A very small Shaping Machine ...

Hi Julian and Guys
Sorry about the delay . felting the garden tool shed . on a shaper when at work years ago I used to make 36" long
half round cavity's top and bottom . some up to about 2" dia. I made a fixture that fitted in the clapper box facing
forward similar to a boring head that rotated with a toolbit the clapper was locked when using this
I roughed out first with a straight roughing tool . then finished with the fixture i made the two halfs dowled together then sent away for final lapping . then fitted in bolster . It was a 3 imp compression mould for a railway item
I will try and post a drawing
Regards Nobby

I like that little shaper. putting the clapper box on a vertical slide saves a great deal of metal.

I have a bit of a dead vice that is almost exactly the size and section of the main horizontal; body...

Neil

Well I've been looking at a pile of medium sized chunks of cast iron scrap, 1/4" angle iron and even a spare topslide base for a mini lathe.

Conclusion there is more than enough to make a small shaper in there, but how would I fit all the bits together?

Neil

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Neil,

See above .. from an earlier post on this thread

MichaelG.

... add isopon filler!

I used that to repair a space beam torch during the Korean riots of 1980 !

... or was it devcon...

I do remember it was hugely expensive...

At the risk of bringing an American influence into the discussion, try these two references under Popular Mechanics magazine in Google Books:

Oct 1955 - Metal Shaper for Your Shop - pp227-231, an article about building a manual 3inch shaper by S.S. Miner

Nov 1928 - A 6 inch Bench Shaper - pp869-871 - a motor driven shaper by J.V. Romig

Edward

i have used a shaper - once. when at school i made a pattern for frame stays and cast a load of frame stays in the school foundry. i machined them up - if 'machined' is the right word in a shaper. i realised then at quite an early age ie 16 that there must be an easier way of doing things! i used a vertical slide in the lathe for very many years before acquiring my dore westbury mill 25 years ago. ive never used a shaper since i was 16 and have no intention of ever using one again, and everyone i know who has one proudly shows them off but never uses them!

completely obsolete!

glad the isopon amused a few of you!

cheers,

julian

But the "bees knees" for making safety tread (chequer plate) by knurling; have been trying to match some steel chequer plate that I picked up years ago, and everything seems to be aluminium (at least for the perfect gauge - 3-1/2"

Also, a hand shaper is a lot cheaper than a gym membership - get that and a treadle lathe, and a bunch of files (plus obligatory hacksaw) and you'll be the "Charles Atlas" of model engineering!

Anyway, there is a reason that they fell out of favour to milling machines in industry a century or so ago, so your comment is 100% correct, in my (shaper-loving) opinion.

Taking tongue out of cheek, and off to the workshop to find my diamond knurls - John.

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Thanks Edward,

... Nothing wrong with an American influence in such matters !!

Where would the world be if the Americans hadn't worked-out how to mass produce precision "standard parts" for watches and guns ?

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/10/2013 16:55:55

living longer less stressed lives...........

Same old, same old whenever this topic (Shapers) comes up.

Industry might not use Shapers any more these days but I certainly do. But then I don't (want to or cannot) do a lot of things that "industry" does these days.

I have two shapers, an Adept No2 and a 7" Atlas. I also have three mills and four lathes, which all have their own place and uses in my workshop. When I need something cleaning up (e.g. flat), it goes in the 7" and I generally get on with something else (maybe some milling?). It will cut stuff that would rapidly blunt my milling cutters and when the tooling does need sharpening, I can do it quite simply (single point tooling).

I'm still finding modelling uses for the Adept and whilst I wouldn't want to machine large surfaces on it (that's why I purchased the 7" Atlas) it can cut, engrave and 'shave' small parts better than I can by hand (anything that needs an accurate linear motion in fact). Have a good look at the site MichaelG originally pointed to (on page 1) and the model ships this guy builds. They are wonderfully detailed creations, the work of a craftsman. I spent several happy hours yesterday looking through his stuff (so thank you MichaelG).

He also describes the methods he uses to build them, including using a small shaper to machine a 'rotary' gear on a ship's gun carriage. See here for details; **LINK** It looks pretty neat to me.

Of course, I'm sure this work could have been done on a CNC mill too and if he was wanting to mass-produce his models, then I'm sure he would be using CNC to do so. But it's quite possible that the tools he is using (including the shapers) suit the work he's doing (and perhaps more importantly) the way he likes to do that work.

Regards,

IanT

I thought I posted THIS LINK to Edward's popular mechanics earlier. Obviously not - I got distracted reading all the old 1950s adverts - that was a time when anything was possible - even making a living from sharpening saws!

Some really good 'tips' in that issue as well, unfortunately it doesn't appear to be downloadable..

Neil

IanT,

Thanks for the moral support

I am increasingly sure that I want something "shaper-ish" ... although it may not end up looking quite like a conventional Shaper.

Incidentally, if anyone wants some good, succinct, notes about the shaper concept; look here.

MichaelG.

Neil,

That's a great link, thanks

MichaelG.

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[just about to send a PM]

I have a pdf of it in my files so it must be around somewhere. No idea where I got it though.

There was an engineering lecturerer (now long retired) when i was back at college doing a degree, who had worked as a toolmaker in america in the aerospace field. I asked him what he thought of shapers one day and he nearly had a fit , he absolutely despised them, said working with them was a complete pita and was glad when the widespread use of the vertical milling machine came in.

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Ronan,

Serious question ... did he say why?

MichaelG.

Michael

He did say he had several complex workpieces destroyed by cutting tools breaking and the remainder of the tool crashing into the job, like i said this was for aerospace work so the cost may have been an issue (piecework payments perhaps ?). I cannot say for sure if this was the reason for his hate of these machines and i suppose i will never know. I am indifferent to shapers as my experience of them is limited and i cannot make any comments on them one way or the other, but if they were so useful why have they been consigned largely to history in favour of the bridgeport and clones ? When i was finishing off my apprenticeship in a medium sized marine engineers there were rows of vertical mills, lathes, grinders, even some horizontal mills and a large planer (which i only seen used once for a very trivial job) but there was no shapers, they had been scrapped 20 years earlier.

Hi Guys
It was high flow milling that finished of the shaper where I worked .
Nobby

Thought I had put in a picture of M. Vautrin's miniature planer of the 1860s, I'll try again. Ian S C