Woodmaster Molding Shaft

[clay carr]

does anyone using the woodmaster molding machine have trouble getting the molding shaft off ? i fight the thing everytime i want to change from knives to rip saw. also are there any custom setups for using the rip saw on wood that varies in width (featherboards, etc) that you can share with me?

[James Suzda]

does anyone using the woodmaster molding machine have trouble getting the molding shaft off ? i fight the thing everytime i want to change from knives to rip saw. also are there any custom setups for using the rip saw on wood that varies in width (featherboards, etc) that you can share with me?

Yes, I also have troubles getting the shaft out of the pillow blocks. One thing I noticed right away when you tighten the set screws on the pulley they leave a small rough spot on the shaft. Make sure you don't have a little burr there that could be hanging up.
I've already taken some fine emery cloth and "polished" the end of the shaft and sprayed some WD40 on the shaft before trying to pull it out. I've also resorted to tapping the shaft with a rubber hammer to aid in it's removal.
As for using the gang saw what I do is first set up the one blade so it just cuts about a half a nerf along the edge of the stock lumber. Then I adjust the other blade so it is exactly the right distance between the edges of the teeth on the two blades.
I then straight line rip the one side of the stock lumber so I have a straight and true edge to hold and feed against one of the guides. Start up the saw and feed the lumber in while holding the board against the guide. The Woodmaster will NOT pull the wood in straight and true against the guide. I suppose you could set up feather boards for each cut, but I figured that would take too much time when it is just as easy to hold and feed the board against the guide. BTW, I always use the right guide when I rip. Just because it's easier for me with my setup.
If this is too confusing, send me a PM.

[Joe Vee]

Clay,

I too have a difficult time removing or inserting the accessory shaft. Everything has to be lined up perfectly. Woodmaster must have tight tolerances when building these machine. As James stated, I coat the shaft with WD40 and have used a rubber hammer to get the shaft to move on occasion. Have you made any molding? These machines are molding animals !!! I have made casing, base and picture frame molding.

What is the advantage to using a Gang saw as apposed to a table saw ? Unless you are doing a large number of boards the same width. (Just curious) I haven't used the Gang saw yet, just my tablesaw.

Joe

[James Suzda]

Clay,

What is the advantage to using a Gang saw as apposed to a table saw ? Unless you are doing a large number of boards the same width. (Just curious) I haven't used the Gang saw yet, just my tablesaw.

Joe

That is the whole reason to have the gang saw. You can rip long pieces of lumber into strips with little effort. Just try to fight with a piece of red oak that is 16 foot long and 3/4" thick and rip it into exactly the same width strips on a table saw. Now try doing that to make about 1500 lineal feet of 4 1/2 inch baseboard, then rip the same amount of 1 3/8 strips for the top cap!
BTW, I read of a user who ordered a special Woodmaster that spun 10 gang saw blades at once!

On the same token I've not used my drum sander yet! I've got a 16/32 so I never saw a need to use the Woodmaster one.

[Bob Wingard]

If you remove your accessory shaft, you will see pretty clearly the location of the dings left by the setscrews. Take it to a machinist, or use a coarse file to make a shallow groove completely around the shaft on both ends where this pattern exists. Now, the dings will still occur, but they will be located in this shallow recess and not affect inserting/removing the shaft. I fought with mine for 10 years before figuring this one out !! !! !!

[Roger Ronas]

If your using a bed board on your gang rip setup try this.
If using the right side guides, cock the bed so that outfeed side is a little to the left. As the maching sucks the boards in it will keep them tight to the guide.

HTH
RCR

[David Freed]

I might be the guy that James is talking about using several blades on a Woodmaster. I did order 10 blades with the saw, but I am not currently using all 10 at the same time, although I do have enough power to do it. With the recent modification described below I am running up to 8 blades at a time. Here is a link to a website that describes my setup. My first post is about halfway down the page.

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/i...,26055.20.html


One thing I have added recently is that I now have 3 more blades ganged together with the straightedge blade, using long screws on one set of collars and thin spacers between the blades, so that any scrap pieces are ground into sawdust and sent to the cyclone. No more having to clean up scraps after making a lot of blanks for the moulder.

[clay carr]

i have cut alot of moldings (base, trim, crown, etc.). it is the best tool i have ever used. i like to use the rip saw for the safety and consistency of the stock it cuts. i love the rollers, no more fighting the stock to keep it straight. i would like to develope a practical way to "feather board" rough lumber when using the rip saw, i think it could be a money maker. i went to the link that was provided (10 gang saw). that is impressive.

i need to file my ends of the shaft. i hate banging on that shaft to get it in/out.

thanks for all the replies!

