Shaping Machines

[Stephen BensonParticipant @stephenbenson75261]

I like shaping machines when you get the swarf peeling off just so they are a joy to use, I have only tried the hand operated ones as they are great for introducing youngsters to engineering projects I normally start them off with toolmakers clamp.

We foster children so I have introduced many young people to the shaper this

Lad using my small Adept no 1 is only 9 so I was very interested the new series in ME but was a bit bemused to have to wade through lot of stuff about the new editor and then a whole section making spinning chuck which needed a few more pictures I felt as I could not visualise it myself.

But I am looking forward to the Drummond restoration and to see what else he has to say.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 17/06/2013 20:36:43

Edited By Stephen Benson on 17/06/2013 20:37:44

Edited By John Stevenson on 19/07/2013 00:08:09

[Stephen BensonParticipant @stephenbenson75261]

[John BaguleyParticipant @johnbaguley78655]

Shapers are brilliant machines. I've just used my newly restored Boxford to clean up the port face on a Minx cylinder block that had got badly scored. The finish was superb. Just set the machine running and went off and did something else while it got on with the job

The last time I used one was in metalwork class at school about 45 years ago!

John

Edited By John Baguley on 17/06/2013 21:19:38

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

Stephen, I'm curious – how much effort does it take to operate one of these things.

Across this side of the pond, theses a set of castings available here (about half-way down) for building a small version which I've toyed with buying but I don't half a lot of strength in my arms these days.

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

Nice Adept Stephen, I have a powered No2 sadly missing it's original table.

I have a few shapers and whilst they can lack the sophistication of a milling machine I find there is something very theraputic about watching the ram quietly whisk backwards and forwards peeling off chunks of (hot) metal.

And of course the very real bonus that using simple hand ground tooling you can create complex shapes like dovetails, you may have to be inventive when setting up but there isnt much you cant make on one.

That said I did come across a saying about shapers "you can make anything on a Shaper except money"

[Stephen BensonParticipant @stephenbenson75261]

Well it all depends on depth of cut if you take fine cuts it requires very little effort, you could also extend the lever but I doubt you would need to certianly a rather small 9 year old boy had no problem using the adept, I had the Cowells and Perfecto shapers these are larger hand powered shapers but no more difficult use in fact I would say the larger hand powered shapers are easier as they have auto feed.

See the http://www.lathes.co.uk for more details on shapers

Edited By Stephen Benson on 17/06/2013 22:45:21

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

Thanks, Stephen, that's very encouraging.

Now I wish I'd had the castings shipped to me when I was in Florida a month or so ago. Shipping of them within the US is much cheaper than shipping to Canada.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Stephen;

Way to go with the foster children.

Like you, I like shapers. I had an AAMCO 7" which I sold when moving to NZ for a bit; now I have an old Hand Shaper. It was either a CNC lathe, or a powered shaper, the CNC lathe won out, but to appease the workshop gods, the little shaper was purchased from a club member.

Another JohnS.

[John CoatesParticipant @johncoates48577]

I love my Elliott 10M. As Paul says there is a zen like karma as it skiffs along in the background. Occasionally a hot chip finds its way close to me and that reminds me to build some kind of shield or guard !!

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

I had a hand shaper once, but soon got fed up pulling the lever back and forth. I wouldn't go for one again, but if I had space, a small powered unit would be good. Whilst at college, one of my mates did a feasability study of adapting the hand shaper to sit on the lathe bed, and be driven by the lathe chuck. It included an auto feed for the cross travel, but I have no idea what happened to the design once it had been marked (Photocopying was expensive in those days – 1966).

[Diane CarneyModerator @dianecarney30678]

Posted by Stephen Benson on 17/06/2013 20:34:37:

I like shaping machines … I was very interested the new series in ME but was a bit bemused to have to wade through lot of stuff about the new editor and then a whole section making spinning chuck which needed a few more pictures I felt as I could not visualise it myself.

Hi Stephen. The next installment is more about tooling and less about the editor (you will be glad to hear!). The story about the spinning chuck happened many years ago, long before Mick ever contemplated writing an article for M.E. so I don't suppose he was thinking of taking pics at the time.

I have had a few good comments about this article. I hope you continue to enjoy reading it. It will be in every other issue (more or less).

Diane

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Posted by Diane Carney on 18/06/2013 12:39:51:

Hi Stephen. The next installment is more about tooling and less about the editor (you will be glad to hear!).

