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Moulder heads

3/16/22       
Chris

When running a single knife finish machine is there ever any benefit to having more than a 2 knife cutterhead? My initial thought would be that there would be no benefit as there is still only one knife doing the finish cut regardless of # of knives in the head. Any feedback is appreciated

3/17/22       #2: Moulder heads ...
Russ

Hello Chris
There are advantages to having more than two pockets on a cutter head for a single knife finish moulder. There are also disadvantages.

1 - Duel angle cutter heads = Two pockets at 12 degrees and the other two pockets at 20 degrees. Below is an article to help you better understand the differences and when you might use them. The empty pockets must be filled with filler stock.
2 - Poor dust collection = the extra pockets would allow you to insert two more knives to help shovel the wood chips while milling.
3 - Disadvantages = Double your tooling cost.

Hope that helps
all the best
Russ @ MR

https://www.mr-moulding-knives.com/information/moulding-knife-marks

3/17/22       #3: Moulder heads ...
Chris

Thanks Russ, I was hoping you’d chime in.

Unrelated to this topic, and likely discussed on here before.. but I’m curious on your opinion is on the Weinig unimat vs Profimat for an entry level machine. They seem to have a lot of similarities.

3/17/22       #4: Moulder heads ...
Russ

Profimat = entry level
Unimat = medium production level
Hydromat = heavy production.
All the numbers have changed over the years, you might want to call Weinig to get the latest numbering system.

Cheers
Russ

3/17/22       #5: Moulder heads ...
Troy

35 year Millwork veteran running everything from Diehl push feeds (square heads) to jointed Weinig’s. Like a lot of things the answer for me is “‘it depends”. Example, running rabbits, corner guards, T&G, things of that nature I’ve found 3 or 4 knives (or more) is essential to avoid tear out. Running a basic stock casing a lot of times I’ll sharpen all 4, pull 2 out and save for next time and run two. Many custom “one off’s” I’ll only make and run two knives. Of course running jointed is a different animal. They tell you about 3-5000’ is break even for set up time. Personally I don’t even consider doing it unless I got more than 10k to run. As far as Weinig’s I’m a fan of the Hydromat series. Big thing to consider is your max cutting circles and the depths of cut. I think the chip breakers and shoes offer way better control of the workpiece. Also the single post feed beam on the smaller machines drove me nuts. Powermats offer many of the same things as the hydromats as far as machine construction but the tooling is a different approach. Great machines but believe many operators don’t use them the way they were meant to run and torch the knives early. And also related to tool life and too often overlooked is dust collection. Moulders make shavings, lots and lots of shavings. If you can’t clear the chips and the tooling starts to re-cut chips due to poor dust collection that’s an expensive problem to chase. Maybe something here helped your quest.

3/18/22       #6: Moulder heads ...
Chris

Thanks for the info Troy. If you add a third knife to help with tear out on the profiles you mentioned do you adjust your feed rate also? If not does that affect your tool life as chipload would be different?

3/18/22       #7: Moulder heads ...
Troy

Nope, 30-38ish FPM unless jointed. Your biggest enemy to tool life is heat, rocks and staples suck too, but heat can be avoided If your not continuously feeding material and you got a lot of start/stop tracks that heat will greatly reduce the life expectancy.

3/23/22       #8: Moulder heads ...
Jason

Chris, Just wanted to add to your question about “entry level” Weinigs. Our shop has a Kentwood 6-12 HD I use for our flooring orders but a huge part of our business is smaller mouldings where we use the smaller Weinigs.
Over the years I’ve run a Profimat 23, 26, Unimat 500 and now a Powermat 700 eagle. All machines share a similar footprint for this size is perfect for what we make but you can have them custom built. This 700 we added higher hp motors, increased spindle from 6000 rpm to 7000 and had the bed plates coated with what Weinig calls a “Marathon” coating. So just know you can do a lot with these moulders. Some of our smaller mouldings are far from small and no problems. Hope this helps!


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