I was just getting started with my Adept No.2 when that Swiss pantograph-cum-mill turned up, demanding my attention.

… Hope to get on with the Adept over the winter.

Dave's screw-slotting jig would be a nice job to do in the shaper

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=120623&p=1

['though, having a shaper, you may not need the jig]

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 16/09/2016 12:07:45

Hold a piece of floor down until a better machine comes along

I wondered if this one had sold – bit of a bargain I suspect.

**LINK**

John

–

Easy peasy tooling, just grind it up and remove huge amounts of guffy hard metal

Nice to watch

Produces proper flat surfaces, you get none of those whirly things on the surface of your workpiece like you get after milling.

Secondary jobs are very accurate because you can remove the individual electrons from metal atoms

A shaper improves your sex life

More recently I have found that that 5% cobalt tooling has fabulous resistance to wear when used on a shaper

EDIT The main reason industry stopped using shapers is because mills were more suited to mass production methods and in most industrial situations faster

Edited By Ady1 on 16/09/2016 14:35:39

If you get it wrong on a big shaper it can take the table right off (so I've heard)

Even the small ones pack quite a punch and really don't tolerate mistakes

.

The two things that most interested me were:

1. Making small dovetail slides
2. Cutting Involute gears, by 'generating'

http://neme-s.org/Shaper%20Books/Michael_Moore/shaper%20gear%20cut.pdf

[Both currently on the back-burner, as mentioned above]

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 16/09/2016 15:00:40

You didn't bring the first one home on a shopping trolley Richard.

From memory mine covers around a 10" square table and has the power cross feed. Rather large for bench mounting. I can't remember the make without digging it out. I bought it from a junk shop a fair old time ago just before I gave up working in the garage. We've been trying to get a builder to replace the roof on it for nearly 2 years. It's much worse since I moved my stuff out.

You need to think in terms of having a sort of powered scraper Michael. Don't ask me about tooling as I have very very little experience with them. As an instructor said " They don't make any use of them these days but I'll tell you something, They are very good at producing flat surface that need very little work on them. Often none at all" He was referring to scraping and bluing flats on a master surface plate. That from an extremely skilled bench fitter as well.

The sort of thing I intended to make on mine were things like V blocks and Keat's angle plates and items like that. Also angle plates and boxes if needed.

John

–

.

Assuming that you mean shaper, John

I'm quite happy with the hand powered one, thank you.

MichaelG.

Although having two milling machines (both, 'warco', Super Major, and WM12) I still find that my little Corbett 7" stroke shaper of much use. When I was serving my apprenticeship in the mid 60's there was a general feeling that to set up in a shaper took five minutes and to machine the job took an hour. The reverse was the case with the milling machine. One area that I feel that the shaper has over the milling machine is the ease of tooling/tool grinding. In some cases a suitable lathe tool goes straIght into the shaper toolholder (aka clapper box?) Much easier to regrind by hand than a slot drill/end mill. My considered feelings are that both milling machines and shapers have their own places/homes in the workshop and I would hate to be with out either.

Ian

Handy for making gears.

If you need one gear then use a shaper to make 3 or 4 at the same time and part off on the lathe

A lot of work carried out on a milling machine using expensive end mills and the like can be done just as well (with better finishes in many cases) on a shaper using a single point tool easily resharpened on an off hand grinder.

I do admit though to having a soft spot for these “dinosaurs” of the machine shop (as I recently heard them described). A shaper was the very first machine tool I was let loose on as a young apprentice and the love affair continues. Click the link and scroll down to see my refurb.

**LINK**