Surface finish

Please can anybody help? This is the surface finish from my adept no2 powered shaper. There is no play in any of the gibs and I have ground the tool so it is as far back as possible. There is some free play in the lead screw. The surface is fairly flat. No play in the clapper box. Any advice would be welcome.

Gordon What material is it ? How much overhang has your tool from the tool post ? are the gibs on the table tight And try running the machine slower

Roy ( Mine is a Roy powered Drummond )

Happy New Year Gordon, Although I have been machining for over 50 years i have only used a shaper a couple of times and that was at Tech College so I'm not going to be much help except this will bring your post to the top again and someone with better knowledge may offer advice.

However even though you say all gibbs etc are tight the finish suggests a vibration somewhere or possibly the tool geometry is drastically wrong. What about the ram is there any play there at all?

Regards John

Hi Gordon
Looking at the photo is the the right side cut with the ram is out . indicating that there it play in the ram when extended . May be judder in the ram What shape of tool are you using
Nobby

A very happy new year to you all, thank you for your replies, had another go earlier and inserted feeler gauge strips {can be seen in photos} then changed tools to the carbide tipped tool on top of the vise and achieved the result as seen in the photo, as Nobby pointed out it may be judder. The bull nose tool would create more judder so i will recheck the ram at full extension. Again many thanks for your replies.

The job needs to be well supported on the underside. It is sometimes necessary to use shims or bits of paper to achieve this. When the job is ready for machining it should not feel hollow when tapped with a mallet. Colin

Gordon

- I could rarely achieve a satisfactory surface finish with a large radius tool in my powered Adept 2. For general surfacing I found a HSS V tool with a radius of about 1 to 1.5mm and very little top rake gave best results on most metals. I also found a carbide V tool would work quite well, even though they are not supposed to like interrupted cuts, though I prefer HSS. In another thread I said that I found a lack of rigidity in this machine, when the ram is close to maximum extension, even with fine cuts, and the gibs properly adjusted. By applying downward hand pressure to the ram this could be corrected. There is also quite a bit of vibration in the powered model, which would not be present in the original hand operated version.

Dave

Well, please don't shout me down but I adjusted the ram jibs......with the machine running .........and you could actually see the pattern changing. The work piece was tapped down and I tried pointed tools and rounded tools. Thank you Mark for your E mail. Would it be possible to send me the diagram of the tool?. The gears are a bit rough. Here is the result, considerably better. Each part is done with a different tool. Does anybody know how the large gear is removed from its housing? Thank you again.

Gordon,

... and presumably you still have all your fingers.

That's a Good Result

Please share any "Lessons Learned"

MichaelG.

All fingers still intact and strangely the gibs were released as opposed to tightened. reground the tool as suggested and tried again. Significantly better finish. I will see if it is possible to rebush the gears to reduce play and vibration, I will persevere with this strangely addictive tool.

If that's the tool your using, then throw it away and try a "V" shaped tool with a good positive radius top rake, the rake in the photo is almost negative, which gives the swarf curl no where to go. Tools should be razor sharp with the tip stoned or lapped with a diamond hone. The chips should be lifted away from the parent material, I think the tool your using would tend to gouge the metal away as the tool is fighting against the mechanical forces. Start with slow ram strokes and table feed and build on these when the tool and surface finish are improved. At the first sign of vibration, stop, adjust the depth of cut, stroke and feed rates

Gordon,

I use this type of finishing tool in my hand-powered Adept.

http://youtu.be/-CWGScRNXfw

I use a roughing tool to within a few thousanths of an inch of the finished dimension, and then finish with this tool taking no more than 0.001 to 0.002 of an inch cut at a time. The resulting finish has been remarkably good for such a simple machine.

Gordon

.

That's lovely !

... I have made it a clickable link

Great finish, and ribbons of swarf like a skilled wood-turner gets.

MichaelG.

Hi Gordon & Guys
A HSS tool bit like this one gives me a good finish on my Drummond hand shaper
Regards Nobby 

Edited By Nobby on 01/01/2014 17:35:10

Hello Gordon,

Looking at your second picture, there's quite a large 'step' at the top of the test piece which suggests to me that you are taking quite a hefty cut. Is it possible you are driving the shaper a bit too hard?

Neil

Have used the shear tool on my lathe to finish stainless steel with good results thank you for jogging my memory, I had forgotten all about it. I recycled my round nose tool to a sharp point and gave it a go, depth of cut for the point tool about 15 thou not a huge depth but big enough it did cut well, then used the shear tool taking of about 1 thou and produced nice curly shavings. Finish although not perfect was much better than previous finishes, so more steps in the right direction thanks to all your advise. I will, as said earlier have a go at re bushing the gears as there is a bit of play in this department. the pictures show my attempts at tool grinding. Not text book but functional.

Hi Gordon and welcome to 2014!

It's always hard to offer good advice from just a short description and the odd photo. My initial reaction was that you were trying to make too large a cut with a 'finishing' tool and that there might also be some form of slippage in your "drive train" as a result.

You seem to be moving in the right direction with respect to tooling (your 'V' shaped tool is a good start) and I would suggest that you look next at the speed you are running the Shaper at (try slowing down), together with the ratio between the 'feed' rate versus the depth of cut. I'd suggest you try slightly wider feeds with shallower cuts to begin with (as opposed to a shorter feed and a deeper cut). Until you can get a fairly good finish using the V tool, I wouldn't worry too much about using 'finishing' tooling - they are exactly what the name suggests - for finishing.

I would also check for any movement of the ram (when extended) by clamping a DTI to it and seeing how much movement you have (similar check to gripping a bar in a lathe's 3 jaw and seeing how much movement the headstock bearings will allow). There will be some movement but hopefully not excessive. You should really only adjust the gibs when the slide is disconnected from the drive and it can be moved freely (and I don't know if this is possible for the powered Adept).

Finally, the finish will also be a function of the type of material you are trying to cut Try various materials and see if things improve..

In summary, I would suggest that you "fault find" by only changing one thing (variable) at a time, looking for any changes in the cut quality and keeping notes as you go. 'Trial and Error' will work for you, provided you are methodical.

Regards,

Ian T

Oh, and I'd also look at some way to lock the downfeed - it might be moving under the cut and is one potential cause of problems that you can easily eliminate from your list of possible causes.

Regards,

IanT

Certainly seems to be some movement there

I got an adept a while back and my first ever shaping job looked great, the left hand side is shaping, the right hand side is milling

I would guess you have a ram issue, since the wavy lines seem to have a constant structure

Use a sharp tool and take fine cuts

Once you suss it out  the finish looks almost ground, shapers are a fantastic tool and give you almost perfect squareness whenever you need it

Edited By Ady1 on 02/01/2014 10:22:52

The Adept has an auto feed of over 5 thou per stroke so the area of the cut is about 120 sq thou. That is a lot for a finishing cut and I don't think anyone would try that on a lathe or mill as a finishing cut. Owing to the feed rate the tool needs a flat on the end of say 10 thou or a curve of significantly larger radius.