This file deals with some modifications made to shapers by their owners, either because a modification was seen as an advantage, or it made the machine operable when original parts were broken or missing. If you got to this file directly from my HOME PAGE, return there by using your browser's back button. BUT if you came to this file as the result of a web search engine, see more than 70 additional files on my home page Machining and Metalworking at Home http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/ SAFETY WARNING BEWARE: DO NOT ASSUME that any subject matter or procedure or process is safe or correct or appropriate just because it was mentioned in a news/user group or was included in these files or on this site or on any other web site or was published in a magazine or book or video. Working with metals and machinery and chemicals and electrical equipment is inherently dangerous. Wear safety devices and clothing as appropriate. Remove watches, rings, and jewellery -- and secure or remove loose clothing -- before operating any machine. Read, understand and follow the latest operating procedures and safety instructions provided by the manufacturer of your machine or tool or product. If you do not have those most recent official instructions, acquire a copy through the manufacturer before operating or using their product. Where the company no longer exists, use the appropriate news or user group to locate an official copy. Be careful -- original instructions may not meet current safety standards. Updated safety information and operating instructions may also be available through a local club, a local professional in the trade, a local business, or an appropriate government agency. In every case, use your common sense before beginning or taking the next step; and do not proceed if you have any questions or doubts about any procedure, or the safety of any procedure. Follow all laws and codes, and employ certified or licenced professionals as required by those laws or codes. Hazardous tasks beyond your competence or expertise should also be contracted to professionals. Let's be really careful out there. (c) Copyright 2003 - 2007 Machining and Metalworking at Home The form of the collected work in this text file (including editing, additions, and notes) is copyrighted and this file is not to be reproduced by any means, including electronic, without written permission except for strictly personal use. ========================================================================== NOTE TO FILE: Most/all of these conversations were posted to the Yahoo group Metal_Shapers ------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 10:55:53 -0600 (CST) From: Tom Benedict Subject: Shaper? After reading one of Rudy Kouhoupt's "Shop Wisdom of..." books, I fell in love with the idea of a small shaper. I've been looking around, but have had terrible luck finding one in my size range that's also in my price range. (I saw a really nice Brown & Sharpe shaper come up for sale a while back, but it was way out of my league.) Then it occurred to me... I may have a shaper already. Let me know what you think about this. I'm going to be making some assumptions, so if I make any bad ones, please shoot holes in the idea NOW before I damage anything: Assumption 1: A shaper is similar to a lathe, but instead of rotating the part against a fixed tool, you have a tool that moves across a fixed part in a rectilinear fashion. The tool shapes for a lathe and for a shaper are similar (unlike a mill). And unlike a mill, the tools in a shaper do not spin. Assumption 2: One of the big benefits to using a shaper (besides being able to do stuff like cut inside gears) is that if you can grind a tool to a partuclar shape, you can use that tool to cut the corresponding shape in metal (hence the name "shaper"). If you need a shape, grind a tool to cut that shape. Revelation: If you have a device that can move in a regular rectilinear fashion, can clamp a workpiece to a fixed bed, and can hold a pre-ground tool, you have, in essence, a shaper. (This one hit me last night.) Big question: If I were to replace my mill spindle with a solid block that took Taig toolholders, could I use the CNC mill as a shaper? Would this run the risk of damaging the mill because of unacceptably high work loads on the tool? (I'm assuming this is a function of cut depth in any case, so it's controllable.) I understand the work time would be very very long, but I'm not after production shop speed here. This is simply a case of, "Can I do it if the need arises?" As far as grinding tools goes, had a thought there, too: In order to grind really small precise tools, you basically need a way to really precisely move some small tool blanks against a grinder. Put another way, you need a way to move a grinder against some small tool blanks. If you clamped down some 1/4" tool bits on the CNC mill, chucked up a silicon carbide grinding bit in a collet, covered EVERYTHING, and gave it a toolpath, it seems like it would be able to give you pretty much any tool shape you needed. (I was planning on making some forming tools this way in the not so distant future, so please let me know if this is a bogus idea before I mess something up!) As far as keeping grinding grit out of the mill, I already picked up an aluminum baking dish that I was going to turn into a bolt-on flood coolant system for the mill. If the entire clamping mechanism is below the lip of the dish, I should be able to put a hood over the spindle and flood cool the whole mess. Coolant and grit stay inside the "tank", and any spray is caught by the hood and drips into the tank. Coolant can then be filtered and reused. Is this a good idea, bad idea, silly idea, ... ? I honestly don't know how often I would use it, but it would be nice to know it's an option if the option wouldn't run the risk of damaging my mill. Tom ------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 18:18:45 -0000 From: "Lawrence Keating" Subject: Re: interesting QC tool post Hi Randy. No offence taken. :-) I finished my prototype this weekend - looks good and seems to work fine. As with any protype, I immediately found a few modifications to make. The major change was a tightening up of dimensions on the bit holder block. I originally made it 2" long x 1-1/2 wide x 1" deep with a 1" dia. hole bored thru the center of 2" x 1-1/2" plane. With a little redesign, I was able to shorten the length to 1-11/16" and bore the 1" dia. hole 13/16" from the end that holds the tool bit. This puts the tool bit closer to the mounting post, making the whole assembly more rigid (the edge of the tool bit is only 1/16" from the 1" dia. mounting post). I've made up one of these revised bit holders but haven't had the chance to test it yet. I hope to post some drawings of the holder once it's completed. -------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:01:32 -0800 From: "Nicholas Carter and Felice Luftschein" Subject: Re: Shaper? The forces on the shaper are pretty high if you take large cuts - I mean my Atlas 7" (everyone should get one) will take a very heavy cut, but it has a large gear crank for the head power. It probably would work for light cuts though - at the worst you'll strip the nylon pins or blow a fuse. I think it would be an acceptable kludge... better you try it on your machine than mine though! ------- Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 13:59:16 EDT From: toolroomtrusteex~xxaol.com Subject: Replacements for feed mechanism on an Atlas 7 I have an Atlas 7" shaper. The feed mechanism is missing from it. I can turn the leadscrew by hand using the multipurpose handle but everything aft of that is gone. I have thought of making something like what Gingery did for his shaper. The other thing I have thought about is making something that would use a stepping motor to turn the leadscrew which would advance only when shaper head reached end of it's cuttting stroke. Has anybody done either of these before? TIA Larry Murray ------- Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 22:46:50 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: Replacements for feed mechanism on an Atlas 7 w/CNC Larry--I've done the stepper motor method and it works. I have also made a working mechanism using a reversible ratcheting box wrench--the kind with the sheet metal sides riveted together--it may not be fine enough of a feed, however, for your liking, but it's a cheap and simple way to start. The stepper motor method is a little bit more complicated and costly, but doable. If you go the stepper motor route, think also about motorizing the up/down feeding of the tool head. And then, if you combine the two and synchronize them via an old DOS-playing 386 and a simple control program written in PowerBASIC (download free version at: http://www.powerbasic.com ): VOILA!!---a CNC shaper...not unlike the dust covered 5-year-old working model that I have on one of my cluttered work benches. Then think about it a little bit more: do you really need a clapper when you potentially have an electronic tool lifter?? "Geeze, with a tool lifter I could safely use carbide tools." And then...and then you look at it a bit more and you say to yourself: "Gee, this is almost like a lathe...except it "turns" flat. If the table traversing is sorta like the Z-axis feed of a lathe, and the tool head is sorta like the X-axis cross slide feed of a lathe...then could a CNC lathe control program be used? Maybe write up some "flat lathe" G&M code and stick it into Deskam's lathe control program??? Isn't there a FREE trial download of that program at: http://www.deskam.com ??" This could be an interesting journey: to make an old lady...your Atlas...sing new songs." Art (Houston) ------- Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 21:21:41 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Jonas--I can take a PIC but it will take me awhile--have to figure out how to get my El Cheapo RCA digital camera up and running properly...haven't even tried yet. But let me tell you what you would see, and to most, not a pretty sight. (Most people--nuclear scientists included--upon seeing my chaotic contraptions running, and not having a clue in the world about why, will quickly criticize the only thing they comprehend: "It ain't tidy with those wires going...and you need to cover it cuz someone might get hurt! Ohhhhh....it's just so confuzing!!!) It's a working model with bread- boarded electronics interconnected by wiring flying point-to-point everywhich where. It's a Test Bed, and test beds are put together to run tests, to conduct experiments, to try things out. It's assembled from two "Pacific Rim" X-Y cross-slide vises, one a 3-inch which is mounted vertically, and the second a 4-inch mounted horizontally. >From a strict point of view it is a planer mechanism, but the controls and programming are exactly the same as for a shaper. The vise mounted vertically holds the tool--no clapper here, since the software raises, and laterally moves, the tool out of the cut prior to retract, and lowers and laterally moves the tool into the cut, incrementing for feed, prior to ram. As you can see, both axis are used on the vertically mounted cross-slide vise. The larger horizontally mounted cross-slide vise holds a small table secure in its jaws. The table itself, in the test bed version, uses a flat plate held securely in the vise's jaws, and with a pattern of threaded holes used to fix work to the table. One axis of this cross-slide vise is controlled via a stepper motor for traverse feed. The stepper motor is directly connected to a 1/4-20 replacement slide screw as are the two axis on the vertical head. The remaining vise's OEM axis screw is retained and it acts as the table reciprocating screw for ramming and retracting. The ram motor on the test bed is a relatively strong DC motor removed from one of those ubiquitous weed- whackers: it is connected via a speed reducing/tork increasing chain and sproket drive to the remaining cross-slide vise screw. The electronics are Art's originals, and are dangerous to everyone...including Art. I won't go into them in detail. If someone were to duplicate this mechanism I recommend that safe electronics be ordered from Dan Mauch at Camtronics: he has good stuff at reasonable prices--both stepper motors