Options for custom spindle profile

[Guineafowl21]

I’ve been asked to replicate this profile, which is a trim piece attached to the bottom of the fascia board, under the gutter. Quite a long run (quite a big house).

It seems to be ex. 62x50mm, and the profile depth is about 36mm. Too big for a B blank knife in one go. Profile design tooling have said it may need three knives at that size, or get a bigger cutter block and tilt the spindle (which I can’t do).

I do trust PDT’s judgement, but thought I’d ask on here before making a decision.

Also, which wood? The owner wants to use his own knotty wild-grown larch, but that doesn’t sound like a good idea. Cedar?

 

[Trevanion]

You can always tilt the wood with a saddle attached to the table which will reduce the amount of projection required, rather than having a tilting spindle.

I would personally prepare the timber first by ripping as much off on the saw so that the spindle moulder isn't working as hard to remove the material, then set up a saddle on the moulder at the correct angle to reduce the projection as much as possible. Then I would grind a couple of sets of cutters at that angle, one for the bottom half and another for the top half and produce it in two passes, if I felt comfortable with the projection then I may only grind one set of cutters and span them between two cutter blocks instead and do the cut in a single pass.



Of course, that involves cutter grinding and using older cutter blocks which not many people want to get into understandably.

 

[meccarroll]

You could make several passes on your spindle using smaller cutters from stock. This moulding looks like a series of similar curves and I think two or three cutters from a stock range might well produce a satisfactory match if you don't want to grind your own cutters to match.

Years ago before safety blocks were mandatory in industry we had a box of ground cutters and we would just find something near enough and tilt the cutter in the old type whitehill blocks to obtain the right profile and use as many cutter combinations and passes as necessary.

You are lucky that you have a piece of moulding to use as if you want you just cut the moulding on the same angle as the cutter is in the block and then draw around it on a blank and grind away to obtain your profile.

A picture below of how you might go about using different cutters to obtain the profile. The shaded areas are where material is left on while cutting to assist with holding the work in position on the moulder. NB: Not saying this is how you should do it but something to look over.

 

[MJ80]

From my experience I would refuse the larch. Tell them to get some proper timber, larch is awful for nice mouldings, it will cost you a lot of time.

 

[Mike Jordan]

Trevanion has it sorted, slice off the stock with an angled circular saw and present the piece at an angle. I think that two cutters will be needed with two passes to complete it
I’m not impressed with the idea that three cutters are required

 

[meccarroll]

I’m not impressed with the idea that three cutters are required

The OP has said that they may need to use three cutters for the profile as they do not have a block big enough to do the profile in one pass and wants suggestions.

Trevanion's suggestion would work very nicely if you have a block large enough to do the profile in one pass but the OP said they do not.

For either case the OP would have to use more than one cutter.

I think it could be possible to make the moulding with off the shelf cutters some of which the OP might already have.

I have a couple of 4" spindle moulder block so I could do the mould in one but I'd likely have to pay to have the cutters made which is more expense and time. Swings and roundabouts on this one but we never bothered about having to making up a mould from several cutters in the past so I don't see why it should be a problem here. You just have to plan your sequence in advance as with any wood machining.

 

[Guineafowl21]

Thanks for the suggestions and drawings. It looks like the angled saddle might be the best course. Thankfully, the power feed, with some fiddling, looks able to tilt enough to get a grip.

If I hold the profile tilted at about 30deg, the effective height is about 70mm, which I would have thought could easily be accommodated by two sets of 55mm high knives.

It also has the advantage of being able to complete that bottom bead, without having to do a further pass with the timber on its back.

So, in short: one pass on the table saw to debulk, two passes on the spindle moulder. (Then, hopefully, ‘pass’ it on to someone else for final sanding and painting, which I despise…)

 

[Guineafowl21]

^ to add to that, I’ve re-read Brigg Taylor’s (PDT) email - the 3-knife option was some sort of build system with the profile upright. He did offer the tilted version with 2 B knives, or one E knife.

I see even the E knives have a max projection of only 25mm, well under the 36mm of this sample. Seems very little to me, but then again, the spindle safety rules are ‘written in blood’.

 

[meccarroll]

^ to add to that, I’ve re-read Brigg Taylor’s (PDT) email - the 3-knife option was some sort of build system with the profile upright. He did offer the tilted version with 2 B knives, or one E knife.

