EDGWICK 20" SHAPER

Have a look at these pictures of an Edgwick 20" stroke shaper that I bought yesterday,

It was made by Alfred Herbert of Coventry,

Havn't found a serial number yet, but hope to get a manufacture date for it sometime,

It will be a nice restoration project ( when I get to it ),

An interesting feature is that it has power feed on the vertical slide,

I hope to find a maintenance manual for it,

If anyone out there has any infornation on this machine, I would be very interested to hear from them.

I used to have a 30" stroke Elliott a few years ago, but now regret selling it,

I also have a 14M Elliot

Richard,

Bit of a lightweight... will it be up to much?

Neil

Neil,

It weighs about 1 1/2 tons,...........................I thought about making a clock with it.............

I don't want to overload it !!

Richard.

Should be fine with .005" deep cuts in aluminum and wood.....

Or 1/4" deep cuts in prehardened tool steel!

Congratulations on saving a useful veteran machine.

JD

Nice one.

1:12 model of the Forth Bridge maybe?

Do you per chance have a warehouse for a workshop?

That brute would fill a third of mine.

Had to decline JS's offer of a Bridgeport not only due to its size, but mainly because of the limited height a standard flat roof garage has - pity.

Geoff - Finger ready for its next adventure

Edited By OuBallie on 11/08/2013 08:22:19

Hi Richard

Nice shaping machine, puts my 10" Elloit in the shade, lovely machines to work with.

On your 4th photo there is an ratchet arrangement on the side of the ram, what's that for?

Power feed to the vertical slide?

Nigel

That looks a great machine, I do like shapers and have 5 of them but they are getting harder to find.

Your'e lucky to find something like your Edgewick and it looks complete too.

Is the small ratchet on the left side of the ram some kind of auto feed ?

Regards

Paul

Hello Nigel and Paul,

Yes, that ratchet arrangement on the side of the ram is the power feed mechanism for the vertical slide , it has a useful "on / off " control on the ram right behind the vertical slide, so you can control the down feed at will , while the machine is running,

Geoff, I have a 600 sq ft engineering machine shop that I run commercially, it sounds big but unfortunately is FULL , with machines , tools and equipment, probably a lot of it I don't need , but I am obsessed with old machines etc, and I like to give them a new lease of life if I can.

I used to be greatly involved with the overhaul and repair of pnuematic and mechanical forging hammers, this involved a lot of shaper work, to make anvil raising blocks, and hardened steel die blocks, which all had various shapes and sizes of dovetails on them so they could be attached to the hammers with fitted wedges , This was why I needed the 30" stroke Elliott shaper

So unfortunately I have no workshop space for this Edgwick shaper !  but that didn't stop me buying it !!     It'll probably have to live outside for the moment , and run it on a 3 phase extension lead,

I'll get it inside as soon as I can.

Richard

Edited By RICHARD GREEN 2 on 11/08/2013 13:10:18

If anyone's intertested, here are some pictures of the sort of thing I used to make for the forging hammers,

This part is an anvil block for a Samuel Platt " Hercules " 160 lb forging hammer,

It started as a 10" square cube of EN8 steel, The dovetails I have formed with the shaper are where the hardened steel die block fits in and is held in place by a fitted key , or wedge,

The dovetails taper 1/16" over their length, usually wider on the right hand side.

The lathe Is a Churchill Redman, 10ft between centres, that I used to have,

The EN8 block was left unhardened, but the die blocks that fitted into it were hardened hot working die steel, 5% Chrome.

The last two pictures show how It all fits together, on a similar hammer, made 1946.

Richard.

If it doesn't work, it would make a super mud weight for a 40ton yacht in Poole harbour.

Paul,

What are the 5 shapers that you have ?

Richard.

Richard,

My cast of Shapers in order of size:

Adept 2
Acorn (Atlas) 7" (1940's?)
Boxford 8" (1960's)
Alba 1A (1942 ish)
Elliott 10M (1970's)

Paul

Bump !

Has anyone got any info on the 20" Edgwick ( Alfred Herbert ) shaper,?

I havn't been able to find anything about it at all,

I have some pictures of identical shapers that have been sold at auctions over the last few years and also sold by dealers, but no information.................................

I suppose all the " Alfred Herbert " records have been disposed of.............................( Dumped )

Richard.

You may find that a different company made the same sort of shaper under a different badge

Butler, Royal etc, other British shaper manufacturers

Just a thought

BUMP................................................

Nice machine,should be able to do some serious work with it.

Talking about workshop size,when I had my garage/workshop built,I went for 800 sq ft inside in order to hold everything. Does it ? Well,more or less,usually less.My van seldom sees the inside and I often have to squeeze my way between machines and junk [good junk,might come in handy some time ] Still it,s all in a good cause,so I tell myself anyway.

Nice to find an old machine,a real machine,not a toy. Many happy hours with it !

Thanks Larry, My workshop is 600 sq ft, and it's full !

I recently bought a Kearns S type horizontal borer, and can't fit it in the workshop,

I'll have to get rid of some stuff to make room for it.

Richard.

"I'll have to get rid of some stuff to make room for it."

How big is your kitchen Richard?

Rik

I've finally got the Edgwick shaper into the workshop, what started as a quick clean up , oil change and "get going",

has escalated into almost a major overhaul !

The ram has a few score marks on the slides, so I removed it to scrape off any high spots and generally clean it up,

The inside of the main casting was filthy with old oil , water and general crud, so I removed the "slide arm" from the crank, so I could have better access to clean the innards,

I removed the "crusty" old v-belts that need replacing. Spinning the main drive shaft it was obvious the bearings were noisy,

So removed the main shaft assembly and removed the bearings, one wasn't too bad but the other was very "rattley", so I've ordered two new bearings, a set of 4 new v-belts, and a new chain for the oil pump drive,(should be here next week ).

There are two levers for the gear change, each has three positions located by a detent mechanism, one of the detents was siezed up and would not hold the gear lever in position, so off came the gearbox cover to sort that out,

Good job I did ................. as the gearbox had about 1 1/2" of oil, water and crud in the bottom.

I think the whole job will be very worthwhile, and make a nice machine when finished, ( a properly made English machine, made by Alfred Herbert of Coventry ),1950s or 1960s it's a pleasure to work on it.

Here are some pictures of things so far...................

Edited By RICHARD GREEN 2 on 01/09/2017 17:59:56

Very nice Richard - lots of smoking blue chips with that one!

Regards,

IanT