and drive electronics. The software, at least for your first tests, should be written by you in BASIC. It's not very difficult for the shaper/planer is really a serial machine--things are done in succeeding steps and not in parallel or all at one time. Makes programming a lot easier. The PC's parallel port, easily controlled by BASIC, is used to send signals thru the electronics for each motor, 3 steppers and the ram driver motor. For my steppers, I had the program compute the step sequence internally rather than use special stepper control chips/boards; if you do it make it simple and just buy the step/direction driver boards from Dan. I did it my way because I wanted to play...and experiment...and learn...and have fun. Rather than use 4-bits per stepper (out of the parallel port) I used 2 and pull-down resistors on the flip-flop TTL. At EVERY circuit juncture I used optical isolators, both to protect respective circuit chunks, but especially the PC's parallel port. Normally, steppers are controlled by a pair of H-bridges and a bipolar DC power supply; mine--becuz I wanted to--uses my own designed E-bridges (half the power transistors of an H-bridge) and a tri-polar DC power supply. The control powering the reversing ram drive motor uses a single E- bridge for reversing. My electronics are not optimized. They work but they're right at the edge and get hotter than Hades: USE DAN's COOL RUNNING STUFF. Manually locatable limit switches are used for feedback to the computer for adjusting the ram stroke. I used micro- switches on the test bed--a permanent installation should employ either optical electronic sensors or Hall-effect magnetic electronic sensors; I used the micro-switches since they were quick and dirty and easy to get up and running. As you can see, when you switch from mechanical shaping/planing mechnisms pictures are only useful to a point. It's a whole new world of thinking...thinking like an electron moving through gates in a circuit and of ones and zeros jumping around hither and thither within a computer program. A whole new world of new types of pictures: mental ones. Hope this gets you started--"picturing mentally"--will post a PIC of "IT" when I get to it, but as you can see from the above, that PIC is not the important PIC. Check out Dan's stuff--and, YES, you can talk with him via Email too-- at his Camtronics site: http://www.seanet.com/~dmauch . Then, the first thing you need to do is to figure out how much tork your cross- feed screw on your Atlas requires to feed: one way to determine that is with a pulley fixed to the feed screw (tork arm), some cord, and some lead shot in a suspended V-8 juice can. Find out how much ounces of lead shot, at what pulley diameter in inches, causes the feed screw to reliably turn. Then double the weight to arrive at your first in-oz size motor to try. Bigger is better--I would probably start--just by guesstimating--with a 500 oz-in motor and a 7- amp driver board, and both from Dan. Art (Houston) ------- Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 20:16:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Jonas Thomas Subject: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Hey Art: Funny you should mention the RCA camera. Thanks for the tip. I wound up buying one and am pleased with it. I was just experimenting with taking pictures of my Ammco shaper tonight in the basement. Seems to do a pretty nice job. A plus 1 exposure no flash with all the basement lights on in the foreground seems to work for me. I toying with the idea of going CNC on my Ammco. I was hoping to be able to do without butchering it and being able go back to "Classic" if I want to. ------- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 04:26:31 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Jonas--You can go CNC with your AMMCO and without butchering it. One of my rules is to NEVER change anything on the base machine--use existing threaded holes, etc. Start with the table traverse feed. Let me relocate the URL for Professor Jones' paper on stepper motors-- it's a good place to start in this "rocket theory". I'll also see if I can locate in my chaotic files the addresses for the 3 parallel ports on a PC and the associated bit designations. See if you can't locate a free working 386 with MS-DOS 5 or 6 on board--it'll have MS-BASIC with it. Hopefully, I'll be able to get my RCA flying this weekend If I'm lucky I might be able to snap some PICs of the "CNC Contraption". Art ------- Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 04:17:00 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: Doug Jones' Tutorial On Stepper Motors Jonas-- This is an excellent paper by Doug Jones on stepper motors: http://www.cs/uiowa.edu/~jones/step Art (Houston) ------- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 20:44:34 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Original Message ----- From: Tom Benedict >> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 11:42 AM >> Just curious, has anyone tried sticking something like a Frog on >> a shaper to do this kinda thing? In Metal_Shapersx~xxy..., "Ray Ethridge"wrote: > Tom, I have not tried to put a frog on a shaper but from my brief attempts with them I have concluded they are pretty stupid. It would be really difficult to train them to do much of anything in my opinion. However I have read that Gekkos are used a lot in CNC, so maybe you should concentrate your efforts there. I still don't know how you would train them, though. Ray Ethridge < Ray-- You're using the wrong type of froggie--them C.Hill froggies are land lubbers, and just hop around in the sand. You've gotta use them tree froggies (Yes, Virginia, there are trees in Texas, jus' none on C. Hill.) with them suction cuppie thingees on their feets: once they turn on their powerful sucking vacuum, nothing will get 'em off...anything! And them geckoes...didn't Dennis C. fry a couple of them lizzards' gizzards right outta their box? See FROG: http://www.avatartools.com/ Tom--The Frog could "probably" be made to work on a shaper but it would be the hard way to CNC a shaper. First you'd need two of them linked together--that's $400 alone. Then, becuz of the type computer they have--a microprocessor with limited on board memory space--and that most of the operating system program is already implanted in its EEPROM.... The Frog...or two of them linked together...thinks like a lathe that wants to do straight line interpolation feeding and threading...and only that. It/they won't do circular (curvey) interpolation. And, to get the power to feed the tool head and the traversing table of a shaper is going to take much larger steppers than a Sherline or TAIG lathe: you'll still need larger driver boards and steppers plus the interface to the Frog output. Although you could make and program your own "shaper version" of a Frog controller using perhaps BASIC Stamps with sufficient memory, the easiest way to control...and to program...a CNC shaper is with a FREE DOS-playing, BASIC programmmed, 386 PC. Let me see if I can still find some of the BASIC programming bits that I wrote for my experiments...but it's been 5 years...and my boy "played" with that computer that I was using. BTW, the computer I was using for the experiments was an IBM "heavy-thick" laptop, a 386 with a smallish hard drive (enuf for DOS, BASIC, and BASIC programs) and a 3.5 floppy. It has a pre-LCD screen...a red one that glows like a neon tube...but it worked for what I was using it for. You only need to control 2 steppers--the table traverse and the tool head. Table lift should remain manual, although you might think about the possibility of providing it with a DRO. To program a CNC shaper, don't think about the program, think about what you want the program to be able to do. Sensors at full ram and full retract send feedback reports to the computer program that activiate the next "step" in the program. As I mentioned before, the test bed shaper working model I experimented with didn't have a clapper, but moved the tool slide out of the cut at the end of the ram cycle and put it back with an incremental feed at the end of the retract cycle. Curves could be machined with synchronized movements of the table traverse and tool slide. Art (Houston) ------- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 21:20:51 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas- Pete--You could do it as you describe using a solenoid powered ratchet pulsed by a microswitch at full retract. Some thoughts though-- Use a 12 VDC solenoid--from outta automobiles/trucks, C&H or the Surplus Center--a 110VAC system is much too dangerous. You're going to have to experiment to get the solenoid to pull properly to get the ratchet to ratchet with enuf force...solenoids typically have short strokes with full power only at the end of the stroke. To get you up and running fast, use a double ended reversible ratcheting box wrench...the type with the riveted sheet metal sides. I experimented with such a wrench on my Lewis downfeed which has a threaded end which normally grips the feed handle with a nut. I took the handle off, cut a threading rod-coupling nut to the thickness of the ratchet wrench, put the wrench in place over the nut and sandwiched between two rather large washers, and then tightened the retaining nut. In my experiment, I used my hands (don't do this at home) as the fowrward and rear actuators. It worked. I could simply fabricate an adjustable limit plate actuator and mount it to the side of my shaper. BTW, Ian Bradley in his 1973 book "The Shaping Machine", has drawings and photos of a somewhat more sophisticated, but purely mechanical, downfeed mechanism for a 7-inch Acorn (S.Bend) shaper (pp 46-53). A stepper can be operated as Tom describes, however, a 555 timing circuit would be erratic at best. Most of the stepper driver chips have provisions for single step operation. However, when doing the single step, the switch that activates the step must be "bounce free"- -most mechanical switches "bounce"--continue to make and break contact until they settle down--when activated which gives false signals to the stepper controller chip. In some circuits, a special "Schmidt Trigger" TTL chip is placed in line with the mechanical switch and the controller chip--it takes the "real" signal and makes a sharp "square" signal that the stepper chip can correctly read. It is best not to use a mechanical switch at all, but instead to use either an optical switch (a phototransistor pair) or a magnetically sensing (non mechanical) Hall-Effect sensor. Art (Houston) ------- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 21:44:13 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: The Next Step: Stepper Controller Chips & Circuits After digesting Doug Jones' Tutorial, dig into some of these controllers and circuits: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/stepper/control2/connect.html A very popular, readily available, and relatively cheap controller chip is the UCN5804B: http://www.allegromicro.com/datafile/5804.pdf It can be single stepped and can be easily connected to interface with a more powerful (amps) transistor driver board to power larger stepper motors. Art (Houston) ------- In Metal_Shapersx~xxy..., Tom Benedict wrote: >I bet you could! >You could put some sort of optical interrupter switch on the column >casting (ripped out of a dead dot matrix printer, or from some place like >DigiKey). That would toggle when the ram had retracted all the way. This >could either act as a trigger for a microcontroller, or you could probably >wire something up with a 555 circuit. Feed that to a stepper controller, >and feed that to the stepper motor. Hmmm! >(Still working on the egg plotter.) Tom ------- Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 11:11:32 +1200 From: "" Subject: Re: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Rather than sense the ram position wouldn't you actually want to sense from the bull gear? The ram full in and full out position can vary,as can the stroke. The positions of the bull wheel corresponding to full in and full out will also vary as stroke is varied, but only by a little. By using the bull wheel, you could avoid having to adjust the sensing when the ram position and stroke are changed, and also ensure that the feed