I see even the E knives have a max projection of only 25mm, well under the 36mm of this sample. Seems very little to me, but then again, the spindle safety rules are ‘written in blood’.

I guess this is where a bigger block really comes into it's own and a tilting spindle could be useful too. I did have a tilting kitty spindle but never used it as it was too limited on height for tooling so let it go.

As this is now sorted do we get to see the work in progress?

 

[Guineafowl21]

I guess this is where a bigger block really comes into it's own and a tilting spindle could be useful too. I did have a tilting kitty spindle but never used it as it was too limited on height for tooling so let it go.

As this is now sorted do we get to see the work in progress?

Yes, but not sure when this’ll be started.

What wood does the original look like? I’ve hopefully put him off using larch, but now he wants to know what to use instead.

 

[Trevanion]

What wood does the original look like? I’ve hopefully put him off using larch, but now he wants to know what to use instead.

It's difficult to say from the photo, it doesn't look like your run-of-the-mill pine whatever it is.

I would personally go for Accoya for longevity, probably a little cheaper than Western Red Cedar as that's skyrocketed in price recently.

 

[Guineafowl21]

Is this any better? I haven’t the first clue, but I think I can see medullary rays, which I thought weren’t normally visible in softwoods.

Always wanted to try accoya.

 

[meccarroll]

I would just use joinery grade softwood, machine to profile, then make a dip and submerge the profile in Sovregen wood preservative for 30 minutes. I am 64 now and made joinery this way in my twenties that still survives in good order today.

Accoya will blunt your cutters and rot ordinary steel nails and screws...it is really just expensive treated softwood but having said that it is supposed to have a long life span so very worth while considering.

It's up to you what you choose but having witnessed the longevity Sovregen wood preservative gives to softwood I'm not convinced Accoya will really do any better.

 

[Trevanion]

Is this any better? I haven’t the first clue, but I think I can see medullary rays, which I thought weren’t normally visible in softwoods.

It's definitely a softwood but I'm not 100% certain which, the colour looks like Radiata Pine being that pale, but much slower grown than what you usually see.

Accoya will blunt your cutters

This is untrue (except for the fact that all timbers blunt cutters over time!), I've found cutters working in Accoya last far longer than in any other timber. You're not replacing planer knives anywhere near as often as you do in hardwoods such as Sapele or Iroko, and you're not having to clean pitch off your cutters all the time as it's not a sappy timber like regular Scots Pine joinery grade softwood. I find it moulds and machines exceptionally well, but it is dreadful to work by hand.

However, it's not all wonderful. After about a decade of working with it I have seen a lot of defects in the timber from massive bark inclusions inside the timber, honeycomb cracking from overzealous drying regimes, staggering amounts of tension when ripping boards in half, and most recently a rotten piece in a new batch of timber. Though with these problems, it still is one of the best joinery timbers particularly for extremely wet climates like coastal West Wales because it reacts very little to moisture and does not move with the seasons as typical timbers do, meaning your paint coating lasts for a much longer period because it's not expanding and contracting and cracking the paint layer.

 

[Guineafowl21]

I think this might be finally going ahead. Scroll up to post #12 for a pic of the profile I’m copying.


Here is the presentation - blank on a 30deg saddle, machining all in one go with a D blank knife in a 125x100 limiter block:



We’re hoping to get 50x75mm joinery grade softwood off the shelf. Hopefully that won’t need squaring up, so:

1. Rip to 50x62mm
2. 30deg rip to remove most of the waste.
3. Profile in one pass on the spindle. 4hp machine should cope with that. Power feed on slow.

Sound ok?

Not sure how much to charge. Hourly rate, say £40? The bloody big Whitehill block cost £200!

 

[Cabinetman]

Does your spindle tilt? Or I suppose you can put an angled bit of wood to act as a fence.

 

[Guineafowl21]

Does your spindle tilt? Or I suppose you can put an angled bit of wood to act as a fence.

Yes, that’s the plan. No tilt. Big old Cooksley spindle, sort of Wadkin EQ size/era.

 

[Jonathan]

I always charge my the meter on a big run.

