what could I use a shaper for...

[eightball]

I dont know what a "future mill" is but a horizontal boring mill replaced ours.
i loved running that shaper, I guess its just the mechanics of them that are so facinating.

 

[Dranreb]

'Whilst the milling machine has superseded the shaping machine, for many machining operations, especially on production, the shaping machine still has an important role to play on numerous applications.'

Yep they're still available new in three sizes get your checkbooks out!

http://www.ajax-mach.co.uk/shaping_machines.htm

Bernard

 

[mce5802]

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).

Wow that sounds like a Cadillac of a shaper. I didn't think G&E was still in business...almost 50 years after mine was built. Sure sounds like a good machine. I'm jealous.