Shaper vs mill

Thanks Norton, that will be a great read,

Greg
 
Great for roughing cuts on abravise castings ,really ruff material, welds , rust or just hogging a lot of material off plus you sharpen you tool on your grinder.
Ron
 
Yeah, don't get me started about Apple.....anyway, I got it, thanks NortonDomini, that will keep me busy :)
 
I have several shapers both big and small, and I love them. That being said, if I had to choose between shaper and mill, I would take the mill. But unless you live in a small apartment, there's no reason to choose. And if you do live in a small apartment, you should think about getting rid of something so that you have room for both. The bigest advantage that the shaper has is that it uses cheap tools that are easy to sharpen. I think about that every time I break a $50 end mill.
 
I just bought a small shaper and I love it. It is very SLOW do do anything, but the advantage of using 1/4" HSS blanks, and its ability to do keyways easier than my big mill make it an asset.

If you can have only 1 machine, get a vertical mill. Even internal keyways can be cut on it (yes, I've done it!) It is a nice luxury to be able to also have a shaper: they are sexy (!) and do such nice work when used properly! :adore::cool 2:
 
Ok, being to nooB to feel stupid I going to ask. Everything in the vid makes sense except the dividing plates. Did he make them? Or are they for sale somewhere? As usual I'm also not sure what they are called if they do exist. I tried searches for plastic diving wheels, plastic indexing plates and only come up with the metal plates for diving heads. I guess you could use them but they are larger diameter which would change the whole design.
 
If you are speaking of the red plates then they are usually made by the user. That whole head is custom made and very well at that.

"Billy G"
 
Thanks Bill, that was quick. So you would need a dividing head to make them? Or I guess in this case, he has plastic versions of the gears and could use them as the index to cut the slots in the plastic, correct?
 
He 3d printed his, if talking about the video.
 
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