router bits on a shaper

[Mel Fulks]

Carbide generally needs a lot of speed and and generally needs more sanding without it. With the small 3" diameter door sets failure to run them at 10,000 rpm can produce a cope and stick that will not fit. Seen that at least three times,always preceded by "Mel, the sharpener ruined this set of cutters". 10,000 rpm is painfully slow for a carbide router bit, but in the case of an emergency match to produce part of a profile for a few feet can be worth it.

[Paul Biron]

Years ago I tested some common bits in the RT and shaper to compare. The only time the shaper was not as clean as the router table was on small bits, like 1/4" round overs, when using soft woods. The router was much cleaner.

The soft vs hardwood aspect of this discussion has been on my mind for a while, and have never seen it addressed. For those who have used router bits on their shaper, can you comment on whether you've had noticeably different results in soft and hardwood?

The hardest woods I work on a regular basis are doug fir and aspen. For those who have had "no problem" with router bits on their shaper, do you think I will get acceptable cuts in these softer woods?

[Susumu Mori]

I use router bits with my shaper often (saw-shaper combo) including 1/4 spiral bits.
As somebody already mentioned, the cut quality, especially for softwood (+ heavy cuts), may not be as good due to the low rpm (mine goes up to 10K).

I am a hobbyist and within the range of my limited operations, I use router bits with the shaper only when the shaper's tooling can't deliver the same operation. That is when wood/sheets need to pass over the cutters, like dados and grooves in the middle of wide materials. For narrow stocks, we can safely use a slot cutter with the stock in a vertical position against the fence. I'm not sure what other operations would require a router bit with a shaper. In these case, I don't need the best cutting quality because most of the cut surface would be hidden. A bit rough edge on the surface would disappear after sanding.

I am a router-hater and I would take a bit rough edge over the screamer. Shaper is so smooth, quiet, and stable. Also with all the heavy-duty guards, big and heavy foundation, and sliding table, I feel much safer.