Mill / shaper dilemma

I am having a rush of blood to the head and am considering disposing of my Boxford VM30 milling machine and replacing it with an 8 or 10" shaper.

If I do this what are the pros and cons?

My engineering life has included extensive use of both types, but I like shapers!

And no, I do not have the space for both.

Edited By charadam on 01/08/2017 21:13:40

No contest, keep the mill.

Bert

A mill can do 95% of what a shaper can, but not vise-versa...

How would you do this on a shaper? Or many other 'simple' mill tasks that are not just straight lines...

Looking at your posts I get the impression that the work you do would suffer if you only had a shaper... If I really had to choose, I would choose the mill - and I think the VM30 is a not to shabby mill!

Focus that rush of blood towards making the space for both!

Joe

Forgot to mention the Chipmaster lathe................

Yeah I think you're gonna get an oil and water response to this one, charadam, I would definitely keep the mill myself, perhaps if you had both that would be ideal.

Theres definitely more versatility from the vertical mill though. You can make some crazy form profiles with a shaper but you can only ever move this in a reciprocating motion.

You'd end up resorting to your lathe to do the milling your shaper wont do. I would consider this a specialist machine rather than a typical mainstay of the workshop. 

Maybe the best advice would be to sleep this one over and see if it still seems like a good idea in the morning! 

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 01/08/2017 21:39:19

I have had a life long love of shapers and in fact right now I have a shaper and no mill. Being honest with myself if it were one or the other then I would regretfully go for the mill. But a shaper can do lots of good stuff using ultra cheap tooling and you can't say that of a mill. Not an easy choice, it really depends on what tasks you need to do, analyse that and the answer will become obvious either way!

Andrew.

I will need at least 2 weeks to remember how I got the mill into the shop past the lathe!

Hmm.

Having a modest mill and a modest shaper, I would say only if using the shaper means more to you than what you do with it...

But there must be some reason why industry is overflowing with milling machines and shapers are like hen's teeth in most workshops.

Neil

The mill that a shaper best compares to is a horizontal mill. The shaper will machine nice flat surfaces without the need for lots of expensive facing cutters, as well as doing some other things that would require special cutters on a horizontal mill. However the shaper will not do some of the things that a vertical mill is very good for, such as pockets.

So my feeling would be that after a lathe, the next machine to have would be a vertical mill. Then after that, a shaper or a horizontal mill, especially if the latter came with a lot of good cutters. Of course a mill that can do both horizontal and vertical is a handy thing.

I've got three shapers, but also have a mill/drill, which gets quite a lot of use.

John

It should of course be the vertical mill - the shaper cannot replace it.

A powered shaper is a luxury in the home workshop, in that it allows the machinist a choice in how some work is undertaken. That choice will include the complexity and cost of tooling involved, the quality of finish desired and the degree of operator attention & time required.

But like most luxuries (once you've enjoyed them) they will be hard to give up.

Regards,

IanT

Cheap tooling - go for the shaper.

Drilling or boring - forget the shaper!

I have just put out feelers for a shaper, even though I have picked up a really basic manumatic one.

The Eng, tech, at the college I worked at twenty years ago, rather coloured my view of shapers - a jaundiced one - and until I watched Emma in her spareroom machineshop making T nuts I had little interest in shapers. It has changed. She inspired me to try one. But a manumatic shaper is entirely different than running a powered version.

However, a mill will do far more than a shaper - curves and straight lines, as opposed to straight lines (normally)- so a vertical mill has to take precedence. Every time. A shaper set up can be left to chunter along, doing its thing - slow and reliable - while you get on with other faster jobs which must be watched. A bit like a mechanical hacksaw.

Just list the manipulations of each and cross off the common ones. Then decide if you can do without one or the other. It will be the shaper that is crossed off. But if you want to knacker your quill (or long travel) on your small hobby mill (or lathe) go ahead - but a shaper would do those jobs all day long with no detriment to the machine. Horses for courses!

Keep both, extend the shed!!

A milling machine can also double as a drill press. Do you have a drill press taking up room in your shed ?, If so, that space could possibly be used for a Shaper instead.

To be pernickety...

In theory, a 'pocket' can be 'shaped' between two holes (which I'm pretty sure John knows). Complex profiles (including involute gears) can be shaped across a work 'edge'. So it's not exactly a matter of what is 'possible' with the shaper - it's more about how 'easy' it is in practice.

Old time machinists were pretty ingenious in the ways they adapted their available machinery to get a job done - whether that was the lathe, mill or shaper. You only need to read some of Fred Colvin's books to get some idea of the kind of bodges that were often required in the small jobbing workshop.

So whilst many things are possible with a shaper (assuming you have the necessary skills), most will not be very practical unless you have no other choices. And in terms of the old time 'Shapers' - whilst I now qualify as 'old' (as defined by my Grandson) I certainly don't have the years of hands-on experience those guys had, which would certainly be the other pre-requisite for some levels of shaper work and I'm afraid that many of those skills have probably now been lost forever...

So - you can turn on a mill, shape on a lathe and even saw with a shaper (if you really need to) but fortunately most of us don't need to....

So it's back to the vertical Mill then....

Bedtime...

IanT

Edited By IanT on 01/08/2017 23:37:07

I love my shaper, so much so, that It was one of the few machines that I shipped half way across the world. Wish I had also brought my Clausing lathe and other tools here; but that's another story. If you have the opportunity to acquire a good shaper, go for it. They're not making them any more, and like other quality machinery of yesteryear, becoming more difficult to find as time goes by.

What we really need is a modified shaper with an interchangeable milling head on it, so you can get the best of both worlds

No contest, keep the mill!

Tony

Practicality rules; mill is tops for me.

George.

I have both, a Boxford 8" shaper and a Chester 626 mill.

The mill is used almost daily whereas the shaper is used at most once per month, but I still have it and it does produce a lovely flat finish.

If you can find the space then go for both but if you can only have one the go for the mill

Mike

Never had a shaper,so dont know too much about them,but they seem to have gone out of fashion in most workshops since the vertical mill arrived,so that appears to leave very little choice.

Either stick with the mill or knock out the end wall !