Thread: A question for the Shaper Owners

Hi Bob,
Mine does not get a lot of use, but is worth it's weight in gold for the odd job. I think Bryan would be king of the shaper projects, as I think he uses his a lot not having a milling machine.

The main thing mine gets used for is cleaning up rusty plate I have picked up to save milling cutters and getting the rust all over the mill. I have done a few splines and key ways over the years for ride on mowers. I have also used mine as a surface grinder (using a bench grinder) last year, I told Stuart about it and he prompted me to post, but the results where nothing to right home about so I never bothered posting.
I really think it was the wheel choice for cast iron even though I tried a few, but it cleaned up my lathe compound and vise jaws.
The only reason I did it was a tec screw in the roof decided to leak right on my compound, and since I had not been in the shed for a couple of months at that time, the rust ate into it. Still it cleaned it up good enough.

Once I get the DRO fitted to the Douglas shaper (that getting some mods done) I am sure it will get a lot more work, it's makes it hard working with no graduated dials and the strange down feed set up that you modified. The larger shaper has them but after finding wear I decided to just convert it over to a slotter and wait for another large one that I am waiting for.

As for pictures I don't have any, it was only when I started posting on this forum a few years back that I started taking pictures, as before that I was lucky to take a picture of a machine in the shed.

This latest shaper I bought will be mounted on the large Alba shaper to make a vertical slotter for key ways and splines which will make it much easier to see and do. Doing them on the shaper is like working on a horizontal mill, a pain in the neck.

Dave

Hi BT,

Josh has been using it to flatten blocks of machinable wax, man, you should see the size of the chips...

Regards
Ray

I'm not sure if this counts but I'm currently using my shaper as a scrapping bench as my work benchs are far to high.
It has four things going for it that I can think of.
1. great vice
2. adjustable height
3. doesn't move
4. I stand in the same place, do four cycles with a different face against the fix jaw, swivel the vice 45 degrees and go around 4 more times.

Other than that is gets used more because I like to than I need to. Things like cutting square tube length ways or cutting mitres on tube

Originally Posted by RayG

Josh has been using it to flatten blocks of machinable wax, man, you should see the size of the chips...

Ok I'm stealing that one. It should make catching the swarf much easier than on the mill.

Stuart

Pull it down and mod it as per Bobs mod.

Dave

I bought my shaper when I was 14 because I read how useful they were. I never have really used it the tool feed is way to course.

What ranges of feed do you have.
You should be able to advance 1 tooth/notch at a time upto several at a time.
You are reffering to the table feed arent you and not the down feed of the cutting tool.

Andre,

You have an Atlas from memory. How come the tool feed (downfeed) is too coarse? I thought it would depend on how aggressively or how delicately you turned the feed screw.

BT

ps. Peter's question covers the table feed.

The downfeed screw on the atlas is a 1/2 x 13 unc I would like to replace this with a unf. The table feed seems coarse but that may just be me.

Mine is currently being used to attract dust....

....but it's not for sale!

Originally Posted by welder

The downfeed screw on the atlas is a 1/2 x 13 unc I would like to replace this with a unf. The table feed seems coarse but that may just be me.

13 TPI makes no sense neither did Douglas' 12 TPI. The 20 TPI 1/2" UNF does. Will it require a lot of fooling about Andre?

If you decide to make a new graduated collar and if you don't have a way of scribing the 50 graduations, I'll do it for you.

BT

It does not require much work all I need to do is machine a new screw and a new nut. Thanks for the offer I don't have a way to scribe the divisions. After I finish the down feed mod I am going to build a vise to suit the shaper.

Hi AB,

I use my shaper to flatten out already flat surfaces. It's much more interesting than watching tennis as well.

Cheers Ben.

Well I dunno about the king but I use my shaper for pretty much everything I can't do on a lathe or a drill press.
The people who don't use their shapers own mills.

I am at the moment lost without the use of my shaper, I retired 2 years ago and had to let my rented shed go, thus my shaper is sitting idle at my home. One of my hobbies is Blacksmithing and I used my shaper to make tooling, dies,etc. Its a funny thing but I never think of taking photos of things I make it looks like I should, but I seem to get side tracked by the item just produced. However, I love my shaper and the things you can do with them, simplicity itself. If you can think of something a shaper can do it.