I've been a shaper nut for about 17 or 18 years now. I've owned 7 shapers that ranged in stroke for 4 to 24 inches and still own 4 of them. I also own 3 planers. The early planers and shapers had a variety of drive systems including Scotch yoke, Whitworth quick return (which became the only drive on mechanical shapers in the 20th century), rack and pinion, screw drive and hydraulic. The rack and pinion and screw drives were belt jumpers, where the belt was moved from one pulley to another to change direction. Rockford was the company that did hydraulic shapers and planers. As for the shaper moving problem, the 24" Cincinnati that I bought had a rolling subframe built for it with screw jacks built onto the corners. I made 3" square plates for the screws to fit into with divots for the screws to set in. I also put a knurl on the bottom side of them using one of my other shapers. It will run at the recommended speeds for the machine without moving. It also went through a 7.1 earthquake and didn't move. Some of the heavy items I had on rubber feet did move during the earthquake. I bought my shapers back before they got really expensive. My advice if you want a larger shaper is to get one as modern as possible. A lot of the older (think 1920 or so and older) have square ways on the ram and are probably worn with no way to easily adjust for it. Another reason to look for modern shapers is that they often come with power rapid crossfeed, which makes them a dream to run. Once you've cranked the table across a large shaper a few time, this amenity is much appreciated. Power table raise/lower is also available on some modern machines. I purchased my shapers back before they got this expensive. I sold the two antique machines for little more than I paid for them and recently sold the Atlas 7b for 3 times what I paid for it. I don't currently plan to sell any of the remainder (I havn't even finished machining the Martin Strong Arm), so their current worth is not a huge concern. I think the steady uptick in price is simply supply and demand. Certainly Abom helped out with the demand, but small shapers were pretty high before that. Unless you want to start importing Chinese shapers, the supply is limited and and the demand has grown. They still make new shapers in China and India as there is still a comercial market in countries with much lower labor costs. I think there was a post either here or the site that only allows shapers and planers in their antique machine forums of one of the members visiting Vietnam and seeing shapers in use in small repair shops. That's enough rambling for now.
