Smith & Mills Shaper Restoration and Oil System Redesign

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The story that I got with this Smith & Mills shaper was that it was out of high school wood working shop in Missouri. It had been there longer than anyone could remember, and as far as anyone knew it hadn’t run in that shop. When the school closed the shops, it became available at auction. The gentleman that bought it had a large machine shop and always wanted a shaper but never had one. I guess at some point the novelty wore off and the space became more valuable than the machine. That's when I picked it up.

Originally its insides were all open. It had an oil can that dripped oil onto moving parts. I got rid of this and enclosed the base, plugged many holes, and added a pressure lubricating system to all moving parts. And a one-shot lubricating system to the ram. I even made my own meter valves. I rebuilt the vice which improved the machine’s accuracy. I remade some internal pins, bored and sleeved the sliding block, and made an oil catch guard for the rear of the ram and a few other things. It weighs about 2,400 lbs.

Originally, I wanted a larger shaper, but the light weight and compact size have turned out to be pluses for me.

 

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In this picture you can see the new pre-hardened vice jaws and their serrations which were ground on my surface grinder with a cutoff wheel.



In this picture you can see the magnetic starter that I added. Below it is the pump switch which must be on and running. When I see oil running through the sight glass, then the motor can be started. The motor won’t start unless these pumps are running first.



This picture shows the rear guard and oil catch pan that I made. It is made mostly of schedule 40 4” pipe. The one-shot oiler and piping are also in this shot. Each of the fittings that go into the ram ways are plugged with brass plugs which have been drilled with holes that are slightly larger the further away from the pump. This helps equalize the flow. One shot of the oiler distributes oil six places around the ram ways. There are also reservoirs and felts in the casting ways to hold oil.



In this picture you can see the primary drive gears. The motor gear is made of phenolic and floats on a key on the motor shaft. This is pretty effective at noise reduction and provides an overload failure point. The motor is 1,200 RPM.



Some pictures of the machine cutting.

 

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This is the sight glass that I made that allows me to monitor the pump oil flow.



In these two pictures you can see some of the internal oil plumbing along with the oil level in the bottom of the machine. This is where I made a new bottom between the upper and lower castings to hold about 3.5 gallons of oil. On the outside of the machine and on the backside of the pump switch enclosure is a timer which runs an oil heater on the bottom of this pan. When the shop has been cold overnight, this allows the machine to build a little warmth, because otherwise the shaper will build no heat. However, this ended up being a feature that I almost never use once I went to a Mobil DTE ISO 68 oil. The oil system ended up being a little more work than I envisioned. Getting an oil system to deliver roughly the same amount of oil winter or summer and deliver it in a timely manner took more experimenting and tweaking than I anticipated.



In this picture you can see oil draining from everywhere through the sliding block and through the bottom pivot pin. In the lower right-hand corner is the back of the oil sight glass.




This was my first (and so far only) shaper. I use it to square up drop stock and to get rid of rough hardened surfaces from flame cutting in preparation for milling. I’ve also made a few projects involving dove tails, key ways and a few other things. I kind of have to be willing to play around and waste a little time instead of just getting it done on one of the mills as I’m pretty slow at setting it up to do more complicated jobs. This was a fun project for me that I did in between some much more involved projects.

 

[682bear]

Very nice!

I have it's big brother... a 20" Smith & Mills. It's about 5500 lbs of cast iron.

-Bear

 

[FOMOGO]

The one machine I'm still looking for. You did a really, really nice job on this one. I can picture in what's left of my mind making the oiling system work properly. I imagine I will find one eventually, and hope I can do it as much justice as you have done to yours. Cheers, Mike

 

[Martin W]

Fantastik job on the shaper.
Martin

 

[tailstock4]

Very nice!

I have it's big brother... a 20" Smith & Mills. It's about 5500 lbs of cast iron.

View attachment 449077

-Bear

Thanks for posting the picture. Really nice shaper. Yours is actually more like what I had in mind until the one I have showed up available close to home. But it has worked out well.

 

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The one machine I'm still looking for. You did a really, really nice job on this one. I can picture in what's left of my mind making the oiling system work properly. I imagine I will find one eventually, and hope I can do it as much justice as you have done to yours. Cheers, Mike

Thanks. I hope you find one. I've found that machines have a way of finding me if I'm really looking.

 

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I remember the first time I saw a shaper running. It was in a power plant’s machine shop where I worked in the early 1980’s. There was a row of machines in the back corner of the shop – all facing the same way except one. It was a 28” Rockford hydraulic shaper. It was facing a cinder block wall maybe 8 feet away.

One day when it was whittling on a 12” block of steel, it must have been taking off close to a 1” depth of cut on every stroke. The chips would smash into the wall sounding something like hot 1” washers being thrown. The thing was the only exit on this side of the shop was just past this shaper. You had to time your exit carefully.

Shapers are mesmerizing things both in the mechanical action but also in the sheer power in which they do their work. I’ve never seen anybody who won’t stop and watch for a while.

 

[G-ManBart]

Wow...thanks for sharing! It looks absolutely beautiful and you did an incredible job!