'll continue to use the machine, undoubtedly- but I only get one or
two of these jobs a year. It would take forever to pay for itself at
that rate! I'd be better off turning them down and doing something
else entirely if I had to invest more than a couple hundred bucks in
tooling- but since they're usually jobs done as favors for people I
know, and I'm willing to get paid less than I'd like to help them out,
I usually do them.

I don't know what is sizable to you since you didn't say. But the
last house I trimmed that had all custom molding inside had about 4500
+ of of molding in it. Two piece crown, two piece base (the six inch
with the colonial dust cap on it), 4" door jambs, profiled window
stool (think table top profile) with apron, etc. You get the
picture. To me that would have been a sizeable order to make. But to
trim out a house like that, it wasn't really that big of a job; the
house was just a bit under 3000 sq ft, so it wasn't like I was
trimming a monster.

Sizeable, for my home shop, is about 400 linear ft. Any more than
that, and I send them to a store. Even if I could produce more, I
don't want the hassle of storing it even for a short time, and I'm not
very interested in running a factory in my basement!

For that much molding/millwork, a shaper is the ONLY way to go.

At this point with my experience with them, I would consider money on
one of those molding heads a complete waste.

Duly noted- thanks for the advice from all of you. I had figured it
was similar in use to a dado stack, but it sounds like I'm better off
sticking with my "whatever I've already got that will get it made"
technique. No point in investing in something that won't perform.

Maybe one of these days, I'll replace the planer with one of those
Grizzly beasts that does double-duty as a planer and moulder. The
auto-feed and top rollers aught to make it a worthwhile proposition.

"Prometheus" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

I know that rec.woodworking might be a more appropriate place for
this, but I have been way to busy lately to waste time trying to
separate the wheat from the chaff in that group. Maybe someone here
has some insight on this one:

I do a bit of custom millwork here and there for people, and with a
sizable trim order in the works, I was thinking that it would be a
good investment to purchase a moulding cutterhead for my table saw so
that I could add a few profile options that are tough to achieve with
just a router and dado stack. Delta lists the exact thing I'm looking
for in the manual for my contractor's saw- (part no. 34-562) but I
can't find anyone who actually sells one of these.

I contacted Delta to see if I could track one down, but this lack of
availibility has got me a little spooked. It's not a cheap accessory,
and I'm wondering if anyone here has used one of these things. If
it's just more of the same old crap, where the manufacturers are now
considering anything more than a week old and without a laser pointer
glued to it obsolete, that's one thing- but if it has been
discontinued because it does not work, or is actually too dangerous to
use, I'd rather not pay $100+ for a fancy paperweight.

I know the standard answer is probably to buy a shaper or to get a
huge router with a variable speed control- but I paid a lot for my
saw, I'm comfortable with it, and I just don't have room to get a
stationary tool for every single step in every woodworking operation.
And as well as a router may work for a lot of guys, it's not always
the answer for what I do- I can grind custom profiles on a cutterhead
with replacable knives, but that's a fool's task on a router bit.

It doesn't have to be a Delta product, either- any cutterhead that has
a 5/8" arbor hole and is designed to be used in a table saw would be
fine- in fact, with Delta's continuing decline in quality and customer
service, I'd almost prefer a Freud or similar quality product.

Any advice or input?

http://www.mikestools.com/235-006-07...Head-Only.aspx

http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPR...PARTNUM=34-813

http://www.amazon.com/molder-cutter-...8237832&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Molder-A...8237832&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/LRH-Magic-Mold...8237832&sr=1-3

The Sears molding head, as of a few years ago, was a quality piece. I have
no reason to believe they are any different now. These things work just fine
as long as you understand what you are doing. Feed rate and rigidity are
everything. Approach it as a machinist, not a wood hack and it will work
fine.


"Prometheus" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

I know that rec.woodworking might be a more appropriate place for
this, but I have been way to busy lately to waste time trying to
separate the wheat from the chaff in that group. Maybe someone here
has some insight on this one:

I do a bit of custom millwork here and there for people, and with a
sizable trim order in the works, I was thinking that it would be a
good investment to purchase a moulding cutterhead for my table saw so
that I could add a few profile options that are tough to achieve with
just a router and dado stack. Delta lists the exact thing I'm looking
for in the manual for my contractor's saw- (part no. 34-562) but I
can't find anyone who actually sells one of these.

