The Homeless Shaper (G&E 20-24" Industrial Universal)

[G-ManBart]

Part 5:

In the last post I mentioned the lube flow issue. For reference, the lubrication pump runs any time the motor is running on this machine (a question I saw many people had). The short version is that when I would start the motor there was solid flow to the sight glasses, where lube sprays on the inside and the returns that form sort of a lube waterfall on the inside. After a few minutes the flow was down to a trickle everywhere. Turning off the machine for a minute or two, then starting again would repeat the cycle with strong flow that tapered off. I determined the filter/screen was the problem. I did some online searches and there really isn't much info out there on the lube system on these machines. A lot of it is actually wrong, but now I can see why people were confused. I'm hoping this post might help someone in the future.

When there isn't much oil in the sump you can easily see the oil filter/strainer. It's near the back of the machine, below the gears, mounted to a plate that goes across the width of the casting. There's also a piece of flat stock poking through the mounting plate that runs into the side of the machine where the gear selector is. Many people have commented that the oil pump must be under the plate and that the filter sticks forward from the pump. That's actually incorrect. The plate is just a mount for the strainer and the system that wipes/cleans the strainer each time you pull the clutch lever to activate the ram. The flat stock going to the gear selector area is the strut that actuates the wiper when you move the clutch lever.

The pump itself is mounted to the inside of the casting just below and behind the side access door. There are copper lines that go down to the filter. The diagrams are a bit confusing on what powers the pump, but it appears that it might be the shaft below the pump is geared to the input shaft driven by the main pulleys, and the bicycle chain is what rotates the pump.

I disassembled my filter assembly, ran the screen itself through the ultrasonic cleaner for about 45 minutes, then soaked it in acetone for probably an hour, blew it out with compressed air and then put it all back together. I reinstalled the assembly, fired up the motor and the pump was really putting out a lot of volume to the point it pulled the level of oil in the sump down at least an inch. I let it run for maybe half an hour and the flow never changed for the worse. I may have been imagining it, but I honestly thought there was more flow towards the end, and that could be the system flushing out old debris...or it was wishful thinking!

Here are some pics and videos of the filter assembly, the ratchet system it uses, where the strut attaches, and a shot of the pump (partially blocked by the copper lines, but it has the bicycle sprocket and chain on it).

 

[G-ManBart]

Non-Part Update Pic....chipped and scrapped more loose paint off the operator's side of the machine. It's hard to see from the pics, but it's way better in person now! A bit more scraping on the side, then on to the table, vise and chip tray which are all filthy.

 

[NCjeeper]

I used a needle scaler on mine. It made quick work of the old paint.

 

[G-ManBart]

I used a needle scaler on mine. It made quick work of the old paint.

That's exactly what I plan to do as well. Right now I'm just trying to get the really loose stuff off so I can work on it. Once I'm confident I've got all the mechanical stuff squared away I'll pull it off the trailer and set it in a temporary spot. It's going to be in the non-climate controlled side of my shop for a while. That's where I do all the messy work, but it'll be too cold for a strip and paint soon so I don't want to take it down to bare metal yet. I'm telling myself the current look as a retro-abstract splatter paint job...or something along those lines

 

[SLK001]

I disassembled my filter assembly, ran the screen itself through the ultrasonic cleaner for about 45 minutes, then soaked it in acetone for probably an hour, blew it out with compressed air and then put it all back together.

So, I take it that the filter assembly was the problem with the flow? Was the filter clogged shut?

 

[G-ManBart]

So, I take it that the filter assembly was the problem with the flow? Was the filter clogged shut?

The filter was the problem, but it wasn't completely clogged. If you go back to the first part of the post you quoted it gives the short version of the problem. Post #6/Part 4 I detail how I noticed the flow tapering off and how I determined where the problem was. The filter looked okay when I pulled it, but the holes are so tiny it's hard to really tell. It was definitely clogged enough that it wouldn't pass enough fluid to keep up with the pump. When I cleaned the sump there was a pretty solid mass built up around one side and the back of the filter, so I suspect some of that was in the filer as well...it was nasty!

I'm honestly not sure which part of the cleaning process worked....I hit it with compressed air and some carb cleaner when I removed it (largely just so it would stop dripping hydraulic oil), then the ultrasonic cleaner and the acetone bath.

 

[G-ManBart]

Part 6:

Not a huge update, but I continue to plug away at things. I pulled the vise off the table and found a couple of pounds of chips hidden in the T-slots. I gave the table a very quick cleaning and ran a non-abrasive wheel over it and it cleaned up pretty well. Part of the reason for removing the table is to help with balance when unloading it...it was clearly front heavy during loading, and the vise has to be 200lbs or so.

