Router Vs Shaper Raised Panel Doors

Advice on choosing and setting up a shaper for making raised panel doors in the shop.

Router vs shaper raised panel doors. If you plan on using 3 4 thick panel stock click here to purchase our specially designed 3 wing back cutter. If you have a kitchen of about 30 raised panels to do it might take you almost 350 passes and by hand. The biggest panel raiser you can run on a router is 3 1 2 diameter. The difference is the size of the profile on the panel.

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I have a couple questions i would like input from. As you may expect it is a bit more complicated when you look at it in depth but this conclusion was where charlie hung his hat. When making large doors the smaller profile provided by a router bit sometimes doesn t look to scale on the project. If you do a ton of raised panel doors and custom molding then the shaper is the clear deal.

You can run a 5 diameter cutter on a shaper. Almost nothing can feed your creative soul like woodworking. If you plan to make raised panel doors large exterior doors or wood furniture of any type shapers can. To produce both the cope and stick cuts simply re arrange the cutters of the reversible combination rail and stile cutter 1000 on the spindle or raise and lower the stacked rail and stile cutter 1007 and 1010.

This was with three progressive passes per surface end grain before side grain. Every panel had badly torn grain requiring between 45 minutes and 90 minutes of painstaking hand sanding to produce an acceptable surface suitable for finishing. 3 flute carbide tipped with a 3 4 bore. I can make the same cut on a shaper as i can on a router table the difference is that i can do a raised panel in one pass when it might take you 3 4.

The shaper is more sturdy and should have a better fence and will likely have more power and speed and flexibility. If you do work more typical of the average hobby guy then charlie opted for the router table and a good sized router. I do approximately 300 doors per year and am making the move from a router table setup. Our raised panel shaper cutters have been designed to work with stock from 5 8 to 3 4 thick.

I used my cutter ogee to make roughly seventy raised panels for my kitchen and two bathrooms. Both versions make an equally good cut with the ogee profile. To start viewing messages select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.