Thanks David B. Your documentation (accessed from your Flickr link) is far more thorough than mine! Thanks for sharing.

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I thought I would chime in with some photos of a KF700 shaper hood with 220mm diameter tooling installed for comparison. ?I pulled these photos out of the archive and they relate to the KF700 and F700. ?The first image below is right out of the Survival Guide, and it illustrates the point that the Felder 220mm rebate head, which has a total thickness of 30mm, will NOT fully lower into the shaper cavity. ?To clear the obstructions below the cutter, it must sit proud of the cast iron top by 3mm.

Hi Jacques:

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No worries. I was replying to Steve’s original query about the 228mm dado and feasibility of using it in a shaper. Apologies if I mixed up my reply with your post about the tenoning hood. Indeed, that is a different scenario, although the below-table constraints remain – but you’re across those. Cheers.

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David,

Thanks for the info. Your pictures describe well the possibilities and limitations associated with large cutter heads.

Maybe my earlier message was not clear; I made reference to the use of the tenoning hood, which allows for a larger tool than the ? main fence ?. The operations will, however, be different than what can be done with the main fence.?

I have attached a screen capture of the item I was talking about.

I hope this helps clear any confusion.

Jacques

Hi Steve:

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I think you’re asking the right questions on your quest to educate yourself and make purchase decision that suit you. The published capacities sometimes do not equate to the real world. The following pictures will illustrate (hopefully).

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These pictures are taken of my Profil 45Z, x-motion shaper, new in 2017.

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Here is a picture of the Felder rebate cutter, 220mm diameter, with the Aigner Integral fence to full open position, and one table insert (the largest) in place:

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Same setup as the previous picture, but this time I’ve zoomed in on the righthand side (both sides are the same) so you can see more clearly the impediments for below-table lowering of a cutter of this size. There’s a cast ledge there, plus some sheet metal that supports the below-table dust extraction.

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I’ve now zoomed in much closer, so you can see (hopefully) just how much space there is to bury a big cutter below-table. Here, my ruler is sitting on top of one of the cap screws securing the sheet metal. There is parallax error here, but the capacity is approx. 35mm below table, assuming the cutter is actually big enough to fly over the top of the cap screw:

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This is an almost identical photo, but now my ruler is resting on the sheet metal, showing approx. 40mm of capacity below table. This is the maximum capacity for burying a large cutter below-table on a Profil 45. I can’t remember how small the cutter has to be before it misses the sheet metal. I didn’t want to remove my cutter to find out. Maybe someone else can chime in? That said, your interest is in the dado cutter, which at 228mm, is bigger than the cutter pictured.

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The theoretical 250mm capacity alluded to in a previous post does not translate to the real world, at least not to my machine which has the Aigner Integral Fence fitted. You can see that the max opening is about 235mm. I say “about” because the fence plates are calibrated and supported on cap screws that sit behind the fences. I could probably eek this out to 240mm, but then the fence is only supported partially on a cap screw. In my opinion, 235mm is a safe, working maximum.

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Lastly, here’s a picture of the fence opening itself. My picture shows a width of 260mm but there are screws on either side (one head is visible on the lefthand side, and in photos above) which reduce the usable opening to around 250mm. There you go – that’s the published capacity. Thus, in practical terms you could mount a 250mm cutter in this shaper, and then the fence plates would be the limiting factor when moving the fence back. I do not have a cutter of this size so I cannot illustrate.

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All said and done, it is possible to mount the dado set, at 228mm diameter, and move the fence into any position you want. And it is possible to bury the entire cutter, at full width, below table. But it is not possible to tilt said cutter. A smaller groover would be required for tilted applications.

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I hope this helps.

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Thank you, Imran. The reason I ask is because I own the Felder dado set, and I'm in the market for a shaper. It's helpful if I can limit the amount of tooling costs up front until I figure out my work flow. As Lucky pointed out there may be limitations within the table opening and hood with the larger diameter dado set. I don't use tenons in my work, but some of it uses shaker panels; I've typically cut the slots on the router table which leaves a lot to be desired in terms of workability. My gut says it's sort of insane to use a dado set on the shaper for slotting, but who knows.

I'm considering the F700Z and F900Z, but both have max tooling diameter listed as 230mm, and the dado set is 228mm. I would assume the table and hood have ample clearance around a tool that is 230mm, rather than measuring actually 230mm inside, as 1mm clearance on each side does not seem safe. The Profil 45 has max tooling listed as 250mm so it doesn't seem that it would ever be an issue.?

Thank you,
Steve