Why not more shapers?

[Juicegoose]

I was at the local woodworking store over the weekend and they had a sweet little woodpecker router table setup. I almost pulled the trigger on her but then saw a shop fox 3hp shaper for just a little more. It got me thinking and so I come to the masses to ask there knowledge. Why does everyone go out and buy a router and table and lift and not just get a shaper. seems it would be a better thing to do?

[Bombarde16]

Fair question and I can't comment personally on the usefulness of a shaper. Perhaps because we start out using hand held routers and just stick with what's familiar. Perhaps because a router can be built into all manner of different jigs to shape things in three dimensions or to flatten a giant slab. Perhaps it's because a shaper would require another collection of bits and blades, whereas one roundover bit will work whether you're holding the router or have it mounted in a table.

[wjffineww]

A shaper is a great tool for a production cabinet shop. For the average woodworker I just don't think it's practical, not really for the initial cost of the machine, but rather for the tooling for the machine. The cutters are very costly. Router bits are considerably cheaper.

[DALSAW]

I have A Kreg router table and lift and a Grizzly 1 1/2 Hp shaper with a power feeder. I started with a router because of price and ended up with a shaper because my production outgrew my router table. The only thing that I use my shaper for is the milling of raised panel doors for cabinets. My router and router table handle every thing else. Sure I could buy different cutters and take some of the work off of my router table, but those cutters don't come cheep and their not as easy to change as a router bit. Well with that being said, so I hope this info helps you out.

[PaulMarcel]

Definitely what the last two said (wjffineww and Aaron . I wondered the same thing when I went to Timber. Then I got the Eagle America catalog. Flip to the shaper bit section and it'll drive home what they said!! One big benefit of the shaper, though, is that you can buy blanks easily. A guy I know used to make custom profiles on shaper blanks for his cabinet shop all the time. With a router, you're stuck with router bit offerings and how you can combine them.

[jon003]

Volume and power.

Most of the garden variety woodworkers are making a small amount of a specific profile. I have probably 30-40 router bits, and that isn't a 'set'. Those are bits I've selected that I use. To accumulate the equivalent required shaper tooling would be crazy expensive.

And most of probably can get along just fine with the power that comes out of a nice table mounted router. We don't have/need the power to hog out an entire profile in one pass, the way a shaper can.