Spindle moulder: spindle diameter and tooling

[Hippo]

This is a new thread I have started following on from my 'Help me spend £20k on a small joinery workshop' post.

Among the machines I have ordered from CMC Italia is a spindle moulder with the following specifications:

‐ Fixed working table dimensions mm 1100 X 640
‐ Sliding table dimensions mm 360 x 1100
‐ Standard spindles ø mm 30 ‐ 35 ‐ 40 ‐ 50 ‐ 1¼
‐ Max. ø table opening mm 350 x 80
‐ Vertical stroke with spindle ø 35/30/1¼ mm 140
‐ Vertical stroke with spindle ø 40/50 mm 180
- 45 degree tilting spindle with electronic readout
‐ Working table height mm 890
‐ Spindle speeds rpm 2500/4200/6000/8000/10000
‐ Motor power HP 7,5
‐ Weight Kg 600

I want to make simple casement and Yorkshire sliding sash windows, doors and tongue and groove flooring.

I have to decide what diameter spindle the machine should be supplied with.

I was rather struck by the Trend Tooling Modular Window and Door systems. They run on a 30mm diameter spindle and, as complete sets, probably comprise of more moulding tools than I really need. They are attractive for their ease of set up but I am concerned a 30mm spindle may not exploit the full potential of my machine.

Given that I still have the choice of spindle diameter, what tooling/tooling system would you recommend I use and on which spindle diameter?

 

[dzj]

If you plan to churn out large quantities of tongue and groove flooring, a dedicated machine would be the way to go.
It can be done with a spindle moulder, but even with a power feed, it will be time consuming.

 

[Hippo]

I'll be using the 4 sided planer moulder to do the long sides of the flooring but the t&g on the ends will be done on the spindle moulder.

Take a look at this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfGDvcD ... detailpage

That's the type of flooring I want to make.

 

[heimlaga]

First it all depends on what kind of tooling that is obtainable to you. Most spindle mouldes have loose spindles that are easy to change so you can have several sizes if you want.

-In Europe 30 mm is the most common size of tooling.
-Some tooling is 35 mm but it is pretty uncommon. It seems to be a size that went out of fashion so it is mostly found on elderly machinery and secondhand tooling. Any machine shop with a metal lathe could easily turn a pair of collars which you can use on 35 mm tooling to make it fit on a 30 mm spindle. Hence no need to spend money on a 35 mm spindle.
-40 mm is pretty much European spindle standard on medium sized 4 side planers. If you own a foursider with that spindle diametre you would have use for a 40mm spindle for the spindle moulder to enable you to use the same tooling. This is not quite up to the latest European safety regulations as the tooling for the foursider often lacks limiters but this is how all small businesses around here do in reality.
Doctor bob and a few other forum members don't....the decision is yours.
-50 mm spindles are found on some very large 4 side planers. They are very rare so I have never seen one in reality nor any 50 mm tooling but they are rumoured to exist. Unless you plan to buy a monster sized foursider with it's tooling you will never ever need a spindle of this size for your spindle moulder.
-1 1/2 inch is a very common size for spindle moulder tooling in the USA. If you plan to buy american tooling you will need a spindle of this size. Otherwise not.

This is my oppinions....others may have other oppinions.

 

[Hippo]

The spindle diameters on the 4 sider is 40mm. Your advice has given me something to think about. I have noticed that 30mm seems the most common. Given that the two machines would be doing different jobs and would be running at the same time, I'd need tooling for both so if one set were 30 and the other 40, I don't suppose it would matter. But my spindle moulder with 30mm spindles would be beefy enough to cut tenons for hardwood doors?

 

[RobinBHM]

The standard in the uk for a spindle moulder spindle diameter is 30mm and 40mm on a 4-sider

If you want to use tooling with a larger bore size then you just need to buy reducing bushes, commonly known as 'top hats'

http://scosarg.com/tooling/bushes-sleeves.html

tongue and groove flooring is generally machined on a 4-sider (also known as through feed moulder). I used to do this for a customer, it required two cutter blocks. The 4-sider can plane top and bottom as well as machine tongue / groove in one pass. If you require end matching this needs to be done on a tenoning machine or dedicated flooring machine. On a tenoning machine the end matching is laborious, I adapted a cheap Sedgewick machine to end match by adding pneumatic clamping and using 3 people to do the work (one to load, one to machine, one to take off and stack). The 4-side will be able to machine at say 6 metres a minute and I got the end matching time down to about 15 seconds per end, so not impossible with a basic set up.

If you want to do sliding sash windows, you will probably additional tooling, Whitehill can provide tenon and scribe cutter and blocks.

I used to cut door tenons on a spindle moulder with heavy duty tenoning carriage. I used a SICAR spindle, which is an italian machine of similar spec to yours. The tenoning block needs to be about 320mm diameter for a door tenon of about 100mm long plus a bit over for wedging and cutting flush once assembled. I had to build a new guard for the tooling.

 

[Hippo]

320mm? Damn. Just looked at the manual and it says max profiling tool diameter 250mm but the spec on the invoice says max table opening 350 x 80.
Now I am confused, I realise they are two different things but it seems like a big hole for a max tool diameter of 250mm...

 

[dzj]

How many doors do you intend to make each month?
If it's just a few, you can use a block that is flush on top and make tenons of any length you like.
They rarely have a diameter greater than 120mm.

 

[Hippo]

I got this from the factory this morning:

Maximum tooling diameter with Standard Hood: 280 mm

Maximum Tooling Diameter with Tenon Hood: 330 mm

Given that the most common spindle diameters for spindle moulders appear to be 30mm and for 4 siders 40mm, and it will allow me to have HSE compliant heads for each machine, that is what I will go for.

Thanks for all your help!