If its a short run under 50 meters I would change for the block and knives and all the hours spent

On a long run something like your molding in tulip I would charge €38 + vat and with primer and one undercoat €43 + vat

If your not making your own knives and want to save time and money this company is good and give a quick turnaround https://cutterprofilers.co.uk/

 

[Guineafowl21]

I always charge my the meter on a big run.

If its a short run under 50 meters I would change for the block and knives and all the hours spent

On a long run something like your molding in tulip I would charge €38 + vat and with primer and one undercoat €43 + vat

If your not making your own knives and want to save time and money this company is good and give a quick turnaround https://cutterprofilers.co.uk/

Short run, probably under 50m, yes. My experience of small jobs on the metal lathe/mill is about 80% setup, 20% machining.

£40 maybe a bit steep, then. Call it £35?

I don’t mind buying the block, as I’d like to make some big cornicing with it anyway.

 

[Trevanion]

machining all in one go with a D blank knife in a 125x100 limiter block

That'll shift some air, very noisy! I've got one of these blocks but I've never used it, I've always opted for running serrated tooling spanning two 40mm cutter blocks.

£35-40 an hour sounds about right, a lot of people think that it sounds like a lot but when you consider that a planer moulder with an adequate dust extractor can pull £20 of electricity an hour on its own, it's really not enough for the level of skill and knowledge involved with the work.

 

[Guineafowl21]

£35-40 an hour sounds about right, a lot of people think that it sounds like a lot but when you consider that a planer moulder with an adequate dust extractor can pull £20 of electricity an hour on its own, it's really not enough for the level of skill and knowledge involved with the work.

Yes - 1hp dust extractor, 10hp rotary converter, 4hp spindle will add up to a lot of racket and a lot of power draw!

Thankfully, my electricity appears to be unmetered at the moment. Meter was flashing nonsense when I moved in. Informed the supplier, who replied with a bot-generated email expressing earnest concern for the situation. That was three months ago. I’ve been too busy to chase it up

 

[heimlaga]

I would use scots pine for that moulding. A saddle on the table and removing the bulk with tablesaw should do the trick.

 

[Ovaloe]

Pity it's a long run. It wouldn't be too difficult a task with a half set of hollows and rounds, a plough, a rebate and a pair of snipe bills

 

[Trevanion]

Pity it's a long run. It wouldn't be too difficult a task with a half set of hollows and rounds, a plough, a rebate and a pair of snipe bills

Manual labour? You must be joking.

 

[Ovaloe]

At times it's the only way to do it (think about spliced repairs in large section in-situ timber beams which need to have beaded edge finishes - a task I did last year at the top of a scaffolding tower). I have to admit, though, that when it gets beyond 3 or 4 lengths I tend to revo.mend sending the job back to the shop

 

[Guineafowl21]

Machines - yes, I’m afraid I moved over to the dark side a while ago. I admire the patience of the hand toolers.

£92 for a D blank set in the profile above. A bit steep, or not too bad?

 

[Ovaloe]

Doesn't seem too bad. Our workshop charges us £80 internally for grinding a pair of knives to run a job, more if the job is going on the spindle and requires limiters as opposed to through the 4-side moulder where none are required

 

[Guineafowl21]

Here they are. 80mm high. Knives (6mm) thicker than limiters (4mm) - not seen that before.

Not sure how that works with the wedge locking. Will have a play later.



Edit: Ah, that’s how it’s meant to be. Mounted in the big sod:




Useful tip I picked up: because there’s some clearance on the locating pins, it’s best to pull the knife outwards as you tighten the wedge. This locates the two knives more consistently. I’ve found it helps with profiles that have to match, eg T&G or scribe/profile.

 

[Jonathan]

Maybe it’s just me but when I start spinning a big head the noise make me a little nervous

 

[Ovaloe]

You should be happy we aren't still back in the days of using square cutterblocks. At least modern blocks rarely if ever shed cutters

 

[Guineafowl21]

Maybe it’s just me but when I start spinning a big head the noise make me a little nervous

A big whooshing noise, it is. Because it’s so heavy, I’ve been starting it in low-speed delta, then switching to high speed star.

You should be happy we aren't still back in the days of using square cutterblocks. At least modern blocks rarely if ever shed cutters

Yes, I’ve got the power feed set up (after a lot of faff), so should be fairly safe. The only dodgy bit is pushing the first piece in by hand, then back out, setting the depth of cut.

