what could I use a shaper for...

Cut the dovetails in 4140 for the tool holders, and the really hard mystery metal in the body of the QCTP on the shaper. Wouldn't even have attempted the body with a HSS dovetail cutter on the mill.

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Cutting racks for the drive on a CNC plasma table.

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Lets see you do them on a mill.

Greg

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I'm thinking it would be useful for cutting grooves similar to broaching a keyway but not a keyway. At least that's what is on my mind at the moment. Someday I hope.
Dave
 
Guess I'm not the only one with a shaper DRO (Greg). I've said many times shapers eat rust, shapers cut gears- shapers can mill and drill with attachments
shapers can produce a mirror finish you can shave with. Shapers save on end mills. Most smaller ones are single phase. But be advised even may be a small
one, they are in the top 5 of most dangerous, small and cute they pack a powerful punch. Shapers can use rotary tables spin indexes chucks you name it...
However I suggest the biggest you can find (usually big ones are cheaper) the small ones hang around from 400 and up to big bucks. I wish I could find
a 36 inch Cincinnati, but I may have to buy a fire truck too, cause they are mean and bad.


sam
 
I have a Swedish Varnamo 13" shaper and it is a facinating machine. I would not like to have it smaller. Grandchildren also love to see it in operation.
I must admit that I have not used it much, mostly because I'm in the very long process to make all the work holding bits and pieces and making it more accurate.
It does many things, but you need the support pieces and all the different tool holders and things like that before it is really useful.
The following link is for a LOT of info on shapers:

http://neme-s.org/Shaper Books/shaper_book_page.htm

I have mosly been using the 'Shaper Work', wich is a part of the 'Vocational Training for War Production Industries' from the 'University of the State of New York State Education Department. Bureau of Industrial and Technical Education.'

The title and description is a mouthful, but it is very good. I doubt modern teaching policies could produce anything like this :)

http://neme-s.org/Shaper Books/Shaper Work/Section 00 Introduction and Index.pdf

Good luck with your shaper!

Kai
 
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I agree with everyone else....they're a really useful machine, cheap tooling, fun to watch em peel off big chips. I'm no expert but if you look for one, especially a larger one, try and find a newer one they had some improvements. My 20" g&e (pat. 1913) doesn't have any kind of clutch and there isn't an oil reservoir in the bull get compartment so no pressure lube. And no power feed on the vertical axis which I think the later ones had. I'm sure I could've got a later one with the improvements when we got this one-for not much more $ if any. Back then they went for scrap price. But we didn't know much about em and there was no hobby machinist forum to get questions answered lol. Just a couple things to think about.
 
mce5802 said:
I agree with everyone else....they're a really useful machine, cheap tooling, fun to watch em peel off big chips. I'm no expert but if you look for one, especially a larger one, try and find a newer one they had some improvements. My 20" g&e (pat. 1913) doesn't have any kind of clutch and there isn't an oil reservoir in the bull get compartment so no pressure lube. And no power feed on the vertical axis which I think the later ones had. I'm sure I could've got a later one with the improvements when we got this one-for not much more $ if any. Back then they went for scrap price. But we didn't know much about em and there was no hobby machinist forum to get questions answered lol. Just a couple things to think about.
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I too have always liked shapers, always had one in my business; when I sold the business to a "kid", he did not want it, so I took it home along with a bunch of other machinery, including a 6" Pratt & Whitney vertical shaper, a wonderful piece of machinery! My horizontal shaper is a 1957 G&E (Gould & Eberhardt, which is about as modern as a shaper gets; it is a 20/24 industrial universal model, that is, a 24" stroke on a 20" frame; the vise/ worktable tilts in both planes, and it has automatic feed on the saddle vertically; the vee ram is hard chromed, has 16 speeds, all pressure lubed. Instead of a mechanical clutch, it has an electric clutch and electric brake, which has proved to be more sensitive than any mechanical clutch on a shaper that I have run. On thing that I recently did with it was to make two tapered gibs for two repair jobs on milling machines that I did for customers; I held a permanent magnetic chuck in thae vise and tilted the table and indicated the old gibs until I zeroed them out and took the new gibs and used the stop at the end of the chuck so it would not slip under the cut and bplcked the far edge with parallels to prevent the cut from pushing it aside, took light cuts and ended with a gib that took little scraping to fit the machine.
Since we talk of shapers, a recent find was a shaping attachment for my Brown & Sharpe #2 universal (light type)milling machine; I have it in operating condition, but have not used it as yet; the advantage that it may have over the P&W vertical shaper is that it swivels to any angle from vertical to horizontal (actually, 360 degrees).
 
eightball said:
We used to have a shaper at work. Forgot how much I loved running it. Their not real fast, but they sure are versatile. Plus they save a fortune on tooling. Just good old hss or cobalt tools is all ya need. We used to cut keyways, dovetails, long tapers,etc. It was a mechanical marvel to watch it run.
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My first job in the shop was running a big shaper with cross and down feed. First needed tool was shaper parallels cost a fortuune like $10.00 in 1961. One could hog of .500 + 1/4 inch feed per cut if you could hold it in the vice. One day the boss came out of the office said" look here guys this is called a Future Mill" within a few months the shaper had cobb weds on it. Sad times. Tom Bell
 
My first job in the shope was running a shaper used it to rough in die blocks ,strippers, big grooves in four poster die sets. One day the boss came out of the office and said" gather round guys I got supten to show yous, its called a Future Mill" Whin in a few weeks the big shaper had cob weds on it.

1961. Tom Bell 50 years in the shop.:applause:
 
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