Diane; It's hard to have a fan base, but don't worry, you'll eventually just get used to it.

Between you and Beckham, I don't know who's more popular.

Another JohnS.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

As an owner of a 7" Perfecto powered bench shaper, I was looking forward to the article, I have to agree with Stephens comments regarding the pre-amble on the changes in editors of the two magazines, this content should have been confined to postbag or smoke rings, not really relevant to the article.

That said, I look forward to the future articles on shaping machines.

Diane, keep up the good work, I like the way ME is developing although I would suggest care in creating any overlap with MEW, the disciplines of the two magazines are significantly different which is why I subscribe to both and enjoy the different approaches to Model Engineering disciplines.

regards

Graeme

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

The legendary 'cheap shaper you can pick up for pennies' seems to be as rare as rocking horse poo. I wopudl really like to try an adept No, 1 or 2.

The Strongarm looks interesting, but at $400 including shipping and a LOT of machining…

Neil

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

Posted by Stub Mandrel on 18/06/2013 13:45:57:

The legendary 'cheap shaper you can pick up for pennies' seems to be as rare as rocking horse poo. I wopudl really like to try an adept No, 1 or 2.

An Elliott 10M just sold on Fleabay for over £400 and tidy Boxfords seem to fetch around the >£300 mark.

[DuncParticipant @dunc]

There are plans for a home-built, hand-powered shaper iin Popular Mechanics, Oct 1955.

The Dave Gingery series has a build from scatch (that includes pouring your own castings).

Home Shop Machiniist/Machinist's Workshop had plans many years ago. Don't have more info available.

Info here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mwmills/

http://www.neme-s.org/shapers/shaper_columns.html

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I've had an Adept for a while and it's been useful for small surfacing jobs, grooving (mainly in brass) and scribing dials etc. I can certainly 'shape' surfaces and edges with it more accurately then I can file things. The work you can do is limited in many ways to how clever you are at work holding and grinding special tooling. However, I would not have the patience to do larger surfaces on it.

I do like shapers (I used one regularly in evening classes a few years back) and recently brought an Acorntools (Atlas) 7" bench shaper. I'm still learning the tool as it's not as simple to use (well!) as it might first appear. Tool shape and 'feed & speed' all have to be just right to get a really great mirror finish – the Adept gave my some experience but the powered machine is another step up both in size and the kind of work I would attempt with it.

I'm already getting a pretty good quality finish (better than vertical milling – and yes, I do have one) but it takes a bit of practice. I've just finished a small vertical miiling attachment for the EW (part of my 'Winter' indoor workshop) and the scrap cast steel lump I used for the raiser block was as hard as rocks. I couldn't get a good (flat) finish in the lathe four-jaw and decided it would screw an end mill pretty quickly but the Acorn went through it no problem at all (using an old HSS lathe tool at that time). The finish was more 'matt' then 'mirror' but this was one of my first jobs with the machine. More importantly, it was dead flat as far as I can measure it. So these tools do take some effort to learn to use but clearly have their uses.

BTW – I could have purchased a (small) chinese mill for about the same money but it would not have been built to the same quality as this machine (made cira early 1950's I'd guess). Just the weight (300 pounds) tells you something about the build quality. Take a hand wheel off and note it is nicely keyed to the shaft and that tells you some more…. I'm not saying the shaper should be the second machine you buy after a lathe for newcomers – but it is a lot more versatile than many MEs might think. My new QC toolholders will get done on it.

Bottom line for me – they aren't making Shapers any more (at least in "Home" sizes) so supply is going to be limited. They are a very nice machine to use and the tooling is real cheap. I will be keeping mine and I will look forward to reading the upcoming shaper articles in ME.

Regards,

Ian T

Edited By IanT on 18/06/2013 16:13:29

[Anonymous]

Posted by _Paul_ on 18/06/2013 15:04:56:

Posted by Stub Mandrel on 18/06/2013 13:45:57:

The legendary 'cheap shaper you can pick up for pennies' seems to be as rare as rocking horse poo. I wopudl really like to try an adept No, 1 or 2.

An Elliott 10M just sold on Fleabay for over £400 and tidy Boxfords seem to fetch around the >£300 mark.

I guess it depends on size; my shaper was free to take away, albeit without a motor. But it is an 18" version, so a bit of a lump at about a ton.

