Tools for Making Moldings
When I first bought this molder/planer the idea of making moldings seemed interesting. I had no idea how to get started. But like many skills we have learned we simply needed a little push. When I was asked to make moldings for a local restoration project I simply said ‘yes’ figuring I would just have to learn.
Custom Cutters
It was actually not difficult to get the custom cutters made and to create the moldings. To get the correct cutters for various shapes I traced the ends of the desired molding on a piece of white paper. Then I added measurements and dimensions. My wife makes the drawings into a computer file I can forward to the moldings knife maker. We pay by debit card. The custom knives show up in the mail about ten days later. Custom moldings, voila!
Learning the Quirks of New Tools
If you are thinking about making custom, architectural, moldings there are a number of things you need to figure out, or at least try to figure out. One thing I discovered with my first order is that with these planer/molders in the planer mode the cutter head has three blades. In the molder mode you normally have only one cutter with two counter balances to make the cutter head run smoothly. The point of all this is to note that you will have to feed the materials through the machine at about 1/3 speed to get good surfaces on your wood moldings. If you want to run materials through the machine at full speed then you need to buy three matched blades for that particular molding. For small runs the cost of buying three matched blades is prohibitive.