Alba 1A shaper - my new little lady

Just a quick update re: the metric graduations on the vertical tool slide collar. I have put the DTI on the slide and can confirm that 1 rev (3mm grads) gives a reading of 3mm exactly. This means that the machine has imperial table feed screws and a metric tool slide screw.

It's odd I know but someone on here has PM'd me with the information that his Alba 1A is configured exactly the same way. It seems that my machine is not a "one off".

Rik

I bought a quantity of Colchester spares at an auction,among the lot was a topslide from another make of lathe probably far eastern or east europe, and it had what looked like a dual imp metric dial, I started to dismantle it to find out how it worked ,surprise ,surprise the dial with two graduated rings of imperial and metric divisions was solid i.e. one piece of steel ,one turn of the dial moved the slide 2.5mm ,of course the imp readings were not accurate but were very close as 2.5mm equals.0984 ins .A bit naughty as I expect the lathe advertising probably stated imperial/metric dials.

I have an old American tool holder.

It needed thinning down by .080" to fit in the lantern tool post on my newly refurbed shaper. It was going to be tough going though as it was case hardened. To give you an idea how hard it was a new coarse file just skidded of the surface - glass like it was.

It seemed like a suitable first job for the Alba to tackle. With a .040" deep cut and a .006" feed it removed the necessary material in one pass from side "A".

Side "B" next and it looked like this:

**LINK**

Rik

That style of tool holder with the built in rake is really meant for lathe use...the ones meant for a shaper usually have the HSS tool bit set parallel to the shank. Don't let this bother you too much, they will work fine but are more likely to chatter and pull into the job than the "proper" shaper ones. This has not stopped me doing a lot of good work with a set of three Jones and Shipman ones that came with my Alba 1A. (Left, right, and straight.) But if you happen to see a shaper one going somewhere grab it.

The other trick would have been to open out the tool post slightly. I have done that on one of mine.

There are some pictures of some shaper tools in my album here:

Not counting the car keys which are just for scale. None of these are the shaper equivalent of the one you have, although I do have one somewhere. The two big ones on the right are quite good, except that you can't use short pieces of HSS in them.You can make one of this type from an old steel bicycle crank. But you can adjust the angle of the tool bit for doing corners.

John

Thanks for the info John. I have never used such an ancient tool before - I guess it must date to the first half of the last century - so I had no idea that it was not entirely appropriate for use on a shaper. I'll give it a go anyway!

Rik

Rik

May not be such an "ancient" tool - very similar holders are still available new from places like Cromwell tools today.

I use J&S tool holders, left, right, and straight, bought them when I bought my lathe, they are for 1/4" HSS tooling which I find the most economical.

Ian S C

If you do find that the tool tends to try to dig in or chatter, you can always grind the tip a little to reduce the built in rake. They are handy even if not quite ideal, since they bring the tool out away from the slide a bit, which can help in getting into corners and so on. I use my left and right hand ones with long narrow angle bits when I do dovetails.

You will notice that most of the tools shown in my picture have an offset to put the cutting edge behind the mounting surface. The theory behind this is that when the tool flexes (as it will) the flex will tend to reduce the depth of cut. If the cutting edge is in front of the mounting surface, flex will tend to increase the depth of cut, tending to cause digging in or chatter. However, if things are rigid enough and the cuts not excessive, you will get away with it.

John