WHERE ARE THE SHAPER USERS ?

[BufferParticipant @buffer]

Joseph all true no doubt but starting where he is coming from he is building a Stuart 10V which if you don't know 2 of them would sit on your hand and ultimately wants a loco from gauge 1 to 5" or small traction engine. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think he has an ML7 lathe and a pillar drill in a smallish workshop is fed up with milling on a lathe and is wondering whether to get a shaper over a mill. He even said an Elliot 10m or smaller so he certainly won't be taking big cuts. I just wouldn't recommend a shaper in this instance to anyone.

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

I know of a Boxford shaper for sale near York think its single phase.

Was speaking to the owner at Melbourne Drag Racing today.

If interested message me

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

The shaper compares more to a horizontal mill than a vertical mill in terms of the work it does. Great for flat surfaces, not so good at making pockets and boring holes. You can do some interesting things if you put either a rotary table or a dividing head and tailstock onto a shaper.

However, in terms of the sort of work mentioned, eg small stationary engines and locomotives, my suggested order of acquisition would be the lathe first (of course!) followed by a vertical mill. The mill will also act as a drill. Shapers are not available new, so if you decide you want one, the best course is just to keep your eyes open and see what comes up. On the other hand, if you were able to get a mill that does both vertical and horizontal milling you probably don't need a shaper. Still, I like having mine, and I have three of them.

John

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

I have a boxford 8" shaper with horizontal and vertical power feeds, it is used frequently and I would not be without it,

There are plenty of operations that can be done on it if one chooses to try, as has been mentioned money does not have to be spent on countless accessories as with

other types of machines, a good site on yt is Rustinox give it a go

Mick

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

After looking for a hand powered shaper for some time, i found an Adept no2 locally in good condition, another shaper popped up on ebay at the same time, I put a bid on it as well as the Adept thinking someone else will have to bump the price up, nobody else bid, so I now own two hand operated shaping machines.

The second is older, a little bigger, what I would think more expensive when new, and seemingly quite rare, I've found out it's a Bradley Shaper, dating around 1900 to 1920.

Are there any other owners of this quite rare machine?

it's been in storage for a while, thick oily grime has preserved it very well mostly, the only area that has been affected by corrosion is the actual table, I've scraped a bit off, it's a bit pitted, a visit to a local surface grinder shouldn't be too expensive for that one item.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

A shaper can sort its own table and the finish looks ground

Practice on a bit of scrap stuff, get to know the machine and tooling, read up on them

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

If the cutting tool will reach the back of table, I'll give that a go, do you know what the V pads that go in the two round holes behind the table are for?

missing on mine, but visible on the one at lathes UK Bradley shaper

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I hate to say I don't have a clue but I…

I don't think the clapper even gets that far back (3rd down on left piccy)

With those Vs and the curious bracing wall on the back of the table I get the impression there was some sort of specific work it could perform that was useful back in the olden days, and why would you want a 90 degree swivel action?

Edited By Ady1 on 18/09/2021 07:30:54

Edited By Ady1 on 18/09/2021 07:36:40

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

The wall is the v-ways for the table, so you can move the table AND the clapper on your hand shaper. wow

(usually the tables are bolted in a fixed position)

Edited By Ady1 on 18/09/2021 08:25:29

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

The Vee pads look like they would take a shaft into which you want a keyway machined. The ability to swivel the 'cross slide' so it is fore and aft, thus making the ram movement 'left' and 'right' achieves this.

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

DC31K has said exactly what I thought when I saw the pictures. Cutting keyways in shafts was once an important function for shapers, and if you look you will find that some power shapers are built so that you can if necessary feed a shaft right through the machine. One of mine has a forked end on the connection to the ram to permit this, so you could if necessary cut a keyway in the middle of a shaft of any arbitrary length. (You drill a hole at each end to permit the tool to start and finish the cut.) The setup on the shaper pictured above would also permit that.

John

[DC31kParticipant @dc31k]

Posted by John Olsen on 18/09/2021 11:49:04:

…so you could if necessary cut a keyway in the middle of a shaft of any arbitrary length.

And being hand powered, you can take the machine to the shaft so you do not need to dismount the shaft or split any of the belts. Beats chipping it out by hand with a cape chisel.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

My little Alexander has a (limited) hole through the body for threading round items along the centre line, for slotting. 2” is maybe the size limit. Likely a hundred year old design?

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Interesting. You learn a wee bit more every day in this game

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Thank you DC31k, turning the ram 90 degrees for using the V pads had slipped my mind, but I think that's exactly what it's for, if the ram had gone further back I thought it looked like maybe for cutting a rack in round bar.

I think it's too heavy and unbalanced to use anywhere other than firmly bolted to a bench.

[The ScientiztParticipant @thescientizt22186]

Hi all, newbie here, showing off my new shaper.

Last week I got myself an Invicta 1M! It looks well used, but technically it seems to be all good. Ofcourse I'm going to give it a big checkup, plus some modern day mods, before using it. I already have a great milling machine, but every now and then I still miss(ed) a small shaper in my shop (had one years ago, sold it when I moved, regretted it ever since). I plan on using it for the obvious jobs, but also for making sheet metal forming dies with odd profiles.