I contacted Delta to see if I could track one down, but this lack of
availibility has got me a little spooked. It's not a cheap accessory,
and I'm wondering if anyone here has used one of these things. If
it's just more of the same old crap, where the manufacturers are now
considering anything more than a week old and without a laser pointer
glued to it obsolete, that's one thing- but if it has been
discontinued because it does not work, or is actually too dangerous to
use, I'd rather not pay $100+ for a fancy paperweight.

I know the standard answer is probably to buy a shaper or to get a
huge router with a variable speed control- but I paid a lot for my
saw, I'm comfortable with it, and I just don't have room to get a
stationary tool for every single step in every woodworking operation.
And as well as a router may work for a lot of guys, it's not always
the answer for what I do- I can grind custom profiles on a cutterhead
with replacable knives, but that's a fool's task on a router bit.

It doesn't have to be a Delta product, either- any cutterhead that has
a 5/8" arbor hole and is designed to be used in a table saw would be
fine- in fact, with Delta's continuing decline in quality and customer
service, I'd almost prefer a Freud or similar quality product.

Any advice or input?

CW wrote:
The Sears molding head, as of a few years ago, was a quality piece. I have
no reason to believe they are any different now. These things work just fine
as long as you understand what you are doing. Feed rate and rigidity are
everything. Approach it as a machinist, not a wood hack and it will work
fine.


I had the Sears head umpteen years ago. If I needed to make a small
amount of custom molding, I'd give it serious consideration again. It
only has three blades, possibly making a fairly wide cut. Feed fairly
slowly and sneak up on your profile.

And stay out of the line of fire. But you already knew that. ;-)

Bill
--
http://nmwoodworks.com/cube


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Tested on: 5/4/2007 9:00:23 PM
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http://www.avast.com

Hey- thanks for the links, Tony!

It would appear that I was making the same mistake over and over when
searching- Delta calls it a "moulding cutterhead", and some of these
are "molding cutterheads." So I missed the third-party sellers.


On Thu, 3 May 2007 20:19:51 -0400, "Tony Pridmore"
wrote:

http://www.mikestools.com/235-006-07...Head-Only.aspx

http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPR...PARTNUM=34-813

http://www.amazon.com/molder-cutter-...8237832&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Molder-A...8237832&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/LRH-Magic-Mold...8237832&sr=1-3

On Fri, 04 May 2007 02:02:54 GMT, "CW" wrote:

The Sears molding head, as of a few years ago, was a quality piece. I have
no reason to believe they are any different now. These things work just fine
as long as you understand what you are doing. Feed rate and rigidity are
everything. Approach it as a machinist, not a wood hack and it will work
fine.

If I do go this route, I am thinking that I will install a pair of
rollers with a set of anti-kickback fingers over the work, and try it
that way. That should provide the rigidity, at least. Maybe if I
get it and like it, I'll look into a smallish power feed to get the
consistant feed rate- While I can probably do fine manually, I know
Grizzly sells a number of them for reasonable prices, and it'd be
handy for dadoing as well.

I too have a Sears moulding head and am very pleased with it. I've had
it about 30 years so i can't comment on the new ones. What is nice is
they sell straight cutters for rabbetting and I have ground my own
profiles on them when needed. A pair of "Board Buddies" or similar
will eliminate most of the chatter and prevent kick backs. More
important is a custom insert in the table that fits the width of the
cutters. Make them out of 1/2" Baltic birch and make sure they are
secured! Give the fence and table a good wipe down with some kitchen
wax paper before you start and you will end up with mouldings that
don't need sanding. You should not sand mouldings anyway as you lose
all the nice sharp crisp details. Stock selection is also critical and
one of the best woods in my opinion is tulip poplar also known as
black poplar or tulip wood or poplar depending where you live. Anyway
its the olive green stuff with the dark lines and creamy sapwood. I
find this can be stained and finished to match almost any exotic or
domestic hardwood. Use a conditioner or a bleach and then conditioner
depending on the wood you are matching.
Go for it I think it will do all you need

Sounds like you have it worked out.

"Prometheus" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 04 May 2007 02:02:54 GMT, "CW" wrote:

The Sears molding head, as of a few years ago, was a quality piece. I
have
no reason to believe they are any different now. These things work just
fine
as long as you understand what you are doing. Feed rate and rigidity are
everything. Approach it as a machinist, not a wood hack and it will work
fine.

If I do go this route, I am thinking that I will install a pair of
rollers with a set of anti-kickback fingers over the work, and try it
that way. That should provide the rigidity, at least. Maybe if I
get it and like it, I'll look into a smallish power feed to get the
consistant feed rate- While I can probably do fine manually, I know
Grizzly sells a number of them for reasonable prices, and it'd be
handy for dadoing as well.