Evening everyone…..
I thought that I was finally turning a corner and getting back into the groove in the shop. Which was fairly accurate until this morning.
I was in the shop fairly early once again, hoping to get into the zone. On Sunday I had cut all the pieces to the doors and drawer fronts, sanded them all in preparation for me to profile them through my shaper.
If you don’t know what a shaper is, here’s a quick explanation. A shaper is basically a large motored machine typically 3 HP or larger. Mine is a 5 HP motor. The motor has a spindle on it that the interchangeable blades get mounted to. Which acts like a huge tabled version of a router. It can handle much larger bits and profiles than a router could ever handle. They have a fairly large cast iron table and can handle high production.
Nearly every shaper bit that I own was made to my specific profile designs. I was thought this by a very talented and seasoned craftsman in my early years. This bits are very expensive, each bit has three or four cutter heads which must 100% match each other perfectly. Each bit cost me $600 or more when they were made. The last ones I had made cost over $800 now.
But here is the reason for the investment. My doors, drawer fronts and molding made with these personally designed bits can’t be duplicated. So if anyone ever wants to match what they have in their house from my work, they must call me to do it. That’s one of the main reasons. But the profiles that I carefully chosen and designed take different elements and profiles from several classic designs.
So now onto the disaster that happened to me today.
I had run all of the inset panels for the doors and drawer fronts first with two different bits, which took several hours. I then set up the bit for the door styles, and ran my test cuts. Everything was going perfectly until it wasn’t……..
Only a quarter of the way through all of the door styles, when I heard a weird noise. I stopped the machine immediately. I disconnected the power, took the protective cover off, the material hold down off and did a visual inspection of the blade. Nothing looked wrong from what I could see.
I plugged the machine back in, turned it back on and listened. It was humming perfectly. So I realigned the hold down, put the protective cover back on and started production again.
In the third piece, the piece I was running through flew sideways across my shop and a very loud metal bang shook the shop. I immediately unplugged the machine, then went to see what happened to the piece I was running.
It was completely destroyed and mangled. Like it was put through a garbage disposal. I then went to back to the machine and saw that one of the profile blades was stuck into the protective shield of my shaper.
Thankfully I use the protective shield or that blade had a good chance of hitting me somewhere. Obviously I don’t know exactly where but considering how I stand over the machine while using it, most likely my head, neck or right shoulder. Not good!!!!
But even though my body was spared which is absolutely the best result. I’m screwed!!!!! Because I’m at a complete halt.
I removed the cutter head from the shaper. I had to pry the blade profile that was stuck in protective shield out. Then I drove to the only machine shop that I know of left in business in New Jersey that does this kinds of work.
After driving to Edison, which is over an hour away from me. The owner was unavailable and I waited nearly two hours to see him. After meeting with him and him design engineer the blade was not fixable.
But……
It could be made again from scratch. The original cutterhead got deformed when the blade got caught making the cutterhead now have a wobble. The engineer determined this in front of me with a micrometer.
Now the bad news!!!!!
There shop is backed up, the solid carbide that the profile blades are made of take days to be made and tempered.
The owner understood what a bind I was in and offered a sort of solution. He could ask one of his machinists to work an additional day if they agreed at a up charge. I was basically at their mercy, and asked the price.
If you are not sitting down, now is good time to take a seat. Because the new cutterhead is costing me $2,200. Yep that’s more than double the standard price. But I was guaranteed to have the new cutterhead by Friday morning.
This has now taken me completely out of the zone I was building on.
Here’s some shiny for the read…