It's almost the same as an Alba 1A, both are made by Elliott.
Pretty straightforward little machines, great for the home workshop

[DuncParticipant @dunc]

Fwiw http://www.neme-s.org has vast resources about metal shapers. Scroll down the page to "Metal Working Related Links and Pages"

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

The NEME articles are available in print to order book form, 535 pages all about shapers, collated by Kay Fisher, I ordered it via his website and it was printed in the UK and shipped quickly. Price was thirty quid or so with post and very pleased with it. You can now read about shapers in bed! I don't think there's anything in the book that's not on the site but I find it better to read than on a screen. I've now finished the rebuild of my Acorntools shaper, but I'm afraid I bought a Elliott 10M as well, was on a local site at a silly price, looked absolutely terrible in the pictures, but after a bit of effort cleaned up a treat.

[Tony RayParticipant @tonyray65007]

Oh come on Dave you can’t mention a 10M without posting any pics!

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

Ok Tony I'll tidy up a bit and take some pictures today!!

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Entirely agree that a shaper, and power hacksaw, are really valuable in the home or one guy/gal on their own workshop.

Relatively low cutting speed makes them totally, utterly, hopeless obsolete in a proper commercial workshop or factory but for the solo user their ability to be left to get on with the job makes them pearls beyond price. Even more attractive given the low market price. I pretty much never find myself waiting for my Elliott 10M (or Rapidor Manchester hacksaw) to finish and all the time they are chomping away is time won to get on with something else.

My things to do list has gotten maybe 20 years ahead of my available time to do it in by now so every little helps.

OK wiz-bang modern CNC with auto- load et al can do in minutes what my shaper and saw can do in the same number of hours. But leaving out the un-affordability factor there seems no difference between having a machine stand idle for 59 minutes until I'm ready for the bit its just done or having the part ready about 2 minutes before I need it.

My little Elliott gets regular use trimming stock or "found material" down to size ready for finish operation on the Bridgeport or drill. Chomping mill scale and hard casting surfaces off eats tooling so the shaper is far more economical than the mill in that respect. Its ability to casually leave a surface finish that polishing would spoil given well sharp tooling and half way co-operative material is more than a little endearing too.

I do need to figure out how to add cutting oil / coolant dispensing to it tho'. I have around 10 ft of 10" x 1" nominal steel bar in stock of a number of projects that absolutely isn't the material I ordered. Drills fine but won't take any sort of finish when machined dry. Whether on mill or shaper. The Bridgeport has a Bjur system which sorts the issue, still hard on cutters, and hand squirting works for the shaper but rather defeats the object of letting it run un-attended.

I imagine a little pump or gravity feed tap delivering via a tube just in front of the tool during the actual cutting part of the stroke would do me just fine. Are there any designs floating around? Looks to me that such is one of those more complex than it sounds project with a good deal of subtlety to getting it working well.

My Elliott runs of a VFD so another somewhen project is to add a microswitch to stop it at the end of the job via the VFD remote input. I know it's safe to let the beast run up to the end of travel but it's inelegant to have it sitting there running in air cutting mode until I can get to it. I guess a modern magnet would hold a switch just fine.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 12/09/2023 09:03:16

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Posted by Clive Foster on 12/09/2023 09:02:42:

My little Elliott gets regular use trimming stock or "found material" down to size ready for finish operation on the Bridgeport or drill. Chomping mill scale and hard casting surfaces off eats tooling so the shaper is far more economical than the mill in that respect. Its ability to casually leave a surface finish that polishing would spoil given well sharp tooling and half way co-operative material is more than a little endearing too.

I agree Clive – I've an extensive 'scrap' bin of fairly large lumps of metal collected over the years that mostly sits outside quietly rusting. My old power hacksaw does a better job on cutting it up than my (smaller) bandsaw can manage and then the Atlas finishes prepping the part. I will admit to often standing there watching it work away (shapers can mesmerize you) although you don't need to wait around but it will clean up surfaces that would ruin my milling tools.

Obviously the 'quality' of my scrap is completely unknown but for many applications I don't care – buying new metal all the time can get very expensive these days and if something really is unworkable the shaper will quickly reveal it and it can finally go to the Tip. Most 'lumps' are quite usable though. I do buy specific metals for parts that need them but it's amazing what nice shiney objects are sitting inside that ugly lump after the shaper has munched over it.

So yes, whilst I completely agree with advice to get a good lathe and then a mill after that rather than a shaper – but if you have the space a shaper has it's uses where speed isn't a big concern – especially as it can work away whilst you are tidying up or doing other small jobs. My little 7" earns it's place in my workshop and is certainly staying there.

Regards,

IanT

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Posted by Dave Wootton on 12/09/2023 07:44:40:

Ok Tony I'll tidy up a bit and take some pictures today!!

If you tidy up, how will we know if you are using it?

[Joseph Noci 1Participant @josephnoci1]

Me again…

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I notice one or two contributions seem to hint at the belief in the shaper (or planer) being a "roughing" tool preparatory to "finish" milling.

That should not be so. Yes, the milling-machine will perform operations the shaper can't, or simply flatten a surface more rapidly; but assuming the shaper is in good condition and properly adjusted, there is no reason the surface it leaves cannot be the finished one even if later holding milled pockets and holes.

For some fine-scale operations it may even be more prototypical, by matching the original shaped or planed finish.

My own shaper is a Drummond powered by tea and cakes, but still capable of repaying due operating care with a good finish; flat and pleasing to the eye.

Much of the secret lies, as with turning, in a properly-ground and set too. Further, on the shaper or planer its cutting edge should be below, or as closely so as possible, the clapper fulcrum (but not behind it). I recall a demonstration workshop at one ME show, having a shaper whose tool had been set by a spacer right at the outer end of the holder slot.Oops!

.

I do agree though there can be very good metal under all that rust on "lumps" that look as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards then left there. (As some of my source material indeed had been!)

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