only takes place on the return stroke. Although I don't think the latter is all that important, I think it does reduce the load on the feed gear. regards John ------- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 19:14:00 -0500 (CDT) From: Tom Benedict Subject: Re: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Makes good sense. And using a hall effect sensor would fit the bill here, too. Glue to magnets to the bull gear's face for full in and full out, and you're good to go. Tom ------- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 17:32:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Jonas Thomas Subject: Re: Re: CNC Retrofitting an Atlas-7 Hey Art, I ran across this site. Looks interesting. Thought you might be interested JT http://www.stepperworld.com/ ------- Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 17:59:58 -0000 From: "volzmechatronic" Subject: Wiper Felt The wiper felt has finally arrived. Will post a message here early next week as to procedures and will, at that time, also begin Emailing those who have previously requested some of this felt. This week is shot as I'm in the final throes of packing off my son to Univ of Texas-Austin: my daughters were so much easier to do. Have managed, however, in the wee hours of the morns, to almost complete fabrication of a non-computerized electro-mechanical self- actuating downfeed testbed/working model. At its heart is a screw actuated swinging ratchet wrench (one "ratchet" = 1/16 turn) that operates similarily to a motor operated (non-solenoid type) turnout switching machine as used by model railroaders. Forward and reverse are controlled by a circular rotating cam activating a microswitch via a cam-plate mounted on the outboard end of the bull wheel shaft. It has two other microswtiches that are the limit switches for the swinging ratchet of this "bang-bang" downfeed actuator. To simplify switching, a 3-pole DC power supply is used: motor reversal is accomplished thusly with SPDT switches rather than DPDT switches. Art (Houston) ------- Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 23:25:38 -0600 From: jrw Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? In Metal_Shapers, "chippuller" wrote: > I had this 'brainstorm a few months back and thought I posted it > on this site to get a reaction, but since I got no response I'm sure > I posted it to the wrong group...must have sent it to the "13th > Century Lithuanian Marquetry" group..... so I'll try again. > I have always wanted a surface grinder but could never justify it. > Now that have a shaper, I realized that if I mounted a tool post > grinder on the ram, with the spindle horizontal and 90 degrees to the > direction of travel of the ram, I would have.......a surface grinder! > Anyone ever heard of that being done before, or am I just NUTZ!? Mario Mario: Forget it!!! The grinding debris would destroy the shaper in a hurry. The down feed is way too coarse for grinding . You have 0.001 graduations on the feed dial and 0.0001 is what you need for a grinder. You could tip the head and get a fine down feed. Joe Williams ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 09:48:08 -0000 From: "Art Volz" Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? Mario--Sure glad you finally re-surfaced from the depths of Monte Casino...how mucho vino is lefto...for the Benedictans? Don't ever grind on a shaper, or a lathe, or anywhere near you good tools: that grinding grit will eat your lunch...RAPIDO!! What degree of precision/accuracy do you need? I've low-level surface ground (= made "smooth") by mounting an appropriate sized and gritted wheel on my Sears/Craftsman/Emerson radial arm saw. And Mario...welcome back to the "real world". Joe and I were wondering if, while "grits-ing" the pigs, you fell in...and were "grits-ed". Art (Houston) ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 07:36:14 -0600 From: "Mario L Vitale" Subject: Re: Re: Novel idea....or not!? Art et al, I knew I could stir up a response with that one...especially from you Houstonians! You are all correct in the concern about errant abrasive particles. They are certainly unbiased and will as readily remove material from lead screws, ways, gibs,etc...as they will from that nice shiny block of material in the vice! That being said, if you understand the risk, and are in (desperate) need of limited grinding capability, you could take precautions to contain it. I tried the radial arm saw years ago...before I had any machine tools...and it did work, kind of. I found that the arm was not as rigid as it should be and it tended to 'bounce' a little...and talk about a course down feed!?!? I guess if you made a hand wheel or crank about a foot in diameter you could get a fairly fine feed. You and Joe can argue about that one. Thanks for keeping me on the 'straight and narrow' with these hair-brained schemes... Mario ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 06:41:20 -0800 From: Keith Green Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? At work we have an old Oliver machine that uses this principle for tool sharpening. The ram is hand-fed. Works really well and is probably the handiest tool-bit grinder in the shop. keith ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 07:38:53 -0600 From: Mike M Fendley Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? Mario, I agree with Art, don't surface grind on your shaper. Can it be done? Yes, and many guys have. There was even a construction article (not detailed) on how to do it in an old Pop Mechanics back in the 50's. I've seen guys mount everything from die grinders to an actual electric motor with a grinding wheel on it to do this operation. Still not a good idea. Art's idea of the radial arm will work though. I went a step further with my radial arm. First went to the scrapyard and found a good sized piece of 1/2" plate alum with not too many holes in it. (The few holes in it were handy though ... more later). I mounted it on the table and used pieces of it that I had cut off for the fence and spacer. After spending a ton of time leveling it and squaring it, I then took an old carbide tipped blade and used it as my "non-ferrus" blade. I also put a gear reduction on the crank down below to get an extra fine feed and not have to break your arm elevating or lowering the blade. (Sears Radial arm saw by the way.) The first cut was through the aluminum fence to get blade clearance. Next I dropped the blade 1/8" to put a small grove in the table "cross cut wise." I have also put them in at 45 and 30 degrees. Now came the test. Can I cut aluminum and brass stock with this thing? What I learned quickly is that you must pull your saw out to the max, and lock it with the motor off. Put your stock up against the fence and clamp it down. (Here's where the few holes came in handy.) I picked up 3 different sized drill press vise grips (flat on the back with a bolt protruding to bolt the vise grip down to a table.) The vise grip has an arm that swings down with a pivot pad to clamp the work. I use two when I can, one on the out side of the blade ALWAYS. You can't always get one under the motor of the saw on the other side. Next get your WD-40 can with spout, hit the general line of your cut. Then turn on the saw, unlock it, and push it through the work. If your work is thick and long, keep spraying the blade occasionally to lubricate it. I know kerosine is the preferred lube on alum but WD-40 has a bunch of that in it to begin with. Use ear protection! I've been doing this for 20 years using the same blade! Yeah it's dull, missing 3 teeth out of 20, but the blade was past using it on wood to make nice lean cuts, but it does fine on aluminum and brass. (I paid $10 for it new) Now about steel. Got desperate one day in building a large 17" power hack saw. The c-frame needed to be cut. I was using 3/8" steel plate. I didn't want to torch it and warp it sooooo . . . . .. I took the blade of the 14" chop saw. It was down to 10" anyway. Put it on the radial arm. Definitely put the guard back on. I then started the blade barely tooching the work. 3 to 4 passes and the blade was no longer kicking out sparks. Now I lower the blade one revolution (on my gear reduction crank) and then turn it back 1/4 of a turn. In lowering the blade, it doesn't always come all the way down. When you start your passes it can drop suddenly and literally stop the blade, hence turning it back 1/4 turn takes out the back lash of the screw in the column. Using this proceedure you take about .005 off each pass. It takes some time, but you end up with a very precise cut, no warpage, not hot at all (aluminum table acts like a heat sink) and very smooth. One caution. It you use your radial arm for wood (as I do) make sure you clean up all the wood dust and chips out of your saw and all around it before you do any of this or you could be starting a nice fire! In cutting alum, brass, or steel, always clamp down your work. Brass and aluminum get the carbide blade and you push the saw through (not pull it like wood) and steel gets the abrasive saw blade with successive passes using a very fine feed. It's slicker than snot on a door knob! Chips and prayers, Mike in LeClaire, Iowa ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 14:24:14 -0500 From: "S or J" Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? Hi Mario. Have to agree with Joe Williams that this is not advisable due to the abrasive residue that will likely infect the shaper (and maybe other shop machines and instruments). While you may think you can cover delicate parts, abrasive dust is insideous. For the same reason it is not a really wonderful idea to mount grinding wheels on the lathe for general sharpening. (Although it is a good idea to use grinding wheels for the express purpose of truing something like lathe chuck jaws, but only after masking off everything in sight.) Also not a great idea to do metal grinding or sharpening in the grind-free area where the nice machines should live. I have noticed that knifesmiths usually isolate grinders and metal sanders from their main workshop and use an air cleaner/exhaust fan to reduce contamination. As to whether it is a novel idea. The Brit mag MODEL ENGINEERS' WORKSHOP just published a project to adapt a shaper to surface grind in their May/June 2002 edition. U.S. distributor at www.wiseowlmagazines.com Hmm. The Popular Mechanics SHOP NOTES for 1908 has an article on a similar attachment submitted by reader A.J.M. in Denver, Colorado. In that same year, another reader described attaching a manual hacksaw to the shaper ram for power metal cutting (no cross-feed of course). Reprints available at www.leevalley.com So there's not much really new under the sun; but lots of stuff being reinvented by thoughtful folks who are unaware of prior inventions. Which is still a very worthy accomplishment. Steve in Thunder Bay, Ontario ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 14:41:07 EST From: xeno3579x~xxcs.com Subject: Re: Digest Number 308 A milling head on the ram has been tried. No reason why a grinder shouldn't work, if you keep in mind that a cutting tool can be moved by thousandths but a grinding wheel must be advanced by tenths. Mb-A ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 14:36:12 -0600 From: "Mario L Vitale" Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? Mike, sounds like you've been having fun! Yes, you can cut a lot of non ferrous metal with a carbide blade in a table or radial arm saw. My only comment would be that if I were cutting steel (like a tube, or piece of angle, or strap) I'd use an abrasive cut-off wheel...It goes thru that stuff like butter. Thanks for the response. Mario ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 14:59:14 -0600 From: "Mario L Vitale" Subject: Re: Re: Novel idea....or not!? Steve, I fully appreciate the insidious nature of grinding dust! And, you're right...nothing new under the sun. When I was a kid, my father always reminded me of that whenever I told him about some wonderful new invention I just heard about! Thanx, Mario ------- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 19:14:56 EST From: wanlikerx~xxaol.com Subject: Re: Novel idea....or not!? 
And wrap and protect the machined surface on the
column................ ask me how I know...........