I've pretty much finished working my way around the entire machine with a scrapper and the shop vac to remove the worst of the loose paint. After than I followed with a wire brush and a variety of cleaners to remove the bulk of the dried grease/oil/dirt. It's still pretty dirty, but about 200% better than it was!

I ordered new 1/4" round wicking felt from McMaster-Carr and that showed up the other day. I went with the F3 density rather than the harder F1 density. My thought was the F3 is supposed to absorb more fluid than the F1, so that's probably a good thing in this application. I cleaned the sight glass recesses, packed them with new felt and popped the covers back on. One of the covers has a crack that leaks badly so I made a temporary plug out of acetal. I have to make a sight glass for the table as well so I ordered some 1/8" thick 1" diameter round clear acrylic and that should be here soon. I'll probably turn a couple of plugs out of aluminum that the clear acrylic will drop in.

I worked on the table oiling system and it turns out there is a Bijur meter in between the pump and the table, and that meter was plugged. I've read it's generally not possible to clean this sort of meter (similar to the meters used on one-shot oil systems). I found someone selling a bag of 6 on eBay....$13 with shipping was too good to pass up. I used compressed air on the table oil lines and also ran .025" welding MIG wire through the lines and they seem to be clear. I sprayed some WD-40 into the lines and then followed that with compressed air (yes, it sprayed on me a bit) and there was flow on the far end, so that's a good sign.

My next challenge is to get the vertical movement of the table free. I couldn't get it to move at all initially. I triple-checked that both the clamping strap nut and rail clamp were loose (table support is off as well). A couple of days spraying penetrating fluid with no change. I then carefully put a jack under the table all the way at the rear, close to the vertical ways, put upwards pressure on the table frame and used a 3lb hammer to tap on the bottom of the table and from the sides along the ways. I soaked it in penetrating fluid again and let it sit overnight with upwards pressure from the jack. Finally I saw a bit of movement and was able to crank the table upwards a bit. It still doesn't want to lower with the crank, so I'm letting it sit, soaked in penetrating fluid again rather than force things. I think this is one of those times where you get a little movement, soak it some more, get a little movement, wash, rinse repeat until it moves freely rather than use brute force.

I took a short video of the inside while running...lube is clearly flowing. You can see the epoxy putty repair on one of the lines. I'm going to replace that, but I figured I would wait to see if I have to replace any other lines first. If so, I'll replace them all at the same time.

To be continued...

 

[Ultradog MN]

Part 1:

It all started with a text from a friend on a Tuesday afternoon: "There's a 24" G&E shaper in Fraser (40 miles away) on FB Marketplace for $500. Has a nice table and vise on it too". This from a friend who knows I have the space to take in a shaper, even though I have a lot of other projects lined up. Still, I pull up the listing, look at the pics and read the description. Yep, another homeless shaper, living under a tarp behind a building in an industrial area in the greater Detroit area. The tarp was developing holes, and the pallet for a bed was crumbling. Even the rope holding the tarp down against the wind and rain was frayed and starting to fail. So many of these cases are hopeless, with missing parts, terminal rust and hardware laying loose around them, but someone in the past had given this shaper a thick coat of Cosmoline on the bare metal and the many coats of paint had kept the worst at bay. Maybe, just maybe, there was a solid machine hidden under the flaking layers of paint, dried preservative, grit, dirt and grime.

I've wanted a shaper for a while, but wasn't in a hurry to add another major project to my long list of projects so I decided to sleep on it, and was somewhat hoping someone else would jump on it. Then I decided to sleep on it again. A couple of days passed and it was still there, then it showed up in one of the machinery buy/sell groups on FB. I saved the listing pictures, watched more than a couple of YouTube videos on shapers (some I'd already watched), looked at online manuals and probably had a couple of dreams about shapers those couple of nights. Still, I held off sending the seller a note.

At one point I was texting back and forth with the friend who sent the listing and one of us said something like "it's like buying a big vise with a shaper attached to it" and suddenly something clicked. Other than the trouble of getting it, I could scrap the machine, sell the vise and probably double my money at current prices so there was no way to lose. On the flip side, if it could be saved I'd have a shaper and not have to go terribly far to get it. At that point I sent the seller a note. We agreed I'd take a look at it over the weekend, and waited for Sunday since it was raining pretty much all day on Saturday. I didn't want to deal with loading/hauling in rain and they say to never buy a used car in the rain, so that's probably good advice for shapers as well.

