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I was trying to remember the details of the helix cutting attachment and I kept coming up with too damn much hanging off the ram. Got the book out and it was for a planer: the bed moves and the tool stays still. Then you just have a guide bar attached to the frame at an angle and a weighted bar attached to the work. Probably only good for a few degrees of rotation per stroke. Neat idea though.

I was trying to think of a tracer type attachment for the scraper. Something that would let you cut a pattern out of sheet metal or a bit of wood. I was trying to think of a way to trace a curve as the cross-feed advanced, but the whole moving ram thing got in the way. I can start to envision a cam operated curve generator mounted on the ram if it varies the height during the stroke.

As usual, when I design a machine from scratch it winds up with too many parts. Gonna get some graph paper and one of my books with a good chapter on cams.

Of course, I still don't have a shaper. :giggle:

Probably a good thing for me I'm 2,000 miles away. :giggle:

Lewis;6762 wrote: I was trying to think of a tracer type attachment for the scraper. Something that would let you cut a pattern out of sheet metal or a bit of wood. I was trying to think of a way to trace a curve as the cross-feed advanced, but the whole moving ram thing got in the way. I can start to envision a cam operated curve generator mounted on the ram if it varies the height during the stroke.

As usual, when I design a machine from scratch it winds up with too many parts. Gonna get some graph paper and one of my books with a good chapter on cams.

Of course, I still don't have a shaper. :giggle:

Here's one for sale not to far away. The grinder attachment sounds interesting.
24"metal shaper - $1200 (lynnville,in)
http://louisville.craigslist.o.....13175.html

well the timing is bad but I bought a shaper last night... Timing being an issue because its buried in the basement of a house in Ballard and needs to be out by tomorrow and I am suppose to be hanging gates today... anyway its a 16" G & E and belonged to the fellow who had the NBP 250 steam hammer for sale a while ago... Its a Universal shaper/gear cutter 16".. Ex-Boeing..... looks really nice with some tooling for $350 I think for some things I would want to do the universal table will just be a pain in the ass but its what it is and I'll deal with it... The only thing I dont feel good about is having to go yard 2 tons out of a basement today when I got paying work..

Congrats Larry!

I hope to be joining the shaper club soon as well. I've been offered a free 12" Smith and Mills shaper.

It belongs to another blacksmith here in town. He was told "It needs a part welded down in there." and he's had it sitting in the shop for years, never got around to fixing or using it. We were talking machines and I mentioned I was thinking about shapers and he said I could have it if I'd let him run a couple jobs on it. I can deal with that, he's even got a jib crane that can load it.

It's gonna need to have all the grinder dust cleaned out of it after sitting for a decade in a fab shop, but I guess that will just give me the opportunity to fix the busted part. There's no vise and it looks to be a geared shaper rather than the usual crank. I guess I'll use up all the money I save on 'free' finding a vise and fixing the darn thing.

Very cool, I like the tilt bed, also all the moving parts are covered accept the ram of corse, that being the part you want to stay away from. Die making fool!

Shapers are kinda cool, but I never got on with mine so it went to the big re-cyclers in the sky (one of the few machine tools Ive done this to 🙁 ) If I diddnt have the mills it might have been a different story....

Ive got a 16" stroke slotter (similar machine but standing up) that I use for cutting internal gears on big clutch plates (6' dia is the biggest I can do) - thats a lump of a machine @ 10 ton ish ! It only gets used every 6 months or so, but try and find someone who can gear-cut internal on a 6' plate for anything less than a second mortgage which is why it keeps its place in the shop!!!

Im doing a set of small clutch plates at the moment (4' dia), Ill try and get some pics next week.

Nice looking machine there Larry! You'll have fun with that. Many small shapers like this don't even have a front support, you can actually leave it loose except for really heavy work. Kind of a pain to keep resetting if you're running the table up and down. Looks like it has a rapid for the feeds too, cool!

I wanted the power down-feed for a long time, but once I got a machine with one, I didn't actually use it that much.