Shaper trouble shooting

Jeff Horton

Member
Messages
4,272
Location
The Heart of Dixie
I consider myself fairly good, albeit a bit slow at trouble shooting. I had one today that was driving me nuts. Took me at least an hour of this :huh: :huh: to find.

Set up the shaper to cut some frame and panel doors. Set up the slip knife cutter for the groove first. I ran a couple of stiles and I noticed that when the board would leave the right half of the fence it would drop leaving a low spot.

I assumed the fences were not in line. Put the board up against the fence and sure enough it wasn't. But the odd thing was I couldn't align them. One was at angle to the other one. Well this made no sense! Took the fence apart assuming a wood chip lodged somewhere. That wasn't it so I planed the fence boards to make sure they were straight. Still nothing.

After a lot of wasted time I discovered my board was not straight. OK must be the jointer then. Ran a board on it and it was straight. :huh: Checked the others I had just milled they are good.

Finally I found it. I put the shaper fence back together and ran another board through and I noticed the shaper blade was not just cutting the tongue, but it was also taking a very small cut on the edge of the board. While is probably hard to picture, the results are similar to when a joiner outfeed table is set to high.

I was using slip knives and one side was out further than the other. Somehow I messed up when I installed the blades. When I fed the previously cut stile through with the shaper shut off I happened to be on the good blade so it didn't show up.

:bang: An hour or more lost because of something so simple!

Jeff
 
Top