Custom Molding Knives
After creating my molding plans, I needed to order custom knives for my molder. I found a few companies that can create knives for the Shop Fox W1812, and chose to use Hot Knives in St. Louis, MO.
A brief call with Gary at Hot Knives gave me a clear understanding of the process involved in ordering knives and he was very knowledgable about the W1812. (At the time I talked to him, I was still unsettled on what machine I was going to get to create my moldings, and Gary was able to reassure me that the W1812 would work very well.)
Hot Knives can create knives based on your own drawings or you can send them a molding sample and they will create the profile for you. Knowing my boards weren’t in great shape and there were slight variations in measurements from board to board, I chose to create my own drawings and smooth out any differences.
Once I had my completed my drawings, I sent them to Hot Knives. They modified them as necessary to satisfy their minimum molding width and to make sure they were correctly designed one the ends where the edges of the desired profile meet the knives. (There was a name for this, but it’s mainly extending the profile at the edges to ensure a clean cut.) They sent me a copy of the final drawings for approval and put me in the queue once I signed off.
Hot Knives charges a set-up fee, a per-inch charge for each knife, and a shipping charge. At the time I ordered (Dec 2020), the set-up fee using my drawings was $23 and the per-inch charge was $21. A molder like the W1812 uses two knives, so a two-inch pattern becomes four total inches. (Hot Knives does have a 1-3/4” minimum knife width for W1812 blades to ensure they can be installed using two bolts on the cutter head.) My knives shipped within a couple of days of giving my final approval, and arrived a couple of days after that.
My knives aren’t a perfect fit against the molding I’m reproducing, but I knew that would be the case since there are sliight variances from molding to molding. They are a perfect match against my designs and will make great replacement moldings.
Hot Knives was easy to work with and I was very pleased with their knowledge and patience helping out a novice ordering his first set of knives.