I’ve had a play with some scrap. Got the height wrong as I don’t have the original to copy yet, but ok for a practice run. Blank and finished piece:


One problem: If you look at the drawing in post #15, I’m machining off the bottom of the blank, so it hovers over the table at the outfeed end. It won’t be easy to fix a thin support piece in the gap. Is there a standard way to deal with it?

 

[Trevanion]

One problem: If you look at the drawing in post #15, I’m machining off the bottom of the blank, so it hovers over the table at the outfeed end. It won’t be easy to fix a thin support piece in the gap. Is there a standard way to deal with it?

Does your saddle/cradle support the underside? Quick sketch for visualisation, red is bed and fence obviously and blue is the shape of the saddle.

Maybe it’s just me but when I start spinning a big head the noise make me a little nervous

I'll admit that this setup I did a while ago unnerved me a little, it made everyone else vacate the area while I ran the moulding!



It was a very short run of moulding for this gable spire, which was about 6ft tall:

 

[Guineafowl21]

Does your saddle/cradle support the underside?

No, but I’ll have a play in a minute with that idea, cheers. The infeed side of the sadde will need that support chopped off, of course.

It looks like I could make a 90deg rebate in the existing saddle. Easiest machine for that would be the Wadkin RB planer, where you can pull the fence towards you and rebate over the near corner of the beds. The only problem with that is, the sides of the planer knives don’t have a cutting edge, so tend to chatter and burn as the rebate gets deeper.

Are you meant to put in a relieving saw cut before rebating like that?

 

[Trevanion]

No, but I’ll have a play in a minute with that idea, cheers. The infeed side of the sadde will need that support chopped off, of course.

My preference would be to leave both sides on and pack the outfeed with strips to make up the height difference, it would be hard to get this right when you cut off the front.

It looks like I could make a 90deg rebate in the existing saddle. Easiest machine for that would be the Wadkin RB planer, where you can pull the fence towards you and rebate over the near corner of the beds. The only problem with that is, the sides of the planer knives don’t have a cutting edge, so tend to chatter and burn as the rebate gets deeper.

Are you meant to put in a relieving saw cut before rebating like that?

It depends on the machine, my Multico planer actually has 14mm square scribing cutters on the edge of the block like you would have on a modern disposable tip rebate block or groover, I think the older ones also had serrated edge scribing cutters. On machines without the scribers you need to take the knives out and grind a small draught angle on the end of the knife of around 10-15 degrees, it also doesn't hurt to grind a slight undercut as well so that the end of the knife is ever so slightly out of square so only the very top of the knife is engaging. When you're rebating with a square end on the knife all of that end is in contact with the timber as it's cutting which is causing the friction and burning and likely breaking out of the rebate edge, by putting the draught angle on the end you're reducing the amount of contact to just the very tip of the knife.

If you take one of your cutters that you've just had from Whitehill you'll likely notice that the top and bottom of the cutter has a draught angle on just for this very purpose, so that when you're doing a deeper cut you don't end up burning the timber where the top and bottom of the cutter might rub and reducing the life of the cutter from the heat generated.

 

[Guineafowl21]

Right, talking of the patience of the hand toolers…

That was a frustrating 5 hours in the workshop, and I still haven’t got a piece to run through properly. My penance for selling the tilting spindle I had, I suppose.

It’s hard to describe, but every problem I solved caused another one.

- First cradle I made broke off as too thin. Second one I messed up. Third one is below.
- The knives then fouled the cradle, so had to feed it into the cutterblock to make clearance.
- (Drive belt started slipping.)
- The outfeed cradle then fouled the outfeed fence, so needed cutting back.
- It’s now extremely difficult to set the depth of cut, since the workpiece is now wedded to the saddle. I have to move the saddle, piece and fence as one, hoping they all stay square, then clamp the fence and saddle with one hand, all while the cutter is spinning. Being unsupported on top, I think it started moving upwards in the cut, since the cutter started smacking chunks out of the wood, one of which nearly hit me in the eye.
- At this point, I decided to take a break.
-

Here’s the saddle - a bit thin, but I haven’t got a thick enough piece to make a bigger one. Rather than packing out the outfeed cradle, I lowered the infeed one with a rebate plane.

Fresh start tomorrow. On the plus side, I have plenty of kindling.

