Drummond Shaper Serial Numbers?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Could anyone tell where Drummond usually indicated the serial number on their hand-shapers, please?

Tony Griffith's site gave me a list of numbers and years but doesn't say where they are normally marked.

The only obvious number on my shaper, stamped on the vertical shear, does not match the list and is probably a part- or batch-number. The machine seems a transition model between the first and second patterns Drummond Bros made.

It may have been on a label-plate subsequently lost for some strange reason, but there is no sign of that having happened. The rectangular name-plate is intact but does not carry the serial-number.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Nigel The serial number on mine is on the makers Name Plate. bottom space under where it says Patents.

can't make my mind up whether its 84 or 94

Name Plate is on left hand side of main column

Roy

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Nigel Just looked at Tony's website. On the photos, the labels are all on the Right Hand Side. On mine it is on the left.

Roy

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thank you Ian.

The maker's plate is on the right on mine, but does not bear the serial number where I would indeed expect it.

I will explore further for any traces of a missing plate anywhere. They might be under the thick white paint it acquired in a workshop our society once had. Hard to understand why anyone would remove the label – unless it was the painter, for that purpose, and he lost or forgot about it.

(My Harrison lathe has all its brass labels, but the two gear-change labels have become polished into being illegible!)

If your shaper's SN is only 2 digits long it must be an early machine. The lathes.co list starts at 469, in 1919; but they were evidently selling well, to produce around 60 a year.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Subsequent to above….

I have examined the machine carefully. The maker's plate does not carry the serial number, certainly not legibly, but I will look again.

I could find no sign of another label having been removed anywhere.

It is evident that whoever painted the shaper white, did not remove the maker's plate; just wiped stray paint off it afterwards.

The sizeable number "12" stamped a bit obbly-eyed on the faced area just above the vertical shears, has nothing to say what it means, and a 2-digit number seems out of kilter with the list on 'lathes.co.', starting at 469.

So still a puzzle. I may remove the name-plate (seems to be held by round-headed screws, not drive rivets) to examine it in better light. It's not very accessible in place.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 17/02/2021 23:17:20:

[…]

The sizeable number "12" stamped a bit obbly-eyed on the faced area just above the vertical shears, has nothing to say what it means,

.

Such numbers are often made by the fitters, for component-matching … you will probably find ‘12’ marked on various components throughout the machine.

MichaelG.

[SquintParticipant @squint]

The number 721 is stamped by the fiducial line on the X axis slide ways. I assume this is the serial number for my Drummond shaper.

Edited By Squint on 18/02/2021 15:44:49

Edited By Squint on 18/02/2021 15:46:57

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

On the slide-ways… Hmmm. Thank-you Squint. I'll have a look.

I must admit I'd looked in the likely places but not thought it would be on any of the moving parts.

A number like 721 does look like a serial-number, consistent with the information from Tony Griffiths, and would put your shaper's D.O.B in 1921 or 1922. So I will look on my machine's slide-ways.

I removed the elegant maker's plate from mine today so I could read it in daylight. What I had thought were round-headed brass machine screws holding it, turned out to be wood-screws whose shanks were a close push-fit in the holes! Very odd.

The plate bore no serial-number though.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

The plate on mine has no serial number, for sure. As per Squint(?), there is a number hidden by the cross slide when the table is at the at the handle end.

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