Quote Originally Posted by Bob Johnson2
Dev
Out of curiosity what makes a shaper safer then the router table. I just made some doors and such that a friend cut on his shaper to save me from buying bits for the router. He did it in a couple passes and it did come out very nice, but the thing did look pretty scary, which is why I passed on doing it myself. Is it a speed thing?
I saw this question it another thread. I had the same question after reading other posts that were written after the Holiday accidents.

One thing that was left out of the other posts was, what role operator error played in the accidents. It did play a big part. Just like it did 21 years ago when my hand tangled with a tablesaw blade. My hand looked much like Shelley's. I just had a couple shorter fingers.
My first thoughts were not to blame the saw. My first thoughts were, what did I do wrong & how can prevent it from happening again. Shelley also took this aproach by redesigning the fence & making push blocks for the process she was doing. I applaud her for doing it only days after the accident. It took me much longer to just go back to the shop.

I also read statements that a router should never be mounted in a table.
If that is the case then why do companys that build routers aslo sell tables. Also some of the top name pin routers have hand held router motors mounted under there tables.

As for safety. From my experience, a router mounted in a table is less
dangerous than a shaper. I have done alot of work with both. If anything the shaper is more dangerous than a router in a table. The shapers have more power & the cutters are larger.

I have had a routers in tables & shapers for over 30 years. I would never want to be without ether one. But if I could have only one, I would choose a router table. I can do everything with a router table that I can do with a shaper. But there are things I can do with a router table that I can not do with a shaper.