My old #2 knife was getting kind of beat up & bent. I needed to lift up the cutter arm about 1/4" to get it to follow contact with the support arm throughout the arc. Decided to get a new cutter and support arm. Got it all set up without the need to lift the cutter arm and figured hey great, ready to rumble. Prepared a 13" oak blank, put it in the chuck and made the initial plunge to make a kerf for the support arm. That initial plunge cut is only about 1.5" or so deep but trying to get the support finger into the kerf was a real challenge. It would go in but just wouldn't line up with the cut line kerf. Little bit too far left and it would bind up, little bit to the right and same thing. Really had to just advance the support finger depth about 1/4" at a time and find the sweet spot that would allow the bowl to spin. Needless to say, it was a real challenge and took maybe 8 or 9 advancements to get the thing cored.
Thought maybe I didn't set something correctly so I tried a second blank with exactly the same result. Shifted the base about 1/4" away from me to widen the kerf and that helped a little bit until I got deep enough that there wasn't any extra kerf to work with.
So, the third attempt was to do the initial plunge cut and then pull on the cutter arm to make a wider kerf and then push on the cutter arm to widen the kerf towards the center. This helped more than the second attempt but with the same result. Once getting past the initial widening, cutter just wanted to cut more towards the center than following the arc of the support arm.
Never had anything like this happen before and just way too much work and fiddling around just to core a bowl. I've called Steve over at the woodworking store but haven't heard back yet but wanted to see if anyone has had any problems with newer knives. I know the #2 was out of stock from everyone for a long time so I jumped on this when I happened to see them back in stock. Upon double and triple checking everything about the set up I've noticed a couple things:
1.) My old #2 support arm is .178 + or - a few thousands thick. The new #2 support arm is in the .245 thick range which makes it just a few thousands less than the thickness of the cutter arm. Could anyone with a newer knife take a measurement? The cutter is pretty much 3/8" wide (AZ carbide) so that should provide enough room for the support finger but it doesn't. Here's picture of the two:
2.) I kind of suspect that the cutter arm grooves have been mis-machined to the wrong angle. When the cutter is installed you can see a definite cant or angled towards the center and not following the correct arc. I know it's not the cutter because it's the same with a Oneway or AZ cutter. Here's a couple pics. If I'm all wet with my opinion, let me know. The last pic is of the old #2 cutter. You can see the grooves are much more in line with the cutter bar than the new one. This is a real head scratcher. Thanks in advance.
Thought maybe I didn't set something correctly so I tried a second blank with exactly the same result. Shifted the base about 1/4" away from me to widen the kerf and that helped a little bit until I got deep enough that there wasn't any extra kerf to work with.
So, the third attempt was to do the initial plunge cut and then pull on the cutter arm to make a wider kerf and then push on the cutter arm to widen the kerf towards the center. This helped more than the second attempt but with the same result. Once getting past the initial widening, cutter just wanted to cut more towards the center than following the arc of the support arm.
Never had anything like this happen before and just way too much work and fiddling around just to core a bowl. I've called Steve over at the woodworking store but haven't heard back yet but wanted to see if anyone has had any problems with newer knives. I know the #2 was out of stock from everyone for a long time so I jumped on this when I happened to see them back in stock. Upon double and triple checking everything about the set up I've noticed a couple things:
1.) My old #2 support arm is .178 + or - a few thousands thick. The new #2 support arm is in the .245 thick range which makes it just a few thousands less than the thickness of the cutter arm. Could anyone with a newer knife take a measurement? The cutter is pretty much 3/8" wide (AZ carbide) so that should provide enough room for the support finger but it doesn't. Here's picture of the two:
2.) I kind of suspect that the cutter arm grooves have been mis-machined to the wrong angle. When the cutter is installed you can see a definite cant or angled towards the center and not following the correct arc. I know it's not the cutter because it's the same with a Oneway or AZ cutter. Here's a couple pics. If I'm all wet with my opinion, let me know. The last pic is of the old #2 cutter. You can see the grooves are much more in line with the cutter bar than the new one. This is a real head scratcher. Thanks in advance.
