I have a job coming up to make a bit of T&G cedar siding. Plan to use my shaper.
I was wondering about setting up for climb cutting to reduce tearout? I've done it with routers but not with the shaper.
Thoughts?
Thanks!

Do Not attempt it without a power feeder

I should have mentioned I do have a power feeder.

If your using fairly standard, reasonable diameter 2z or 4z tooling I would agree that climb cutting can save you a good bit of waste especially as your tooling wears a bit or if your material is at all sketchy. We do the same as our runs are typically moderate volume and blowing the edge off a few pieces is never favorable.

The worst thing about it is the chip collection is horrible when climb cutting. I made a dust boot with a notch cut in it on an adjustable height stand and run a 4" to it on the outboard side to try to catch as much as possible. I typically throttle the DC on the factory hood and push more of the DC to the boot because the factory hood does pretty much nothing when running climb.

Had the same issue with Vertical Grain Fir. Did the climb cut and had no issues. Used the power feeder of course. I was surprised by how little fuzz was generated on the profiles. I know when I do climb cutting with a router you need to make a second pass the normal way to eliminate the fuzz.

In my experience tooling runs hotter and wears faster when climb cutting. The chips spend more time in the profile and ust collection as mentioned is poor. I run tons of vertical grain cedar conventionally. I get very few reject cuts. I step the infeed fence so I can run a second pass to clean up light tear-out if necessary.

Another option may be a zero-clearance fence. You can make one with a piece of 1/4 MDF, cutting into it with the shaper (clamp one side to the fence first.) Then this should eliminate a fair amount of tearout and you can still run conventional. The only downside is you can't split the fences and "Joint" the edge.

Early on with dedicated delta type shapers we did a lot of climb cutting. As mentioned tooling life reduced, poor dust collection and safety are concerns. I’ve found with better tooling, solid machines and removing the whole edge mostly eliminate the need.
Attached are photos of zero fences made to remove 1mm from the edge. I use them to close the fence opening when running large diameter heads or short parts. Not necessarily to back up the cut. Removing the entire edge eliminates the need for backup.

View higher quality, full size image (1280 X 960)

View higher quality, full size image (1280 X 960)

View higher quality, full size image (1280 X 960)

Everyone has their preferred methods and setup. I agree with what Joe mentioned that with good tooling and equipment you shouldn’t need to climb cut. I almost never do it anymore,, the exception is if you have some very poor material like mentioned, sometimes I will make a couple passes and other times just play with the feed speeds on the power feed as I use it all the time on a shaper.

There is one time when I do climb cut as a rule and that is when I'm using a back fence set-up. By climb cutting the work is driven towards the fence while conventional cutting is pulling away. Back fence work for me is never deep cuts.

I agree with Joe. If you set up a good machine properly with sharp cutters, that take a full cut(1/16") then climb cutting is generally not required. You tend to start thinking about it as an option when you have substantial tear out with vertical grain fir, redwood, and maybe cedar

Please be safe when making test cuts while climb cutting. One of my very good friends at the shop I was trained lost his hand and part of his arm climb cutting some of that type of wood on a shaper. He wasn't trained in climb cutting and made a bad choice. I will not go into the details. Be safe.