-------

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 01:04:28 EST
From: anthrhodesx~xxaol.com
Subject: Wanted: Info or Plans for Automatic Tool Lifter

Large metal shapers often have a device to automatically rock the clapper
block on the back stroke instead of letting the tool drag on the work
piece. I'm interested in details of such an automatic tool lifter which
might be adapted to a shaper that doesn't have one as original equipment.

I'm actually interested in two variants. One would do just what I've said
above, through a cable or link or hydraulic mechanism lift the tool via
the usual rocking of the clapper block. The second would retract the tool
slide vertically during the backstroke and reset it to its "standard
position" for the cutting stroke.

Can anybody provide information on the design of a mechanism to provide
either of the functions described above?

Thanks.
Anthony   Berkeley, Calif.

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Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 02:17:10 -0000
From: "matt_isserstedt "
Subject: Do you guys use drip pans under your shapers?

First a little background.

My Atlas 7" was "detailed" shall we say by the previous owner. Very cool
stuff like larger engraved dials, and some very unique lubrication devices.
I'll post pictures someday... In his case he grooved the top of the
workbench under the Atlas and ran this to a little drainpipe. After I got
it, the wood was starting to get a little gnarly due to being saturated.

So, I built a little drip pan out of thin gage copper sheet from McMaster
Carr. Bent the soft copper and soldered the corners. Worked like a charm
with the exception that it was too narrow for the ratchet feed asm which
I oiled thoroughly and often.

Now with a larger shaper in the works and pressure lube I'm slightly
worried about the potential for larger leaks. I'm thinking that this
particular brand of shaper has better control of its oil since it was
engineered in to start with, although I have a small leak problem with
the rear transmission according to the seller.

So whaddaya think? Drip pan or no? This time I'd likely go to a
sheetmetal shop up the road which specializes in this kind of stuff and
has built dozens of pans for our plant where I work. Galvanized steel
(think ductwork) would likely be the choice.

-------

Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 21:21:48 -0600
From: "Ray Ethridge" 
Subject: Re: Do you guys use drip pans under your shapers?

Matt, I don't run a drip pan under the Sheldon, but it has a drain lip
cast into the base that goes all the way around the shaper. About the
only thing I have seen this lip do is to collect tools, little pieces
of material that are "too good to throw away", oil cans, chips, etc.

The machine I need the drip pan around the most is the DoAll band saw
of all things, it has a hydraulically operated table that leaks
pretty badly and really makes a mess. If your shaper has a leak I
bet you would be happier if you put a pan under it. Your idea of a pan
made at the duct fab house is a good one. Interestingly, I went to one
of those shops back in the 70's to get a drip pan fabricated for my
evaporator when I was putting an A/C in a house I lived in. The guy
chuckled and went and got a box and handed it to me.
Come to find out everyone back then bought a front door for an oven
to use as a drip pan. It was cheaper to buy the front doors than it
was to fabricate anything. I used to remember the brand name of the
oven they used but I have slept since then.

Ray Ethridge

-------

Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 22:44:09 -0600
From: "LEW BEST" 
Subject: RE: Do you guys use drip pans under your shapers?

Might be worth checking the additional cost for stainless; come to think
of it there might be a scrap "something" made of stainless related to
food service that could be found with a bit of looking.............

Lew

-------

Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 00:18:23 -0400
From: "James E. Baldock" 
Subject: Re: Do you guys use drip pans under your shapers?