Regards,

Andrew

[MetalhackerParticipant @metalhacker]

Picked up an Adept 2a ( ie powered) at an auction about 15 years ago for not much loot. Cuts well but will only feed left to right not back right to left. Even that winding is hard work and I am not sure if the table is square to the ram. May need to put on a subtable machined in situ to get it square and enable use of rather smaller T nuts. Any info on restoring the R-L feed gratefully received.

Andries

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Andries, Is your feed by a ratchet using a spring plunger working on a 20 tooth gear? The plunger has a working end that is half cut away like a D-bit then the remaining metal sloped across the end so that the 'D' catches the gear in one direction and the slope slides over the teeth in the other direction.
The plunger can be pulled back against the spring. At the other end from the D end there is a cross pin which sits in a slot in the housing. If the plunger is pulled out and rotated by 90 degreed the pin stops it going back in and leaves the leadscrew free to be rotated by hand. If it is rotated 180 degrees it goes back in with the slope facing the other way so it feeds in the other direction.

[Anonymous]

Bazyle: Mostly correct. The plunger is exactly as you describe. I make the 'gear' that the plunger interacts with to be 24 'teeth'. It's not really a gear, each 'tooth' has simply been formed by cutting square slots.

The number of 'teeth' clicked at each stroke is adjusted by a T-nut and lock screw that slides in a T-slot that rotates in sympathy with the main crank. Even one 'click' per stroke is quite a coarse stepover.

Regards,

Andrew

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Andrew, I can't count above 10+10 as I wasn't born near a uclear site. …….

[RobboParticipant @robbo]

After reading this thread, I had to go out and buy a copy of ME! I see what Stephen meant by the overlong preamble and departure from the subject – this one could be a record for Mick.

We often go off thread on the forum, but we're not getting £50 a page!

Of more concern, if there are going to be more "MEW" type articles in ME, is this a plot to get we MEW subscribers to buy ME as well?. Or are they going to be merged in the future?

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Is that fair criticism of Mick? the best bits of ETW were his musings on the philosophy of model engineering or the foibles of model engineers, and who would complain about LBSC's "Lobby Chats"?

ME, more than MEW, has always been as much about the asides and thoughts of the contributor as the actual task in hand. It woudl be dull if every atricle contaibned as little text as the Lister engine series, although judging by the enthusiastic take up by builders such articles also have their place.

Neil

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

I don't know how things stand in the UK, but here in NZ I think most of the shapers have by now gone from industry and the schools. So mostly it is a matter of picking one up from someone who grabbed when the opportunity was there. The schools mostly had smaller machines which would suit the amateur, while the industrial machines tended to be bigger. I have a ten inch Alba which was originally in a school, but I bought it from a fellow club memeber who had done it up very nicely…that is the most expensive shaper that I have, at NZ$850. The smallest one I have is an Ammco, nominally 6 inch but the same machine was sold later by Rockwell as a 7 inch machine. That is a nice little machine, but I really must rebuild the fine feed sometime, it has a very nonstandard arrangement. That was NZ$450, but that was a long time ago now.

In the larger size, I Have a 14 inch Alba with flat belt drive including fast and loose pulley setup. That shaper came all in pieces, luckily nothing important was missing and I have assembled it all except the drive, but have not run it yet. From the state of the bearings, it has never really done any work, you can see the original machining marks. That cost me $250. I don't have a suitable motor for it yet. Then the biggest is an 18 inch Alba, which was $350, a real bargain since it also came with the original vice, a substantial bit of kit that would have been worth the price on its own. That machine was looking pretty untidy, but most of it was just cosmetic, apart from a broken away piece on the downfeed. I was able to screw a piece on and remachine the dovetail, using one of my shapers of course. That machine is three phase, and has a rather awkward delta connected 440 Volt motor…that means that I cannot easily restrap it to run on 240V. It has been run in two different ways, one using a pair of isolating transformers to step up 230 Volts to 460 and apply it to two of the connections. That works but needs a boot to the pulley to get it started, and only provides about half of the power the motor should be capable of. The other approach was to use a motor speed controller (inverter) to apply three phase power to the motor at 230 Volts. This only gives 1/4 of the theoretical power, which turns out to be enough for most things.

Model Engineer has always had articles on machine tools, making them, fixing them, etc. I wrote a couple on some unusual ways to use a shaper a few years back. Actually if you go back far enough, it was "The Model Engineer and Practical Electrician" and had articles on useful things like Roentgen tubes and Wimshurst machines. I have one of the latter that my father built, based on ME articles.

John

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