Shopfox/W&H molder users - feedback requested

[Mark Bolton]

I will give you our input based on perhaps 10 years with an original W&H, no VS.

#1 you will not save a penney on stock produced moldings. Your time manufacturing and and producing suitable blanks for the molder will cost you far and away more than any crown molding you can buy off the shelf and you will not have even run it through the molder. Where they shine is with short, small, expensive, runs of custom profiles that are simply too small to require re-tooling a large molder, yet are in demand enough to afford the cost of a short run. If you are in any way contemplating running a profile on a W&H that you can buy from a local lumberyard or home center, in a species they offer, your are going to lose your shirt on price.

#2 be prepared to handle VOLUMES of chips. I am not talking about a DC that feeds into a 55 gallon drum or trash can. If you are talking about producing several thousand feet of molding (and average home with base, case, shoe, crown, and so on is going to be in the several thousand feet range) you are going to be talking about trailer loads of chips between planing and sizing blanks, ripping to width, face molding and back relief. You will be drowning in chips.

#3 be prepared for a LOT of waste. As stated your going to deal with a lot of snipe. Even with endless board feeding your going to have pieces that are going to lift on infeed and outfeed which is going to roast 5-6" of the ends of every board. Leo has the best solution ever to clamp a block of solid material under the unsupported end. It will reduce chatter dramatically. Then you will have endless amounts of tearout through a run. And mind you tool steel is literally going to run 2K ft and you will need to resharpen.

#4 be prepared to run every piece (other than back relief) twice. One hogging pass, and another skim pas at 1/32" or so to give you the cleanest end result.

#5 be prepared to have to sand every single piece that comes off the molder unless you have th VS and run at painfully slow feed rates. We have never gotten material off the molder that didnt need sanding. Invest in a sanding mop and install it right behind your molder and run every piece through the mop.

#6 Again, be prepared to spend more time than you can ever imagine preparing the blanks before you ever run the first piece of molding.

#7 Again, If your molding profile is available ANYWHERE commercially, DONT run your own. You will never, ever, ever, be cheaper than a huge molder no matter how many feet you save milling "what you need". Molding is cheap. 50' of waste at 1.50 a foot is peanuts compared to what it takes to plane, straightline, rip to width, mold, and back relieve, that 50 ' of molding. Odd profile, sure, odd species, sure,.. but if your profile and species are available off the shelf youll never come close. If you find it fun, thats great, but it will not be a cost savings even though youll own the molder when your done (my guess is you'll likely want to strap a few sticks of dynamite around it when your done and have a fireworks show).

We run our W&H almost daily if not weekly. But we never ever run any profile that is available commercially. We just cant do it.

[Victor Robinson]

I will give you our input based on perhaps 10 years with an original W&H, no VS.

Thanks Mark, I appreciate the feedback. Definitely some things to consider. I will definitely invite you if I end up having that fireworks show.

[Mark Bolton]

Well call me before the fireworks. We may buy the molder off you. We do a lot of short runs and our W&H has been profitable. But when your talking about a house full of trim,.. unless its all completely unique profile, all completely unique species, and a high dollar job, it just doesnt add up.

If your talking about running any sort of standard profiles or species your out of the class of a woodmaster and into the class of a Logosol PH260 or 360 on the extreme low end, and you'd still better be able to handle massive loads of chips.