Matt, my vote is for a drip pan, but on the floor. Use 16 gage sheet,
notch the corners and bend up to 60º. To bend use a Cresent wrench and
bend a little at a time-just sight down the edge to keep it straight.
Weld the corners if possible. J B Weld might work. a little Bondo might
help. I you must bolt it to the floor use holes in the sheet large
enough to get your Cresent wrench into and form a cone to keep the Crud
in the Pan. Use the heavier stuff because ya just know yer gonna get it
with your foot. Oh yes, cut it with a nibbler or a 7-1/4 with a cut off
blade. Observe all safety measures.

Jim

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Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 17:38:41 -0600
From: "Arthur Volz" 
Subject: Lewis Shaper Door Mock-Up

At the November meeting of the Houston-area Home Metal Shop Club (see:
http://www.homemetalshopclub.org ) I "showed & told" a wooden mockup of
a scripted "Lewis" shaper door that I had constructed for design
consideration. Besides having a 1930's contemporary "Art Deco" look, it
also incorporated a hidden "snap-open, snap-close" Italian designed
disappearing hinge which requires no knob to operate. It is one of several
Lewis door mock-ups that I have made for design consideration to replace
the unmarked OEM CI door that came with my Lewis-10. The latest version,
for which I do not yet have a PIC, doesn't even have a hinge--it is held
securely in place by the gravity-glue of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks,
and Romans.

Art (Houston)

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Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 15:33:50 -0000
From: "Richard "
Subject: More homemade stuff ( auto downfeed)

My shaper is a Gingery homemade one so don't expect great things.

The need for an internal tooth gear came up and after pricing some
locally, I decided to make one. It came out just fine but was a
tiring job to ease the downfeed in small steps for every tooth.
Delrin was used for the blank and small down feed steps were needed
to prevent breaking out the exit side of the blank.

To cut 72 tooth spaces is a chore.

The downfeed motor is an electric screwdriver modified slightly and
functions in a fast rough setting mode as well. A cam switch fitted
to the cross feed ratchet driver triggers the downfeed motor at Ram
retract position and one canwatch the progress on the dial. I
uploaded a couple of photos in the photos section under 'Homemade'.

I can consistantly set the feed to less than 1 mil per step and plan
to do better as my playing continues. A stepper motor system would be
better but the cost of a motor with enough torque to lift the head
for fast setting is out of reason for me.

I will add more if there is any interest.

Richard

-------

Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 12:28:24 +1300
From: Tom 
Subject: Re: More homemade stuff ( auto downfeed)

In cases like this, a sacrificial disk of aluminium to back up the
gear can speed up the process by allowing heavier cuts. 1/8" works
well. Some of the older shapers used to have dividing arrangements
so that the work piece was indexed on every return stroke, downdfeed
only being applied once every revolution.

Tom
M/shop info & old machine tools.
http://shopswarf.orcon.net.nz

-------

Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 01:57:36 -0000
From: "Richard "
Subject: Re: More homemade stuff ( auto downfeed)

Thanks Tom, a sacrificial disk for backup should prevent the breakout as
the tool exits the Delrin. In regard to the depth of cut for each stroke,
the gear in question was a 48 pitch, internal 72 tooth gear. (really
small). I used a 5C spin indexer with a face plate for holding and
indexing the blank. The automatic down feed is something I wanted to do
for a long time and this job gave me an excuse to play. I will keep it in
place for the time being as it makes rough head adjusting effortless and
allows a nice range of tool advance steps each stroke, to cover anything
one can do on a 5 inch stroke machine. I plan to put the old adjusting
handle in a drawer just in case the electronics gives up the ghost.

I am starting to work with some Integrated Circuit chips to do a better
job of down feed motor control and hope to add an adjustable limit to
stop the downfeed and pause the ram motion when an exact depth of cut has
been reached. I guess you can tell I enjoy the hobby.

Richard

-------

Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 04:37:08 -0000
From: "Art Volz "
Subject: Re: Power down feed

Pete--I posted this week the PIC entitled
"Shaper_Electro_Mechanical_Downfeed" at Metalworking.com's dropbox. Will
try to add a description in TXT format this week. It's not electronic,
it's electro-mechanical, and works well. Photo is of a bread-boarded
working model built for analysing its feasibility. The advantage of
electro-mechanical over pure mechanical is that parts don't need to be
controlled directly via mechanical interfaces or links--you can
"fly by wire"--like most airplanes do with their controls, unless you're
flying (pulling the reins) on a B-17.

Art (Houston)

-------

Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 08:48:36 +1300
From: Tom 
Subject: Re: Shaper Vise?

"shapeaholic " wrote:
> I have been looking for a suitable vise for my Alba 1A shaper for a
> while, and have yet to find any thing other than a Palmgren low
> profile 4 1/2 with a swivel base. The alba's
> table is about 8x8" and some of the bigger vises don't fit well.
> Does anyone have any experience with the Palmgren vises?
> Can anyone forward a better suggestion? Thanks Merry Christmas Pete

Well, having survived the the multiple choice menu of Christmas, a
munificence of gifts from the family and a mandatory nap to evade that
which TV producers consider entertaining, Boxing Day has arrived with a
degree of normality. To those of a less advanced grip on the calendar
and still in the throes of the Day, Merry Christmas.

Staggering down to the attic to address matters pertaining to the subject
line, I consulted hither & thither of tomes of a more contemporaneous era
of the machine in question. Having garnered sufficient information to be
fruitful in the quest for enlightenment, I invoked space time continuum,
by traversing the attic to those volumes born of the new millennium.
Interfacing the data obtained from the previous century with that of this,
it would appear that a vise made by a company that has spanned 3 different
centuries could be the most suitable. That the company, Charles Taylor
has been making their vise for over a hundred years without any major
change, seems to put paid to the saying that "virtue is it's own reward."
Need it be mentioned that the vise is of a manufacturer, domiciled in that
sceptred isle from whence the aforementioned fair Alba originated? To fit
a Palmgren product to one so fair would certainly diminish the worth of
such a blue chip investment...

Imagery enlightenment is available.

Cheers
Tom
Who's beginning to think he put too much sherry in the trifle..

-------

Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 09:54:05 EST
From: CaptonZapx~xxaol.com
Subject: Re: Downfeed on shaper

3/7/03, jerdalx~xxcyberedge.net writes:
> Has anyone adapted an Atlas shaper to have an automatic downfeed? If so
> what did you do? I have a couple ideas, but new ones are always good.

Ian Bradley wrote a book called The Shaping Machine. In it, he shows a down
feed that he fabricated for his Acorn, the British label for Atlas. He used
a rack and gear actuation, but I would, and may, use a kick pawl on both
ends. I liked his use of swivel rod ends, which allows canted down feeds.

CZ

-------

Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:02:06 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Art's Vise Project(s)

--- In Metal_Shapersx~xxyahoogroups.com, "Marty Escarcega" wrote:
> Art, whatever came of your shaper vise project? Marty

Marty-- The 2 vise projects are on the back burner for now. Too many
other irons in the fire and very little outside interest, or real
demand. Just too many affordable used vises on eBay. Found two "local"
(nuthin' is local in Houston--loco maybe) foundries and drove by the
near one in the late fall. A foundry? Sure...OK. The other one is
on the other side of town--like driving to the other side of Bad-gag--
flying thru traffix to get there is much like driving thru Saddam's
kamakazi-kuard-korps in a blazin' orange Suzuki Samurai.

But they aren't dead projects either. Have full scale working models
constructed, as you've already seen and "played" with, at least the
large 7-inch shaper version. Tom B. (Hawaii) and I are contemplating
putting together a how-to-do document on Lewis kits--maybe they will
be part of that...but, that's quite a while off.

As far as which Lewis vise to repro-duplicate-re-engineer? The 1/2
size Lewis 3-1/2 inch horizontal milling machine vise down-size
version of the full-size 7-inch Lewis shaper vise would be much more
economically viable. On one end of that spectrum would be the
currently available Palmgren 325 3-inch "shorty" swivel mill vise at
$199 retail, or one of the under a hundred dollar mill vises from
places such as http://www.littlemachineshop.com . The cost of just
making a set of raw vise castings and parts kit, not including
shipping, would be somwhere in the $100 plus range, and probably at
the higher end. Not very economically viable...at least not for my
wallet. The Gingerly approach--a how-to-do--at YOUR local foundry
with YOUR patterns built from my plans--is probably the ONLY viable
way. On the other hand, alternate construction possibilities could
also be explored. As alternatives to the traditional CI, how about
ZA12 with similar strength characteristics as CI, and with steel
plates where wear is normally encountered? How about soft-soldered
steel lamainations or oven brazed ones? I have, sitting on my desk,
a WWII M1 Carbine trigger housing group made by Rock-ola (the juke
box boyz) that's made of stampings/blankings that were then oven
brazed together and only slightly machined in critical places. Such
a vise could readily be "stamped" by most hobbyists on their metal
cutting band saw, fitted, fixed for brazing/soldering...maybe even
glued with the new high strength metal glues from Loctite and
Devcon. (They build airplanes that way today...as long as they're
not French aero busies using surplus Red Dragon glues so that their
tails fall off upon take off.)