I got to where the machine was on Sunday and it turns out I'd met the seller at an auction pickup a few months prior. I was picking up a Clausing 8520 and he was picking up a Seneca Falls lathe. We actually helped each other a bit while loading because the location was cramped. I said the shaper was behind an industrial building, and wow, there was a bunch of stuff back there with it! A large (probably over 10ft bed length) lathe and a Monarch 10EE were under tarps right next to the shaper, there was other stuff under tarps I couldn't identify, and all of it was backed up to a 1940s crane that gets used to move all this stuff! The crazy thing is the shop is owned by the seller's buddy and inside he had so much stuff you could barely move. I counted three lathes, four shapers, a planer, welders, horizontal mills, vertical mills, a couple of small tractors, mini forklifts, a Blanchard grinder and stuff on pallet racking to the ceiling...a fortune in cast iron for sure. Back to the shaper...

The shaper is a Gould & Eberhard 20-24" Industrial Universal model, serial number 2110A6, which puts it at the very beginning of 1940. Over on PM one of the posters said that serial number 2104A was the last one for 1939. I'm hoping that a break for the holidays had the G&E employees well rested and doing their best work on my shaper! The seller claimed he saw the machine run before he bought it and then ran out of shop room, so it never got moved indoors. It's missing the crank handles and the vise handle, but appears otherwise complete with no damage that's obvious. He had cleaned off a bit of the preservative to show the ways still had flaking showing. At that point I handed him some money, his buddy fired up the crane, we backed my trailer under it, set it down and I put straps on it to/from all four corners. As I was doing this the buddy who originally sent me the text showed up to take a look and got the inside shop tour as well.

I headed home, driving carefully and hoping I didn't have a 5,000lb boat anchor in the trailer behind me! I managed to get home and decided to leave the shaper in the trailer to save time and help catch the debris during the initial cleaning. I backed the trailer into my shop, unhooked my truck and breathed a huge sigh of relief! The first pics are the ones from the FB listing, and the last two are on the way home when I stopped for fuel. I had taken the motor pulley cover off because it only had one bolt holding it and it would have been flapping in the breeze on the highway.

To be continued...

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Great score!!

 

[EricMenantico]

Looking good! It's nice to see such nice machines being saved!

 

[G-ManBart]

Part 7:

This isn't a huge update, since I've only done a bit more work on the shaper, but I'm still plugging away at it. I had to spend most of the last week rearranging my shop to move two lathes out of the cold storage area into the heated/cooled side before it gets much colder. I'm essentially combining the two lathes to make one keeper and one I'll sell and I plan to tackle that this winter. Mostly it's pulling the taper attachment off one, cleaning/painting it, and installing it on the other machine which is much nicer. Then my neighbor gave me a fork lift which isn't running and I had to get the front wheels freed up and give it a quick cleaning outside before I push it inside. I've seen it in use, but it sat for a couple of years and he borrowed a couple of engine parts for his mowing tractor which has the same engine. Like I needed another project?

The table vertical movement is really, really sticky. I don't have the correct crank for the table, so I shaped a piece of steel to fit the slotted end shaft and used a very large adjustable wrench to slowly crank the table up. I cleaned the upper surfaces and lubed them before starting. I then sprayed penetrating oil along the ways from every spot I could get to, let it soak and then cranked a bit, and repeated. As I uncover each section I'm removing dried oil/dirt/rust/grit that's like glue. My hope is that I'll eventually get the table all the way onto the upper sections I've already cleaned. At this point when I turn the table feed to lower it nothing happens....the system seems only designed to push up, and the table comes down essentially by gravity as you unwind the crank. I'm taking it slow rather than risk breaking something.

I got the replacement meter in for the table oil line, installed that and then reconnected the line to the table, made a new felt wick for the oiler and made a replacement oiler cover. I then ran the machine and was getting oil flow to the oiler, so that's a good sign. The flow to the lines on the table is very slow (intentionally) so I haven't run it long enough to know all the lines are clear, but I did snake them out with fine MIG welding wire, compressed air and carb cleaner, so I'm hoping they'll pass oil....we'll see.

One funny thing was the neighbor who gave me the forklift came over to use my press and got his first look at the shaper. He hadn't seen one in use so I fired it up. I had the side door off and he was watching everything move and said "wow, that oil looks really clean!" so I guess I did a good job cleaning the sump!

I've gotten to the point that the really dirty work is largely done so I'm getting ready to unload the shaper soon. I'm going to set it on three pieces of 4x4 cut to width and then use large lag bolts to screw the base down to the 4x4s. I'm doing this because it's initially going into a temporary home and I'll need to pick it up again soon. I think I can move it with a pallet jack if it's up a couple of inches, so the 4x4 should be about right.

I was lifting the vise off the trailer tonight and decided to see what it weighs. Wow..280lbs! The vise has 14" wide jaws so I figured it had to be 200lbs, but didn't think it would be quite this heavy. For fun I took a picture of it next to a disassembled Wilton 600S that I know weighs 155lbs and it just dwarfs it!

More to follow....