Thread: I felt like a complete Idiot

I have been playing with my spindle moulder all afternoon, specifically practising cope and stick joints. All the information I could get related to doing the cuts with a router bit and everyone (Carbi-Tool, CMT and Leitz) all talked about raising the work piece a specific amount when the end grain cut was to be made, this worked for me when I used the router to do the raised panel drawers on the kitchen hutch, it just takes a little time to stuff around to work out how thick the shimming should be.

So thinking that the spindle moulder is just a big router I thought it reasonable that the same thinking would apply so I spent all afternoon making test cuts with different thickness shimming until I had a cut that aligned perfectly. Great I thought all I have to do now is make a permanent shim as up until now I had been using sand paper; I was just about to put the sled on the thicknesser when the light went on. I have a sliding table on the spindle moulder and it also has a pretty accurate height adjustment with a vernier readout, so I thought why not give it a try. So I mounted a piece of pine on the sliding table took into account the thickness of the sliding bed then lowered the cutter by 2.5mm and got a perfectly aligned joint straight away on the first cut.

So bloody simple, and I had been stuffing around all afternoon using a method based on the only information that I could find, at least I still have ten undamaged fingers! I felt like a complete Idiot.