PTWFE Chapter 5 - Table Saw Moulding

perryobear · Post by **perryobear** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:10 pm

Hi Guys,

Well its the end of another week, and I finished my auxiliary molder fence that I spoke of earlier.

I was concerned with thickness, so I started with 3/4" plywood and padded it with 2 sections of 1/2" MDF with a T-track sandwiched in between. The bottom section of MDF is held in place with nylon screws, so there are no metal parts in the MDF portion of the fence below the T-track.
All the screws are positioned such that the fence is reversible. If needed on the right side of the rip fence, I turn the aux fence end-for-end (to keep the T-track available) and since the spindle centerline is set back from the front of the table, I elongated the 1/2" relief cut in the plywood (1st photo) so that it would be available on either side of the rip fence. Both sides of the mounting holes in the lower MDF are countersunk so that I can reverse the section to keep the coped area in the MDF located over the cutter. I can also replace this MDF section when it gets beat-up or to use the fence with my dado blade. The last photo shows the fence set up and ready for action.

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Making the coped area in the MDF was my first use of the molder since my "one pass" at the Traveling Academy session. I confirmed a couple of things on my first solo molding attempt:

The stop ring on the table is indeed a real good idea.

A written molder specific SOP is (for me at least) is a real good idea. There is a lot going on here, and I will not be doing this setup every week so I am not going to trust it all to my memory.

The initial alignment of the molder is a bit tricky; the rubber carriage stop ring is NOT a good starting point - the end of the arbor shaft will hit the tie bar shield as you lower the table if you start there, and finally there is not much clearance between the sides of the molder blades and the molder insert.

There is a bit more vibration molding than I am used to when sawing. Don't leave anything laying around on an unused extension table or maybe on a mounted SPT - it will be on the shop floor in short order, and make sure you tighten everything in your final 5 point check.

I got a lot out of this PTWFE chapter. Well its on to Chapter 6.

Best Regards to all,

Dennis

reible · Post by **reible** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:57 pm

Boy this week went by fast! I haven't had time to do much posting of late but I did want to mention a couple of other items.

One, the stop collar or adjustable stop collar are not required but from the added safety aspect this is really a good idea. I'm sure that almost all of us have a stop collar... they came with the tail stock on modern machines and are called "tube collars". I have a couple extras I got sometime ago and they also work great on extension tables too. If you have a set up and need to pull it apart you can set the depth with these then do the take down and then when you want to return to the previous set up the table heights are already set for you.

Two, while not cover in this addition of the book you can also use "V" blocks and then edge circles. This is in the edition I got with my shopsmith and also the revised edition (1984). It may be in other additions as well???

Three, for a fence I have opted for a piece of 2x4. I clean up all 4 sides so it is actually a bit smaller but still in that ball park. By shifting positions and sides and up and down you can get lots of uses before it ready for other uses.

Four, it is really nice to be able to cut several profiles along the width of the board then come back and cut them out in to smaller moldings.

Five, it is really hard to keep the wood down on the table when cutting, the feather boards have to be tight to the wood. Even then sometimes it is not enough... or you get it so tight that you can hardly move the wood. Things like the safety push blocks or Grr-Ripper sometimes work even better then the feather boards and are a must when getting to cuts in the middle of wider boards.

Six, cutting end grain, depending on the wood this can be one of the hardest cuts to make. Backer boards or any other way you can think of to keep tear-outs to a minimum... good luck with those operations... I say do a few practice runs on some scrap before committing your parts to the operation.

Seven, knots... beware of loose knots or for that matter any knot, these cutters can sure send one flying. (not that this has ever happen to me, but I've heard....)

Well maybe that is enough for now any way.

Ed