I've been on a mission this year to make doors faster, better, and more consistent. For years my manufacturing of doors has relied on two shapers and a mix match of insert cutters of different diameters, offsets, tongue sizes, and heights, plus a brazed straight cutter. It worked. Although very not very consistently, and very slowly. Early on I adopted using an outboard fence for sizing sticking, (also my faceframe stock), it eliminated snipe on the ends, and produced a part that wasn't relying on accurate ripping to get the correct size part. This process has gone through a few variations, from moving a fence that was clamped down for every size. To a fixed fence and a series of spacers made from Baltic Birch. The latter is what I'm still doing at the moment. The plan is to attach a pair of linear bearings and rods to the side of my main shaper and have a fence with a digital read out that can be dialed in quickly. That will help speed things up dramatically, and take out the environmental component of the plywood not beings exactly what it is supposed to be due to temperature and humidity changes.
With two shapers making doors one shaper remained set up as a coper at all times, the other did the rest of the duties. Panel raising, sticking, sizing of sticking, and sizing of face frame stock. As well as anything else that needed to be run through the shaper. Both are light duty Powermatic Model 27 shapers and not really up to the duty cycle of cabinet shop work.
The first thing I did this year for upgrading my door setup was I found a SAC TS120 8-1/2hp shaper with a 1" spindle that from the get go I wanted to setup as a panel raiser. I got it cheap on an auction. I think with the winning bid, buyers premium, fuel, paying a Millwright to load it in my pickup, and putting a new four wheel Steff power feed on it I've got about $2700 into it. I had a three wing LRH insert head that is in it currently. (I've got a cousin who has a four wing insert panel raiser he had custom made that I really want to try in the SAC. Slow the spindle speed down and that thing should leave glass behind with no burning.) Even though I don't do a ton of raised panel stuff, tearing down the main shaper to setup for panel raising was a massive pain in the rear. Especially when a door was made incorrectly and it had to be done a few times in a job. Plus a five horsepower shaper is really borderline on power doing a full pass scoop in harder material. I also wanted to have a continuous fence instead of having a bearing for the panel to ride on. I think the added support helps with tear out, plus there's no "bumps" in the feeding of panels, they just truck on through smoothly. I'm very pleased with the setup so far even though it's probably only ran about 30 panels through it this year.
Through this website I was contacted by another member who had a SCMi T130N shaper for sale in absolutely mint condition that I purchased to replace the 27S that was my main shaper. Having a height readout, the ability to stack three cutters on the spindle, and for all intensive purposes zero runout improved everything. The quality of cut is substantially better. The fit of the cope to the stick is phenomenal, and when sizing face frame material I was getting a shiny smooth cut. I was doing all of my straight cuts with the shaper in reverse and doing a climb cut for essentially zero tear out with both this shaper and the Powermatic, but the results from the SCMi are outstanding. Sanding up stuff with a DA sander on the straight cuts is now effortless. This shaper also received a Steff 4 wheel power feeder.
So now I have the SCMi doing sticking, sizing face frame stock, and doing some miscellaneous small mouldings. The SAC does panel raising, a Powermatic Model 27 doing the coping for ogee and quarter round profiles, and a Powermatic Model 27S that is currently setup for coping shaker style doors.
This is the whole reason for this post. (and my bragging a bit)
In there is left and right cope heads for quarter round, and ogee. A single cope head for shaker style. Sticking cutters for quarter round, ogee, and shaker. And in the second picture, a four wing, opposite shear, carbide insert straight cutter. Almost $7k in heads and extra knives. This is what is going to drastically improve everything across the board. The door specific heads are all the same diameter, all the some offset, all the same minor diameter, all the same tongue. The two Powermatic shapers for the time being will be setup as copers. When a profile change needs to happen on the copers, I just swap heads and make no changes to spindle height or fence position. Having left and right copes eliminates the need for a coped backer stick and the hassles that accompany that. Assuming I won't have more than two different sticking profiles in one job, I'll load the needed profiles and the straight cutter into the SCMi and to change profiles or go to the straight cutter I will just raise and lower the spindle to a number on the readout.
I'm pretty amped up for my next job to start.
The next step will be dumping the Powermatic shapers, or putting them into some extremely light duty job. I'd like to have separate shapers setup for each coping profile at some point, but that is a ways down the road. I would also like to get something like the Unique double end automatic coper as well, but you still have to have shapers setup for the rails that are too long to fit in between the spindles of the Unique. Like large paneled end rails.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Will Boulware
