Building a Shaper experiences-

[ErichKeane]

That actually doesn't seem to be uncommon on commercial shapers, at least the small ones. I've watched a bunch of videos on different shapers and was surprised that several require getting into the machine's inner workings to adjust the stroke.

The Atlas 7B I watched a video on had external adjustments for most of the things which I liked. That said, I think I've been bullyed into making the Acto Super 8, which DOES have internal stroke adjustment. However I suspect the stepover adjustment being easily accessible is way more important on such a small shaper.

 

[Lo-Fi]

Cool, I'll give you a shout. I'm redrawing various parts in CAD, which means I can produce decent drawings we can work off for critical components. Adapting for imperial stock doesn't look to be difficult at all. Getting CAD to spit out imperial measurements is easy too, should you prefer.
The flywheel and crank arm drawings are particularity horrible, and I gave up looking at the stand. Luckily the stand and whatnot are not critical. As long as you get the general idea it's all good, so using imperial stock rather than metric won't do any harm. The bar stock all gets machined, so no big deal what size it comes in - you're all good there.

 

[frugalguido]

I would love to see you guys build this shaper. To me the internal adjustment isn't a big deal, on the Atlas you have to take off the side door to oil the sliding block/pivot points every time you use it anyway. For US based people you might try these people for laser cutting, their right a round the corner from me. They ship all over the county,

sendcutsend.com

 

[ErichKeane]

Cool, I'll give you a shout. I'm redrawing various parts in CAD, which means I can produce decent drawings we can work off for critical components. Adapting for imperial stock doesn't look to be difficult at all. Getting CAD to spit out imperial measurements is easy too, should you prefer.
The flywheel and crank arm drawings are particularity horrible, and I gave up looking at the stand. Luckily the stand and whatnot are not critical. As long as you get the general idea it's all good, so using imperial stock rather than metric won't do any harm. The bar stock all gets machined, so no big deal what size it comes in - you're all good there.

Oh great! I was afraid I was going to have to figure out CAD

I think I've figured out the stand, it seems pretty nice but the drawings are terrible. It DOES have some mount/adjustment for the column.

I was probably going to start with the stand as is, simply because it seems like good welding practice and intro to the plans themselves! I presumed just getting the outer dimensions right was most important.

Presumably the laser cut pieces will start as a different thickness for me as well, but I didn't really notice any that mattered too much.

I would love to see you guys build this shaper. To me the internal adjustment isn't a big deal, on the Atlas you have to take off the side door to oil the sliding block/pivot points every time you use it anyway. For US based people you might try these people for laser cutting, their right a round the corner from me. They ship all over the county,

sendcutsend.com

That's awesome! Thank you for the link!

 

[Aaron_W]

The Atlas 7B I watched a video on had external adjustments for most of the things which I liked. That said, I think I've been bullyed into making the Acto Super 8, which DOES have internal stroke adjustment. However I suspect the stepover adjustment being easily accessible is way more important on such a small shaper.

The Atlas does, I only point out that many don't because what appears crude on the Gingery may simply be practical. Shapers require a lot of lubrication, so you are going to get into the inner workings before starting work anyway, making internal adjustment less inconvenient than it first seems. It does sound like the Acto is a more refined design. I think the Gingery stuff is neat, but it does tend to have a bit of a Mad Max machine shop vibe to it.

Good luck with your project, and I hope you guys post build threads, to track your progress. I thought building a shaper was going to be the only way I would have one. The prices have gone crazy but they do turn up at reasonable prices occasionally,
Most assuredly you are setting yourself up to find the mother of all deals on a shaper, just as you finish your project.

 

[NCjeeper]

A nice complete Atlas 7B just got listed for sale on the PM forum. Asking $1700. A little bit of a road trip cause its in Texas.

 

[Lo-Fi]

I was probably going to start with the stand as is, simply because it seems like good welding practice and intro to the plans themselves! I presumed just getting the outer dimensions right was most important.

Sounds like a plan. The lovely thing about fabrication is if you stuff it up it's little work to rectify. Not like bozo-ing a casting where it's half a day of agony over how best to put it right. Grind it off, re-weld it! I reckon I'll freestyle my stand and motor drive to suit what I have to hand or can find easily. I'm way past falling into the trap of making something to drawing, then to find the thing it's supposed to mount isn't easily available over here. As long as the chain lines up and you get roughly the right ratios between the motor and flywheel it's all good.

Yep, got the CAD covered I'll produce some decent drawings for us to work off or it'll be painful. I 3D model then make drawings and a list of operations even for the little projects I do for myself. I've found it actually saves time and prevents a load of mistakes. It's s good sanity check that everything fits together too, I've got the flywheel and crank arm modeled up already:

I hope you guys post build threads, to track your progress.

The prices have gone crazy

Blame Abom79 hehe. There will be a build thread, for sure! I'll probably film and YouTube my build as it's something interesting and unique.

 

[ErichKeane]

Sounds like a plan. The lovely thing about fabrication is if you stuff it up it's little work to rectify. Not like bozo-ing a casting where it's half a day of agony over how best to put it right. Grind it off, re-weld it! I reckon I'll freestyle my stand and motor drive to suit what I have to hand or can find easily. I'm way past falling into the trap of making something to drawing, then to find the thing it's supposed to mount isn't easily available over here. As long as the chain lines up and you get roughly the right ratios between the motor and flywheel it's all good.

Yep, got the CAD covered I'll produce some decent drawings for us to work off or it'll be painful. I 3D model then make drawings and a list of operations even for the little projects I do for myself. I've found it actually saves time and prevents a load of mistakes. It's s good sanity check that everything fits together too, I've got the flywheel and crank arm modeled up already:

View attachment 324570




Blame Abom79 hehe. There will be a build thread, for sure! I'll probably film and YouTube my build as it's something interesting and unique.

That is great! 1 HP motors are pretty plentiful here, so I will likely just find an inexpensive one and use that.

I'm glad you're doing CAD I realize I probably spend a bunch of time in my shop trying to figure out shop drawings, but I use shop-time to escape my computer-job so doing CAD is the last thing I want to do.

That flywheel/crank arm model is fantastic! With these drawings, I'm absolutely sure your CAD work is going to help us immensely! After reading these plans, I suspect you'll be able to get money out of your CAD drawings for anyone who owns these plans and is trying to figure out what the heck is going on!

As far as a build thread, I'll definitely do THAT. I don't have anything but a cell phone for video/etc (plus no mount or anything), so I won't be doing youtube. I can still film hand-held though to show it off

 

[Lo-Fi]

Don't think I'll do the entire thing, just critical bits. Comes together quickly:



Worth the work, it'll save hours of head scratching in the shop - makes it that much more enjoyable.

 

[ThinWoodsman]

Thanks for the reviews on the Acto plans. I was considering getting them, mostly for perusal but partly with an eye toward making a hand-shaper one day, but it sounds like they do not make very insightful reading.

One of these days, I'll tackle the martin model hand shaper. Have a small Ammco but hey, the power goes out a lot 'round these parts