instructables

DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw

by dlewisa

I had never heard of a molding cutter for a table saw
until I inherited my dad's old Craftsman 113 table saw
and read that it was an optional attachment in the
manual I found online. You can pick these up on ebay
for $50 or less. There are two versions, one has a
single blade and the others have three. From what I
hear the single blade ones work fine, but I can
imagine that you'd have to push the wood through a
little slower. The single blade models can be found
used with 18 different profile blades and are usually
under $30 online. Many of the different profile blades
are still available used online and a company called
Corob makes new cutting heads and profile blades.
These blades can also be used on radial arm saws.

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Step 1: Safety

I'm probably sure that these things fell out of favor
because of negligent people getting hurt by them. As
you can imagine they have a huge potential for
kickback, especially if you are trying to take off too
much material in one pass. The keys to safety with
these things are getting to know how much you can
take off each pass with each different blade and
getting a feel for the speed you can push it through.
Also very important is hold down support to keep the
wood in full contact with the blade and unable to get
kicked back at you.
I've heard a lot of people online say that people
thought these things were scary, but to me it's no
more scary that a regular table saw blade. In fact, the
high pitched whine of a carbide blade is more
unsettling than these molding blades. They make a
lower pitched hum when running. You could probably

use them without hearing protection. I wouldn't, but in

actuality it probably wouldn't be a problem at all.

Step 2: The Set Up

The cutting head comes with a spacer and an adapter
bushing so it'll fit a 5/8" arbor. If your arbor is 3/4" you
won't use the bushing, of course. The groove on the
cutting profile blade will be facing away from you as
you look at the table saw from the position you use it.
This particular blade--and all I've see online--will be
clearly marked to tell you the rotation of the cutter
head and orientation of the profile blades. Put it on
the arbor as pictured: washer, spacer, cutter, washer,
nut.
Always disable your saw when changing blades. I
always unplug mine and leave the plugs in my field of
view for peace of mind.

DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 2

DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 3
Step 3: Make Your Own Fence and Insert
I don't think this is really optional if you want to
use this safely. Some profile blades you could
probably get away without it, but I wouldn't. You could
seriously damage your fence and have flying shards
of profile blades going everywhere if you ran your
metal fence into while running.
My old saw's design makes it a little tricky to make a
wooden zero clearance insert so I made one that sits
on top of the table and is part of the fence. You could
easily make one for each of the different profiles if
you wish, but I just made this one with the 1" straight
edged joiner profile blade so that any of the blades
DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 4
would work with it. I made the wooden fence 1" wide.
1" wide fence add-ons make it easier to do the math
when you still want to use the fence's measuring
tape.
The only thing to be careful of is where you put your
screws in this thing. None around the blade's path,
naturally.
My saws dado insert would have worked fine, but I
wanted a little extra support after the wood came out
of the blade.
Step 4: Making Your Insert

Lower the blade to below the table and turn it on. Slowly raise it up through the material. Repeat this, moving your
fence each time, until you get it as wide as you need.

DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 5

Step 5: Profile Blades

All of the blades are 1" wide. That makes finding the middle pretty easy. This 3 flute profile will go down the middle
of my wood.

DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 6

Step 6: Support

I love featherboards. Here I've used one that mounts
in the 3/4" slot on my saw. This one will keep the
wood firmly against the fence. For downward support
I put the wood on the table and then screwed in a
piece of scrap on top of it. I put a piece of paper
folded on itself a few times between the workpiece
wood and the scrap support piece to make a slight
gap before screwing so that the wood could slide
through smoothly. I plan on adding another adjustable
featherboard for the downward support eventually.

DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 7

Step 7: Cutting
Adjust the depth of the blade to take off just the right
amount of wood. You don't want to take too much as
this will slow down the speed you can put the wood
through. Use a test strip to get your depth set right or
to figure out if you need to make the cut over several
passes at gradually increasing depth.
If you've got multiple pieces of molding to make you'll
want to run all of it through the setup before making
any changes. For example, if you have to make
multiple passes at different depths, then run all of the
wood through at each adjustment so that it remains
DIY Wood Molding on a Table Saw: Page 8
uniform. If you run one piece, then adjust and run
another you may not make the depth or position
correctly and have molding that doesn't match up.
Hear I set the depth to just make the flutes on one
pass and barely take away any wood at the highest
height of the flute so I didn't have to make multiple
passes. I then changed the blade to a cove profile
and for each outer edge. I took off so little material
that this happened in one pass as well.
Step 8: That's It

This particular molding is to cover up a cut line in my Needless to say it makes a lot of saw dust. So use a
wooden soffit on my house from where I removed dust collection system like this one! And while you're
material to add more venting. I doubt anyone will ever at it move that saw all around the shop like this.
notice it, but it made a good excuse to show off the
molding cutter on Instructables. Their are many many
uses for this thing, just be safe and mindful.

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