Perfecto 5” hand shaper

[Mark Knight 4Participant @markknight4]

I’ve inherited a Perfecto 5” hand shaper from my father who inherited it from his father who had it from new in the 1950s. It is in great condition but is missing the tool carriage ball crank handle. Would anyone that has one of these machines be kind enough to measure up the handle and produce a detail drawing such that I can make a replacement?

[Mark Knight 4Participant @markknight4]

Tool crank handle dimensions

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Mark,

Mine is a motorised Perfecto but the downfeed arrangement looks the same according to the pictures on this site:

Perfecto shaper stuff

At first glance, it looks like the Rabbi has been at your downfeed screw! I'll have a look and measure up tomorrow morning and let you have some details if you haven't been offered anything else by then.

John

[Mark Knight 4Participant @markknight4]

Thanks John, that’ll be a great help. I’ve got a Myford Super 7 so should be able to turn it up.

[egaParticipant @ega]

Mark Knight 3:

I have the powered version and am in the process of setting it up on a stand:

Some time ago I replaced the original tool slide handle with a Myford ML7 type which I thought was better-looking than the original; I also made a new end bracket.

If you decide not to make your own you will be welcome to the original if I can find it.

PS Your clapper box looks as if it might be fabricated as opposed to broached?

Edited By ega on 17/06/2020 23:03:10

[Mark Knight 4Participant @markknight4]

Thanks ego, if you can find your old handle I’d certainly be interested. I’m not sure what my grandfather did with the tool post but it is certainly different to all the photos I’ve seen of these machines. It works ok though.

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

There you go, Mark – two better offers! But just in case ega's handle has gone permanent walkabout or you don't fancy a Myford one, I've made a quick sketch of mine. I have had to approximate the radii of the twirly bit as I didn't have an easy way to measure the curvatures, so you can suit the design to your own requirements. I've done the dimensions in decimal inches, too, so that I can use my calipers. (I normally work in metric.) It looks like your graduated dial is thicker than mine (at 0.385inch)  so that might explain the shortened appearance of the attachment thread.

HTH,

John

Smiley removal edit

 

Edited By John Hinkley on 18/06/2020 09:58:15

[egaParticipant @ega]

Mark Knight 3:

I'll try to find it. If I'm unsuccessful you have that excellent drawing.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

It was good of John to go to the trouble of measuring and drawing his ball handle. Mine is quite rusty and needs cleaning up but every time I look at it I am offended by its sheer ugliness, perhaps because the balls are not actually spheres, as shown in John's photo.

Tubal Cain gave us some proportions for nice looking ball handles:

Stay well,

Rod

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

A good incremental readout is beneficial for a machine operated by hand. The thread pitch on my shapers were designed for when I was much younger, I feel!🙂

I think that it will likely work best when the cutting edge of the tool is directly below that nut on the side of the clapper box.

That is a great little hand shaper. Something to cherish as well as use.

[egaParticipant @ega]

Mark Knight 3:

No joy thus far in locating the Perfecto ball handle; if it turns up I'll post again.

I did find the Myford slide from which I co-opted the handle in my photo and confirmed my recollection that the central thread is 1/4" BSF (not shown in the drawing?).

GHT also provided guidance about ball sizes/proportions in his Workshop Manual. I would guess that the originals were done rapidly and skilfully by hand turning.

[BazParticipant @baz89810]

Silly question, which way should the large gearwheel rotate on the powered perfecto shapers. I have recently acquired a seven inch model, but can find no information about direction of rotation. Does it matter or is there a correct way, at the moment I am thinking it should rotate clockwise when viewed from the pulley end.

[Mark Knight 4Participant @markknight4]

Thanks John, that’s brilliant, I certainly wasn’t expecting a CAD drawing!

The graduated dial in mine is 0.382” thick so the same as yours bar the manufacturing tolerance. The reason there is no thread sticking out is that it broke off and I guess is still inside the lost handle. I’ve spent the morning restoring thIs thread. I found a 10-32 UNF bolt and welded the threaded portion to the end of the lead screw spindle. I then turned it down to blend with the spindle that sits inside the graduated dial. Very pleased how it turned out. Needed to true it up in the 4 jaw chuck as the 3 jaw gave too much eccentricity.

One question regarding the handle, does the handle part screw into the ball or is it located by a grub screw?

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Baz,

That made me think! Having thunk, I had to go and check. Mine rotates as you surmised, in a clockwise direction, as viewed from the drive pulley side. Because the ram is directly connected to the rotating gear wheel, there is no slow cut – fast return motion imparted by a "conventional" rocking lever system. It therefore doesn't matter which way it rotates, in effect the only difference will be the direction of the automatic crossfeed will be reversed, catching out the unwary.

John

Martin,

Your latest post crossed with this one.  On my machine, there is no sign of a grub screw to retain the handle, so I assume it merely screws on.

Edited By John Hinkley on 18/06/2020 13:52:25

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

To be honest, I find a wheel to be better than a handle – particularly if shaping vertically – as they are much more easily advanced by small increments.