Probably a book...a how to do...will eventually...sooner or
later...evolve. Will keep you posted, Marty.

Art (In Houston...with his iron in the fire.)

-------

Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 00:03:46 -0000
From: "geezer792003" 
Subject: Atlas 7b shaper

Hi: Just acquired a 7B shaper and am in the process of restoring
it,however the ratchet feed assembly is missing. Have been able to
obtain Stock gears that can be modified to fit.Has anyone out there
made their own ratchet setup for this machine? I have some ideas but
would appreciate hearing from someone who has been there - done that.

Thanks all.
John

-------

Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 17:26:19 -0000
From: "extratec2001" 
Subject: Re: Atlas 7b shaper

I know this might sound crazy, but could you take something like a
1/2" drive Craftsman rachet and modify it for use as the rachet for
your shaper? I'm not crazy - just thinking outloud.

Regis

-------

Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 18:41:48 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Electro-Mechanical-Feed WAS: Re: Atlas 7b shaper

Regis-- In December 2002, I posted a PIC to:
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/_2002_retired_files/Shaper_Electro
_Mech_Feed.jpg . Peter V. assisted in scanning the PIC, since my
scanner is dead. I never posted a TXT file since it takes a lot of
time and effort to write up and post...especially when the interest
level is below absolute zero. (Two of these type mechanisms were
planned for the low cost, home-built, polymer concrete shaper to be
known as "Ex-Cretia II". That's for you Joe W. :-) )

The PIC shows a working model test bed of an electro-mechanical
reversible ratchet feed mechanism, with considerable torgue, that I
designed and built for possible shaper tool head and/or table cross
feed applications. The "links" in this mechanism are electrical and
of the "fly by wire type" with control via micro-switching.

Art (Houston)

-------

Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 18:24:58 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Hacksaw Tool Holder for Shaper

See pages 41 & 42 of Ian Bradley's "The Shaping Machine" for dimensioned
drawings, photographs, and discussion of a hacksaw blade tool holder for
the shaper.

Art (Houston)

-------

Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 23:56:47 -0000
From: "dreilanderecht" 
Subject: Re: Hacksaw Tool Holder for Shaper

Before I got my cutoff bandsaw, I used to set up a crude arrangement
made from a cheap hacksaw frame. It just had a hole drilled through
for a bolt, which pivoted where the pin for the clapper box goes. My
Ammco has a non tapered pin for the clapper box, yet another thing
that may not be original.

So anyway, the saw was thus on a pivot on the clapper box end, and
all I did was hang a bit of weight off the other end to provide the
feed. A few pounds was plenty, and too much will make the blade
wander. I also used a piece of quarter inch plate to shift the vice
out past the end of the table to let me fit in bigger jobs.. This was
not as good as a real power hacksaw, but saved me a lot of effort.

regards
John

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Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 20:43:03 -0000
From: "Thomas Firecracker" 
Subject: 10 inch Lodge and Davis shaper

Hello Everyone,: Just finished unloading a new addition to the shop,
a 10 inch Lodge and Davis shaper. I'm new to this group and have some
questions for you. (1) This machine was originally made for
lineshaft power and I need to set-up for electric motor. Any ideas
on how to size up the right motor, drive line, etc. ? My power
source will be 120 or 240 A.C. 60 cycle single phase. (2) Anyone
know what kind of speeds (strokes per minute) I should be looking
for? (3) The "main input" is either 3 or 4 step flat belt pulley,
too much paint to see if shaft goes all the way thru the pulley.
Could this be converted to belt drvie here or probably better to do
it at a jackshaft set-up? (4) Sent for a book by Kenneth Cope titled
Shapers, Planers, etc. for the 1800's-1900's period. Hope to find
some history and info. on this old girl. Anyone recommend any other
titles for history and/or basic operations, etc. ? I should mention
that this is going to be one of those piece by piece projects doing
what I can when I can as time and money allows. This machine does
run, the prior owner jury -rigged a 1/2 hp motor for demo purposes,
but obviously I need somethig more permanent and stronger. Feel free
to respond when you can as I'm in no rush with this. Would rather do
it right the first time. Thank you in adavance for any help,
suggestions, etc.

Respectfully,
Thomas Firecracker

-------

Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 14:44:24 -0700
From: "larry g" 
Subject: Re: 10 inch Lodge and Davis shaper

Thomas. Go find message 3922. Alan Painter gives quite a good description
of changing a shaft drive to a motor drive. He also has pictures posted
in the metal shapers pix group. I have a 12" machine that works very well
with 2HP motor. Good luck and welcome to the group.

lg

-------

Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 22:42:00 -0000
From: "dreilanderecht" 
Subject: Re: 10 inch Lodge and Davis shaper

My ten inch Alba 1A is running fine with a 3/4 horsepower single
phase motor. More than enough power for as much cut as I am game to
put on. I can't check the speeds from the manual right now, as I am
not at home, but if nobody else quotes any typical speeds for a ten
inch machine I'll look it up later. I would suggest that one HP would
be plenty, and you don't want to overdo the power. Too much just
increases the impact loads if anything ever goes wrong!

Seems to me that the conversion method you choose will depend mostly
on what is convenient for you. You could change the flat belt pulley
for a V belt one, or even for a poly V belt one, or you could come up
with a jack shaft with the flat pulley on it. The latter might be
harder since you are likely to have to find or make some large flat
belt pulleys. One point to bear in mind is that it is convenient to
be able to inch the machine over by hand to check that there is no
fouling of the job. Sometimes this can be conveniently done by
pulling belts around, which may mean having gaurd arrangement that
allow easy access. (I know I tend to labour this point, you would
think I must have had lots of crashes. Actually I haven't, although
two of my machines show evidence of having them before I acquired them.)

Where are you getting the book from? Wouldn't mind ordering a copy
myself sometime.

regards
John

-------

Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 21:06:12 -0000
From: "Thomas Firecracker" 
Subject: Shaper Books

John, I almost forgot. Regarding the books, you can order them thru
www.astragalpress.com . The titles are American Lathe Builders 1810-
1910 and American Planers, Shapers, and Slotter Builders. Both are
by author Kenneth Cope and can be bought separately or as a set .

Thomas

-------

Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 01:28:39 EDT
From: n8as1x~xxaol.com
Subject: Re: Re: 10 inch Lodge and Davis shaper

line shaft speed for 1910 reed 14 in lathe was specked at 250 rpm , other
machines ( older) have specified 200 rpm line shaft speed....quickie poor
boy conversion was running off a pulley chucked in hdstck of xtra lathe

best wishes
docn8as

-------

Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 00:58:56 EDT
From: n8as1x~xxaol.com
Subject: Re: 10 inch shaper

> Docn8as, you say a line shaft speed of about 200-250 r.p.m. . Is
> this the line shaft up in the ceiling of the old building or on a
> jackshaft on the machine itself?

ceiling lineshaft ....NOT a jackshaft

best wishes
docn8as

-------

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 17:31:22 -0000
From: "dpidwerb66" 
Subject: How do people level their Logan Shapers?

Newbee Here. I got a Logan 7" shaper about 1 month ago and I'm just
finishing my shop enough where I can level and secure the shaper. How
does one level and secure a shaper like this? It is sitting on concrete,
but it wobbles a little bit. I was thinking of getting some leveling
feet, or should I shim it (with what??) and then secure it to the floor
with bolts? What do you recommend?

thanks,
Dave

-------

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 17:56:20 -0000
From: "don_kinzer" 
Subject: Re: How do people level their Logan Shapers?

From the Logan manual:

1. Setting Up. Mount the shaper on a solid, level space to eliminate the
possibility of vibration. Level the shaper lengthwise and crosswise. Use
shims, if necessary, to obtain a level, firm foundation. Fasten the
shaper firmly to the floor with bolts or lag screws.

