I’m thinking of getting a medium-sized shaper. Convince me out of it.

[Duff MachinistParticipant @duffmachinist36701]

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Duff – 

Make sure you’ve plenty of room in your car then, for if the jig-borer’s still here it has a moderately hefty Taylor-Hobson pantograph engraver for company, and yours as well for a modest consideration!

It’s dismantled but all here apart from needing a new belt. I really don’t have space for it, unfortunately.

 

Doesn’t our beloved hobby like to to sprawl across all the room available?

[Duff MachinistParticipant @duffmachinist36701]

Thanks Nigel. I’m sure it will be gone before my next trip to Poole, but if not, I will be contacting you. Yup, sprawl is a good term for a workshop in general.

All the best, Duff.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I also know where there is a shaper burried in someones garden as they could not interest anyone in having it so bring a spade as well.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

I’ve had 2 shapers – I love shapers – but both went to better homes. One was sold on, the other given away. If my hobby was focused on machine tools, I’d have a collection of them; but I try to be a builder, so the delightful sound and smell and sight of a shaper, as wonderful as it is, is replaced by a whirring sound and often ear protection. 😐

[Duff MachinistParticipant @duffmachinist36701]

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

If you find a shaper in the workshop of anyone who is doing it for a living I’ll be most surprised. There are still a few slotters around, a sort of shaper stood on end, much easier to set a flywheel up for chopping a keyway.  However, if I had room I’d still have one, I’m not trying to earn my living and the noise is therapeutic. Jason’s feeds and speeds seemed very conservative to me, and as others have said, you can set it going and leave it to if if you have end of travel switches.

However I don’t have room, so don’t inundate me with offers. Planers were often converted to plano miller’s, I definitely don’t have room for one of those.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

[Andrew CrowParticipant @andrewcrow91475]

On my rather old 10 inch shaper I would probably take two cuts, the first at 0.100 and 0.005 feed rate and a second cut of 0.025 with the same feed rate.

So about 8 minutes actual cutting time plus a bit for winding back and resetting tool depth.

I wouldn’t expect to get anywhere near the surface finish or speed that you can get with a modern milling machine and carbide insert tools. I only have a light vertical mill so removing large amounts of waste material takes time anyway.

But, for me time isn’t critical (even though at my age I’m running out of it pretty quickly) when I’m blocking up particularly on castings I just regard it as being a cheaper option on tooling and probably quicker for me in some cases.

I also find it rather therapeutic watching a shaper cutting of big curls of steel.

Andy

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Didn’t realise the hobby was about how quick you had to be in the workshop, just have fun with what youve got.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Although you may be able to take a heavier cut the actual metal removal rate in a time period is probably less, certainly is if you compare my figures with a lightweight benchtop machine to how long it would take Andrew. It is just smaller amounts per pass but more passes which still  total less time.

With the mills the OP is looking at tilting the work to do an angled face would not be an issue

This video says it is an Elliot “working Hard” I make that about 1 stroke every second, depth of 1mm looks about right but no way is he stepping over 0.5mm as the cut would have been 57mm wide in the length of the video, more like 0.1mm per stroke as he only covers about a 12mm width.

I could happily do a 1mm deep x 12mm wide cut 10″ long on the little SX2.7 in about 40 seconds. If I wanted to go wider then I could do 10″ x 2″ wide in the same time it has taken him to do 12mm wide. Tell me which is the heavier MMR.

The ones being used in India are likely all old machines that were moved on to the third world by companies that replaced them with better more productive machines

 

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

I find it a bit of a shame that us model engineers with a manual only shop always seem to be shot down by Jason who seems to think that an all chinese cnc workshop is the only way to go, all us others are luddites. We all do different things on different machinery, there is room for all of us.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Really, I don’t have a fully CNC workshop most of what I do is on manual machines. Feeds talked about here are for a manual mill not a CNC, look at my Kelsey build for beginners do you see any CNC there? I could have made parts for that engine on the CNC but I used files and a vertical slide etc for what could have been on a CNC.

[Duff MachinistParticipant @duffmachinist36701]

I think Dave gets me quite well, and has the same thinking.

My need for that shaper is borderline, and even the engineering books of the very early part of the 20th century were saying the same, as milling machines were already beginning to replace them back then. Part of the interest (intellectual rather than emotional) in one is that I don’t like to see well designed and well made machines being lost to history or the scrappy, but I would want to use it rather than have it as a museum piece. I’ll leave the static displays to the actual museums. I appreciate the design and function and their development as part of engineering history, so having a live working “dinosaur”, albeit still well adapted for the jobs it was designed to do, is not a bad thing for me personally; the mileage of other people does vary of course. …and yes, if one has the space (which I do), and they’re cheap, why not.

Nonetheless, a mill will take priority over a shaper, and for the latter, I’ll have the luxury of waiting for a good one to pop up. There are a few good German and French makes available over here, distance allowing.

By the way, I did ask the question what the least noisy mill was. I think this should be asked in a separate post, so will put some thought to that – “advantages and disadvantages of an electric, belt run thingy to a top-end, gear run thingy”, but I’ll search the forum first 😉

 

Cheers, Duff.

 

[IanTParticipant @iant]

“People name their cars…”

That’s because I love my Juilie Dave and when I drive her, she loves me back!  🙂

 

IanT

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

I just want to point out that Stefan Gotteswinter has a shaper. If it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for us 🙂

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

But he does also have at least 1 mill, would he be able to do all that he does so easily without a mill?

[RobCoxParticipant @robcox]

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

If you want a machine that you can set up and leave to get on with the job then surely these days a CNC mill is the best way to go.  A shaper will be another boat anchor for one’s dependants to try to dispose of (probably pay for) when one is promoted to the great workshop in the sky, whereas a CNC mill is more likely to find a buyer.

[Duff MachinistParticipant @duffmachinist36701]

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