 

[Jonathan]

Can you reverse your spindle?
Turn the blades the other way around and super glue a support on the outfeed

 

[Guineafowl21]

Can you reverse your spindle?
Turn the blades the other way around and super glue a support on the outfeed

Not officially, only by swapping two phases on the input. This might risk undoing the clamp nut, however.

This is one of those jobs that seems simple at first - can’t tilt spindle? Tilt workpiece! - but throws up a lot of unforeseen problems.

The powerfeed can’t tilt down far enough to get a proper grip, just the corners of the wheels, compounded by the extra friction of the saddle, compounded by the wedging action it creates.

Aside from the difficulty of swiping away both reference faces, the cutting circle is too big to allow any table insert rings, so the piece wants to dive down in there. A false table would help, but also hinder with even more friction.

I did get somewhere yesterday. The saddle is trigged up on 2mm metal sheet, which protrudes on the outfeed but not infeed, for supporting the underside. Extra support block screwed to the fence.


The best piece so far(!). Defect at the start is the powerfeed pushing the leading edge down, stopping it from passing onto the metal support. It does have a lead-in bevel. Defect in the middle - not sure. Defect at the end - piece being pushed into the table gap again.


I can tolerate the 80mm defect at the end of the moulding - just chop it off. I might just bias the powerfeed to the infeed side, as it’s causing a lot of problems, or just do away with it.

The other option might be a combined false fence and table, and break through. Still very tricky to set up.

 

[Ovaloe]

Not officially, only by swapping two phases on the input. This might risk undoing the clamp nut, however.

Add a second clamping nut - it acts as a locknut

The powerfeed can’t tilt down far enough to get a proper grip, just the corners of the wheels, compounded by the extra friction of the saddle, compounded by the wedging action it creates.

What is your saddle made from? For flats I used to prefer nice smooth MFC (available in 8mm for kitchen drawer bottoms as well as 15mm, 18mm, etc) with a thin smear of paste wax to help lubricate things. Same material can be used to make a false baseboard. Same goes for the auxiliary fences attached to the cast iron fence plate (i.e. lightly waxed then buffed up). You can still usevpine MDF, plywood, etc for the main structure, just not for the bed and fence surfaces

Failing MFC, then a fine grained hardwood such as beech, sycamore or maple, or even an appropriate plastic such as HDPE 1000 grade (UHMW plastic), phenolic (e.g. Tufnol, Whale, etc) or nylon 66 are all good. Softwood often doesn't work well - I believe the resins in it makes it "sticky"

If you have issues with belt slippage, rosin (as used by string instrument musicians for their bows) rubbed into the belt or modern belt treatment (anti-slip spray) can help. Works witb flat belts and V-belts

Not all spindles are honking great 7.5 or 10HP industrial models, so a possible approach to take if your spindle is of low power is to hog away a lot of the waste on the circular saw, on the spindle with a rebating block (preferably a replaceable carbide tip model) or even with a power planer before using the profile cutter.

In terms of feeding if your power feeder won't hack it you could always resort to using a top and side Shaw fence and (sacrificial) wooden push sticks. In the absence of Shaw guards it should be possible to make some featherboards from offcuts of beech, etc

Apologies if any if this has been mentioned before

 

[Guineafowl21]

I’d have to make a spindle nut - 7.5tpi Whit form x 30mm! Do-able though.

Saddle is some general softwood. Sanded smooth and waxed. But if you picture the piece being fed in, tilted, it’s resting on a bottom corner (bottom left in photo below). Set the powerfeed pressure too light, and it slips. Add more downward pressure, and that corner crushes, wedging the piece tight. Sometimes it actually moves the saddle back.

Yes, next screwfix visit I’ll pick up some belt slip spray. Big flat leather belt.

Spindle is 4hp so should be adequate. Blank is below, showing the 30deg rip that provides a decent face against the fence:



Upper left corner is unseen in the finished state. I wonder if I could rip a little 30deg chamfer on that, and run the powerfeed from the side, with simple hold-down springs on top?

 

[Guineafowl21]

Some success today, with Frankenstein’s fence and powerfeed running sideways on a small chamfer. Imagine the top left corner taken off in the pic above.

There’s slight dip in the moulding at the start, where the wheel pushes the piece into the fence gap, but I should be able to control that at the infeed side. Otherwise pretty good.