[clay carr]

what is the closest (min. width on cut stock) you can rip with your 10 saw setup?

[Josiah Bartlett]

This doesn't help with removal, but if assembly is difficult then put the shaft in the freezer for a couple of hours before you slide it in. It should shrink enough to be easier. I use this trick for automotive wheel bearings a lot.

[David Freed]

I have not needed to cut really thin pieces, but by using one set of collars, long screws, and my homemade shims between the blades, the only limitations to how thin you could cut pieces would be the strength of the wood being able to hold itself straight. The slightest wobble of a very thin strip would throw it into one of the blades on the output side and destroy it.

Reading what Josiah wrote about freezing the shaft brought to mind what a friend of mine uses in his tv repair shop. He buys some type of aerosol cans that when sprayed onto something, makes it very cold. In his tv shop he sprays it on electronic parts to track down faulty ones. If you spray it on your skin it is so cold it hurts. There is a lot of mass in the shaft, but its possible if you sprayed it on the shaft for several seconds it might shrink it slightly. Just a thought.

[clay carr]

can you send me a photo of you saw set up so i can understand completely what you mean?

[James Suzda]

After reading the different posts here on how hard it is to remove the shaft made me think are "we" trying to remove the shaft right after using the machine? Could we be heating up the shaft, expanding it, and thus making it hard to pull through the pillow blocks?
Is there anyone having trouble pulling the shaft when the machine is cold?
Maybe we all have to take a long break before changing the shaft to let things cool down.

[clay carr]

i only remove the shaft after it is "cold". today i took the shaft (after i beat the hell out of it to get it out) to a machinist. had him take a 1/32" of the ends (3" on one side and 2" on the other). it made all the difference i can get the shaft on by hand now...i would recommend this for everyone.

[Matthew Bookamer]

Just a little note: when I wrote this post, I didn't have a properly loaded page, and it appeared that my post was the only reply. Sorry for any redundancies!

I have a used 718 and I also have trouble with the shaft sticking from time to time. I just try to remember to wipe on some 3 in 1 oil when changing the setup.

As far as set up for ripping random width boards, I think that I can help you.

Over on Woodweb, a guy named David Freed mentioned a while ago that he SLR 's on his machine, and I emailed him for details. Since then he has posted some pics of his set up on other posts.

I came up with my own set up to SLR and gang at the same time. It's more than a little annoying to set up when you are changing from function to function, but if you are running a large pile, it is worth it.

Basically, I made a jointer style adjustable fence. I ran a piece of melamine through with one blade in the arbor set to cut at about 3/8 of an inch depth.

This piece I bolted to the machine with about 18" sticking to the outfeed side. At the out feed side of the blade, I inserted a piece of aluminum bar that acted both as a splitter, and as the outfeed table on a jointer. The rest of the sheet sticks out the infeed side with the saw kerf showing you where the cut line will be. I made an adjustable fence out of 1/2" ply. A 1.5" strip was the contact face that was attached to a wider back strip with many 1.5" wide pieces parollelogram style.

I use a deep reach vice grip clamp to lock the fence to the desired depth. You can set a board on the table and judge by the sawkerf line, whether or not you are cutting enough off. I usually do not change the fence often. If I come to a board that has a very different off cut need, I will set it aside and sort piles that way and cut some at 1/2" off cut, some at 1", etc.

Now that I've given away the basis for my SLR jig set up, I will answer your specific question about feeding various widths of boards.

David Freed uses two power feeders to keep his boards tight to the fence. That is what he had on hand, so that is what he used. In the same spirit, I had a pair of guides on hand and that is what I used. I don't remember what they are called, but they are --- OK, just checked out woodcraft.com - Anti-Kickback Safety Rollers are what they are called. Costs about $45. I mounted one near the infeed side of the machine and one near the outfeed side. This kept the boards tight to my fence and allowed me to constantly keep a board in the machine while I handled the stacks of boards.

The pain in set up comes when you are trying to get the first straight board out of the machine. This is not for the faint of heart and takes some patience as well as a firm grasp on the concept of a jointer cut. You must tweak the location of the table itself (rotational twist) as well as fine tune the blade alignment to the aluminum bar. It's like when you set up your table saw miter gauge or jointer - in the end, it doesn't matter what your micrometer says - make a test cut and adjust accordingly.

If you are not interested in SLR then you could just make a melamine bed board with the safety rollers attached to the fence to keep it ripping straight.

I hope that you found a nugget of useful information here.

If you want a pic of my jig, just say so here, and I will post it later.

Good Luck!