[continues by addressing initial cleanup and lubrication]

-------

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 15:45:51 -0500
From: jrw 
Subject: Re: How do people level their Logan Shapers?

Dave: I have my small Logan on four jack screws that contact cast iron
pads with a rubber on the bottom. The screws are into depressions cast in
the surface of the cast pads. They are commercial units that are about
4 inches in diameter. Easy to adjust and works fine when the unit is
running on high speed. In a shop where I formerly worked, a large 20
inch shaper was set in place by an old printing press installer. He used
felt pads between the shaper and the floor with an adhesive, asphalt
base, and the shaper did a fine job. Another place a 20 inch Cincinnati
was not bolted to the floor and occasionally the machinist's would have
to bar the unit back into its corner. Get the unit to a reasonably
level condition with all four corners making good contact with the floor.

Joe Williams

-------

Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 15:29:22 -0700
From: "larry g" 
Subject: Re: How do people level their Logan Shapers?

Dave. Do you have holes in the base to run a bolt through? Then we can
bolt it down to the floor. I also have some extra feet that you could
have to level with. On my Sheldon I made some pads to sit it on out of
tire tread, free on any roadside, that works very well.

lg

-------

Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 16:33:01 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Atlas Vise on SB Shaper

In Metal_Shapersx~xxyahoogroups.com, "elperkins2003" wrote:
> Well, I took the plunge and bought an atlas shaper vise on ebay using
> the buy it now option (item 2570940648). I have only seen one SB
> vise on ebay in about three years and it went for more than this.
> Anyway, now I am planning on figuring out some way to cobble this
> together on the table of my 7" South Bend shaper. The SB has a
> center hole in the table where the original base is bolted. I rather
> doubt that the hole pattern in the Atlas vise is going to fit the
> holes on the SB, so I was wondering if anyone on this group might
> have worked through this problem before and if so,what solution did
> you come up with? I can always fit it to a plate with the correct
> hole pattern, but of course this will take up some of the vertical
> movement. Worse case scenario is that I can't use it at all in which
> case I will re-list it on ebay. Looking for a clever solution!
> Perk in Cincinnati

Cincinnati Perk-- The best solution is a temporary one until you find a
South Bend vise or make the AMMCO vise for which a fully dimensioned
series of parts and assembly drawings, in eDrawing format, are at
"Files" here. Can you read an eDrawing? The SB and AMMCO vises both
swivel directly on the table and are similar in size. The temporary
solution will require an adaptor plate. DO NOT MODIFY either the Atlas
vise or your table in any way -- use existng holes only!

Aluminum will work as will heavier steel--a plate of about 3/4 inch
thick and fitting your table front to rear but with 1/2 inch overlap
on both sides, to screw-attach 1/2 inch lengths of keystock to keep
the adaptor plate from turning, will suffice. Make a recessed hole
and bolt the plate to the table from underneath. Prior to doing
that though, locate and drill the four bolt holes, for mounting the
vise's swivel base, in the adaptor plate. You may find that
recessing large flat head screws is easier and more secure. 3/4
inches is not much loss in vertical capacity.

B4 you cut metal, get a cheap piece of 3/4-inch plywood and make it
into a "design concept" adaptor plate to see how it will "fit & feel" 4U.

To find accessories for old machine tools, whose companies have long
since departed this world ("from rust to rust"), is not a rapid
quest...ever. Sometimes you have to make temporary detours as you
have done...and will do. I have posted two PIX at
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/Metal_Shapers_Pix of 2 recent
acquisitions I have just made in that vein of thought: a 3-inch
Burke milling machine vise for my Lewis mill, until I can find an
original Lewis one, and a Burke indexing set with 3-inch center
height. The latter, with an ADAPTOR PLATE, I'll also use on my
Lewis-10 shaper which also is still looking for an original Lewis
vise; it now has a low profile no-name vise that works until the OEM
one is found...either in this life or the next. My Taiwanese
R8 "Rusnok on Steriods" vertical mill sports a Palmgren low profile
4-inch #425B swivel base vise, and my Benchmaster horizontal has the
smaller #325B Palmgren. The 325B Palmgren is a nice size vise for
those owning AMMCO, Atlas, and SB shapers without vises; their
common current retail price is $199.

I also just recently acquired a 2-inch high 3-inch jaw swivel base
vise that is the OEM vise for my Barker PM horizontal mill--it will
fit perfectly, I hope, also atop Percy "Perfecto-5" Periwinkle's table.

Art (Houston)

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Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 18:57:02 -0000
From: "elperkins2003" 
Subject: Re: Atlas Vise on SB Shaper

Art: Thanks for the reply. I have a couple of ideas here. Be sure that
I will not modify the vise or the shaper table in any way. That would
be sinful!

I did print off a copy of the Ammco vise from the files. It is a
nice drawing. I expect to try to make an adaptor out of some 1/2" or
3/4" aluminum plate. I don't know until I get the vise in my hands
how simple it will be to adapt the Atlas vise to a round keyed plate
like that shown in the Ammco drawing. I am curious to know if there
is a hole or stud on the bottom of the Atlas vise. Perhaps someone
in the group could answer this. If so, it may work. Another idea I have
is to make a pattern for an adaptor to fit the South Bend shaper table,
and cast it in aluminum. I like your idea of making a wooden model.
Of course you have just such a model when you make a foundry pattern.

I have found that to get accuracy and make truly parallel and square
parts on a shaper, you must get the workpiece square to the table.
The work holding device (vise) has to be square and not lift the work
when it is tightened down. To date the best thing I have come up
with is an old Altas 4 jaw lathe chuck. I made an adapter to bolt it
directly down on the table through the center hole in the table top.
It has 1&1/2" 8 TPI projection on top for the chuck, and a 1/2-13TPI
stud projecting through the bottom of the table to bolt to. It works
pretty darn good and of course leaves the top of the work free from
any clamps so it can be planned off nicely. As I said, if my vise
idea doesn't work, I can always relist the vise on ebay or maybe find
someone in the group who would want it. I'll keep ya posted.

Cheers!
Perk in Cincinnati

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Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 20:31:05 -0000
From: "al_messer" 
Subject: Re: Atlas Vise on SB Shaper

If senility hasn't completely blasted my memory, the Atlas vise is
secured to the bed with 4 "T" bolts. The alignment "key" is fastened
to the base with a couple of screws and aligns with a slot in the
center of the bed. The swiveling part of the vise is secured to the
graduated base with 2 "T" bolts. You can take a 1" thick piece of
Steel, drill and countersink 4 holes to fit the SB bolt pattern, and
then lay out and drill and tap for 4 studs to secure the Atlas vise
to the adapter plate. You are not going to "lose" all that much
vertical capacity by making an adapter plate.

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Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 21:08:32 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Atlas Vise on SB Shaper

Al-- As I'm writing this, I have a printed copy of the Atlas shaper
manual in my grubby hands. A provision for an alignment slot in the
adaptor plate could be made, if thought necessary, for the 90 degree
key, but I wouldn't. The Atlas vise's swivel base just has four
round bolt holes and these holes can be used for whatever type bolt
necessary to mount it to the adaptor plate. T-bolts are used when
the Atlas vise is mounted to the Atlas table because the table has T-
slots. T-bolts are also used to hold the vise to the swivel base.

Perk-- The exploded drawing for the Atlas vise is at "Files" here in
sub-directory "Manuals" and in the "Atlas PDF" file. Note that the
moveable jaw gib plates ("clamp" S7-143) are in the center so that
even if the "pilot" hole went thru, it probably would be too small
in diameter and without any clearance for a thru-bolt head if you
wanted to mount the vise directly to the table without the swivel base.

Making a pattern without first making an easy and rough "template"
may or may not work. In my design process, I always make a cheap &
simple template first, often out of card board. Making a pattern to
fit now as a pattern and later when "cast" could work, but would
require some "fiddling" with both the draft angle and shrinkage.

Art (Houston)

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Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 13:17:55 -0000
From: "al_messer" 
Subject: Re: Atlas Vise on SB Shaper

Art, I got to thinking after I went to bed as to "why" he couldn't turn
a pin the same size and shape as the SB mounting pin, drill and bore a
center hole to fit, slot the bottom of the adapter plate the same
size as the SB key, slot the top of the plate for the Atlas key,
locate, drill and tap four holes for "studs" to hold down the Atlas
base. If a center stud/pin is sufficiently sturdy to hold a SB vise,
I don't see why it won't secure an adapter plate. I thought of this
last night when changing positions of my SB vise to hold some scrap I
am reducing to raw materials. That pin/bolt is ALL that hold the vise in
position. If I were in his position, I'd opt for a piece of  Steel or
Cast Iron rather that Aluminum, but, "you gotta use whatcha got."

