Adept No 2 shaper

[Glyn DaviesParticipant @glyndavies49417]

[Glyn DaviesParticipant @glyndavies49417]

Hi. I bought an Adept shaper about ten years ago and have never found a use for it. It's the lack of auto traverse, the lack of graduations on the two hand wheels, the fact that after hours of filing, blueing and hand scraping, the ram still doesn't move exactly parallel to the table and there's some very slight play in the ram at maximum overhang with the gibs adjusted as close as practicable. To say nothing of the tedium of taking ages to traverse a block of material with a maximum cut of about three thou!

Does anyone have one of these shapers that they have found useful for any job? The usual justification is for the once-a-flood need to maybe cut a keyway in a bore, but I can do that on the milling machine by locking the spindle and using the quill feed.

I'm on the cusp of disposing of it.. unless I can think of a reason to keep it.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Otley

I can understand the way you feel. Don't let a bad one spoil it for you though. Get shot of it quick and replace it with a good one. A shaper like my Alba 1A is capable of really shifting amounts more metal at a go than my Warco WM16 mill ever can. Admittedly its not as versatile but still a real asset in the my low tech home tool room.

Rik

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Sell it to Neil so when he finishes his lathe he can do a major transformation on it

If you have a mill and want to concentrate on shifting metal then it will not be the ideal machine. It's more of a collectors item in many ways. Auto traverse and graduations are not difficult to add to what I presume is a manual machine, I use my manual Drummond shaper for trimming up very small bits, almost exclusinvely just brass.

The Alba is an order of magnitude bigger and takes you into a different realm.

[Gordon FowlerParticipant @gordonfowler20773]

Otley I have one of these, it is powered and has auto feed, but no graduations on the hand wheels. However it can move a suprising amount of metal using simple tools easily sharpened saving wearing out endmills. Recently used it to thin down an armstrong lathe tool holder, that I wouldn't want to file and the milling machine didn't look to keen on the idea but the adept did it with no fuss using a carbide tool. Over the years I have got rid of a few machines and regretted it. It takes up little space. Having said that I would like to potentially follow Neils thread on converting it to cnc.

Gordon

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

8-P

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I have a No 2 and find it quite a useful tool for occasional work.

I have two workshops – the main one in the Shed and my smaller 'indoors' one. The Adept is indoors (in the warm) with my smaller lathe. I try to avoid using the Shed in the winter (especially at night) as I get cold very quickly down there.

Whilst I can mill on the lathe there are times when I don't want to disturb an existing set-up or simply want a very good finish. I would not recommend a No 2 for removing any large amounts of metal but for smaller work it can be quite precise and gives an excellent finish (that I don't often get with my other tools). I generally use it on smaller brass parts but it works well on steel too. I have a list of accessories I mean to get around to making but I'm afraid I haven't just yet.

For example, recently, I wanted to clean up some (somewhat rusty) mild steel spacers for a small engine chassis and I didn't fancy going down the Shed after dinner (it was pouring outside). I cleaned them up in the Adept after dinner and they didn't take that long. As stated, I have larger machines available but often by the time I've set them up and cleaned them afterwards, it seems quicker to just do small parts in the comfort of the house. The Adept is silent in operation and all the tooling is very simple and easy to keep sharp.

The Adept shortly after re-painting and mounting it on the end of a small wheeled table a year or so ago. It doesn't take much space and can be used sitting down (I just pull it out from where its parked). I also generally use a (new) shorter handle I made as it doesn't need so much room in use and most of the work doesn't require the full leverage of the original one.

The frame spacers on this small Gauge 3 chassis were cleaned up on the shaper to remove rust pitting. It didn't take that long and was done inside in the warm (so it actually got done that evening which it might not have been the case otherwise!).

Regards,

IanT

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I've got an adept 2 and a powered shaper.

A shaper can remove huge amounts of metal using simple hand ground tools, prolonging the life of endmills which can be used for more fiddly tasks

They are especially useful for sorting out big lumps of cast iron and for creating proper flat surfaces 90 degrees to one another

Will probbly sell the Adept soon, you get 1-2 hundred quid for them from a well known site

[Author]

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