A handle if you want to keep it original, but a wheel to be more practical, IMO.

Handles were sized with balls such that the overall handle was balanced – not so important when spinning horizontally, perhaps?

Arc have a rotating handle for £6 in their clearance items. I recently got round to adding a handle to my tailstock wheel – where spinning with a handle is handier than winding a plain wheel.

[egaParticipant @ega]

Mark Knight 3:

Your latest photo incidentally shows the clapper box construction; a neat solution to the problem of making an accurate square hole. I assume the slot is sized so that a standard tool bit is just gripped by the bolted-on strap.

I think the answer to NDIY's point about the pivot point of the clapper box is that given the overall dimensions of the parts it would be difficult or impossible to have the tool point trail the pivot.

[Mark Knight 4Participant @markknight4]

Made some good progress today working from your drawing John. I don’t have any form tools or a tooling jig for producing sphericals so what I did was formulate coordinates using Excel. I calculated horizontal dimensions at 5 thou radial increments. This then smoothed out nicely as shown below.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by ega on 18/06/2020 14:35:08:

….

I think the answer to NDIY's point about the pivot point of the clapper box is that given the overall dimensions of the parts it would be difficult or impossible to have the tool point trail the pivot.

haperSlideClapperBox.jpg">HERE is one method of arranging a single point cutter to cut beneath the clapper box (pic from Wiki). There are also opportunities with cranked one-piece cutters.

I’m not entirely sure of the optimum cutting edge position but many diagrams show swan-neck cutters as preferable.

Edited By not done it yet on 19/06/2020 19:20:11

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Mark,

That handle is coming on a treat. Glad to have been of help I'm certain you will anyway, but be sure to post a picture of the finished article.

As for the debate around the cutter edge and clapper pivot point, Stefan Gotteswinter on YouTube used to have a shaper which he ran so that the tool cut on the backstroke such that the chips went towards the machine instead of pinging all around the workshop. I forget his reason, maybe it was merely to help to keep the floor clean? Would that satisfy the requirement? On the Perfecto, for reasons stated in one of my earlier posts, it would only require the tool to be reversed in the clapper box. Or have I missed the point?

John

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

John, it can be hard enough pulling the handle without pushing it on the cutting stroke, for handraulic operation. My elbow would not hold out for long if I did that.🙂 Might be OK for a powered machine, mind. The feed advancement would also need to be reversed as well.

Edited By not done it yet on 19/06/2020 20:15:23

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

John The clapper box appears to be pivoted as they usually are so  pushing wouldn't work

Edited By roy entwistle on 19/06/2020 21:15:39

[egaParticipant @ega]

NDIY:

Did you mean the first photo in the Wiki? Hard to be sure but it was not clear to me that the tool point was immediately below the pivot point.

A further "point" is that on my machine, at least, the tool slide is itself pivoted on a small spigot in the plane of the ram and other wise retained only by the bolt in the arcuate slot; reversing the thrust of the cut would be undesirable and possibly even break the casting.

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

To respond to the above points:

NDIY – I appreciate that the force required will probably preclude the "reverse cut" method. I was merely proposing that as a possible solution. Like I said, my machine is powered so that I don't over-exert my ancient limbs!

roy entwisle – I had to go back and find Stefan's video here to remind myself that I wasn't dreaming it. He appears to be using a modified clapper box so that the tool cuts on the backstroke.  Compare this to his earlier "first cuts" video where the clapper box/tool relationship is conventionally arranged.

ega – see the video referred to above. The modified clapper box would seem to have the tool cutting edge nearly, if not exactly, below the pivot. I agree that the Perfecto would most likely be adversely affected by altering the cutting direction for the reasons you stated.

John

 

Edited By John Hinkley on 20/06/2020 10:15:11

Edited By John Hinkley on 20/06/2020 10:15:41

Edited By John Hinkley on 20/06/2020 10:16:27

[egaParticipant @ega]

John Hinkley:

Thanks for the link to Stefan G's video. I think that on that very nice shaper of his he has simply locked the clapper box, a facility which Duplex refer to in their book but which is not available as standard on the Perfecto.

On our machine it might well be possible to extend the 1" square section block that holds the tool bit so as to project below the tool slide and to hold an alternative tool bit on the back of this which would bring it behind the pivot point.

Edited By ega on 20/06/2020 11:09:12

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

At least your dials are graduated. The dials on my Adept No.2 had to be graduated. The 10 tpi cross feed was easy, 100 divisions. The 16 tpi downfeed looks odd with 62 equally spaced divisions, and then one half size one.

I can see the logic of wishing to cut on the backstroke, since the cutting forces operate against a much greater mass,

But with the conventional clapper box, the tool can lift rather than trying to cut.

Does it matter much if the cutting edge is forward of the clapper box pivot point, as long as everything does not flex noticeably? The objective is to push the tool through the work to cut material.

It can be argued that having the cutting edge forward of the pivot increases the leverage, so decreasing the force required to lift the tool and its holder on the backstroke.

Howard

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