Al

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Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 15:26:18 -0000
From: "elperkins2003" 
Subject: Re: Atlas Vise on SB Shaper

Group: I appreciate all the brainstorming that has gone into my inquiry.
I actually have a number of ideas now, well in advance to receiving the
vise (which by the way is coming from Lew Best). My first choice
will be to try to manufacture a new swivel base with a centering
pin. I have to decide if I will just machine it from plate, or if I
want to pour an aluminium casting. If it doesn't work, I will make a
plate to fit the hole pattern in the vise base and drill a secondary
hole pattern in the plate to mate with the South Bend table. Lot's
of good ideas. Whatever I do, the Atlas vise will stay intact as
originally designed so it can be re-sold to another shaper owner at a
later date (when I get my original SB shaper vise. By the way, I
didn't know that an exploded view of the Atlas vise was in the Atlas
manual in the files section of this group. As they say, a picture is
worth a thousand words. Perhaps when I get it done, I can post some
pictures of this project. Thanks to all.

Perk in Cincinnati

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Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 15:30:25 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Hack'n a Gack

It's been almost a year ago since I posted some Messages (#3167,
3168, 3170) about Hugh's fantastic Ludwig Gack shaper machine.
Since then, some of the files at Metalworking.com/dropbox have
become retired files--new extended URLs--so the originally listed
URL's no longer work. I have therefore updated the URLs in the
original message as attached below.

For quite some time now I have been mulling over various possibilities
for home-brewed table top shapers to be fabricated primarily with
off-the-shelf & inexpensive components. This weekend I have been
rethinking the possibilities of using some of the concepts incorporated
in the design and construction of the Ludwig Gack shaper.

The Gack shaper has an X-Y table much like a milling machine does,
a horizontal single point tool holder that looks almost like a
spindle on a horizontal mill, and the ability to adjust, vertically,
the table to tool holder distance. The Gack looks like it is an
open side planer, but it is really a shaper as the tool head itself
reciprocates along the table's major axis. This tool head holds the
tool vertically for the cutting stroke, but rotates ("claps") the
tool bit tip upward on retract to clear the tool from the work. If
the tool head didn't reciprocate, but the table did, the Gack would
become, technically, an open side planer.

This afternoon, I'm going to "play" with some of my animals in
the "Junk Box". I'm going to fabricate an experimental (NOTE: I
said EXPERIMENTAL) working model of a Gack-style open side planer
using primarily off-the-shelf components. I'll be using a thick
slab of red oak for the base plate to rapdily (and cheaply) put
together this design concept model knowing that a steel base plate
would be required for a "real" machine if the concept proves
feasible. The first component to be mounted on this base plate will
be a 5-1/2" x 12" compound (X-Y) slide table with a double row of
1/2" T-slots, an 8" longitudinal table travel, and a 5" traverse
travel. Its overall height is 4-1/2 inches. I bought mine several
years ago from Wholesale Tool on sale; these imports are commonly on
sale for about $75. Immediately to the rear of the table I'll bolt
on a 4-1/2 inch riser composed of two 3-1/2 inch pipe floor flanges
connected by a short nipple. Thru bolted to the top of this riser
will be a 10-inch lathe size milling attachment. A high-priced
Palmgren (NIB), or used Atlas, SB, Logan attachment would work, but
they're pricey. Instead I have two much cheaper home-brewed milling
attachments that will suffice, at least for the experimental stage.
One I slapped together a year ago, during a Saturday afternoon ND
football defeat, using the top slide and vise of a 3" (75mm) X-Y
cross-slide vise bolted to the vertical side of a small and cheap CI
angle plate. The second one I recently bought at auction--it
appears to have been a student project in a Vo-Tech machine-shop
course--it has a small drill press vise mounted vertically to a
large section of steel angle so that the vise will slide using side
slide plates screw-attached to the angle. Both of these attachments
will be tried and will be mounted atop the riser with the vise jaws
set at 90 degrees to the table. The vise, being part of the milling
attachment, can be adjusted vertically (for height over table) and
will hold a simple round tool holder: the tool bit itself will be held
in a holder that can partially rotate ("clap") about this tool holder.

The first version will leave the table's longitudinal screw in place
just to see if everything else works. If it does, then this screw
can be removed and replaced with a simple lever-link arrangement for
reciprocating the table beneath the tool in manual mode. The lever,
itself, could then be replaced by a motorized slider-crank (Perfecto
style) or a more serious Whitworth type QR. CNC could be enabled by
stepper controlling the traverse table screw and with a direct motor
drive of the longitudinal table screw.

This afternoon, I'll soon see what such a contraption will look
like...and get my first touchies and feelies thereof.

Art (Houston North)

> I also missed Hugh's postings to
> http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2002_retired_files/Gack.txt
> back in late September-early October. Must have been out of
> town...or out of something or another....
> The company's whole name was: Ludwig Gack Werkzeug und
> Maschinenfabrik and they were located at Muhlacker in the W.
> German  State of Baden-Wurttemberg.
> Besides reading Hugh's text file (URL above), also look at the PICs
> he posted with URL's for the new ones:
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2002_retired_files/Gack000.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2002_retired_files/Gack100.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2002_retired_files/Gack104.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2002_retired_files/Gack105.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2002_retired_files/Gack108.jpg

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Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 16:30:02 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Hack'n a Gack

> Could a recycled lathe tailstock, modified with a feed lever, be used
> as the basis for a table top shaper or a shaper attachment to a lathe?
> TIA! Jeff

Jeff-- Why not? Lever operated tailstocks were offered by many of the
lathe manufacturers for use with tailstock mounted turret tool
holders. I've also seen plans--PS, PM, S&M, and/or MI--on
constructing/modifying lever operated tailstocks. (Check out the
archives/files/photos of some of the Yahoo Groups focused on lathes.)
There are some problems though--

-- relatively short stroke capability more suited for slotting.
-- need to devise a means for precluding the tool holder from slip-
    rotation in the tailstock taper.
-- motion is purely manual = "arm strong".
-- Ray E. will become insanely jealous. :-)

Check out Msg # 6209. There are links to two cross slide mounted
slotters, one of which (Mick's) uses a separate lever attazchment to
reciprocate the entire slide--a tailstock mounted lever could be so used.

Art (Houston)

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Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 21:59:37 -0000
From: "dreilanderecht" 
Subject: Re: SB-7 Table

> I really do like the positive location the center keyway gives the
> vise on my SB-7, but I cannot understand why there are three parallel
> keyways on the top? Why did they not make the two outer ones into "T"
> bolt slots like on the Atlas? Also for the outer ones on the sides--
> why not "T" bolts slots instead of keyways? Al Messer

I haven't seen the SB, but that sounds the same as the Ammco, Shallow
slots for keyways. The ammco does have holes drilled as standard, or so
I have heard...most, including mine, have had them tapped. This is
perhaps not quite as good as a T slot, but is probably less prone to
problems like a T slot getting broken out. It also leaves more meat in
the table than a T slot would, which has its good points for a small
machine. I leave to the purists the question of whether or not one
should modify one of these old machines. I guess a T slotted slab could
be bolted onto the existing table, at some loss of throat height.

regards
John

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Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 15:31:31 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Small Hendey Planer not a shaper

John, I like the Hendey's single central vertical screw, without a
handful of miter gears, for vertical height adjustment of the tool
head. Simple. Height adjustments, as on a shaper, are made prior to
operation and then locked in place.

If I were to make a small home-brewed planer, I would investigate
using both high strength concrete and/or synthetic granite (crushed
granite with 24-hour epoxy binder) such as Hardinge uses in a series
of their CNC machines. No foundry required. Metal inserts, as
needed, are pre-set in the mold prior to pouring. Joe W. and I
created a small test-bed lathe chucker bed-with-head a few years
back using a Portland sidewalk type concrete of adequate strength--
it hasn't "creeped" yet as was the worry of the "doubtful Thomases"
of the time. (They just didn't like it because it wasn't made of CI
like Gramp's Barnes was...and it looked different than their brains
could imagine, even though the operation functional requirements
were the same. Dunderkopfs.) A plate steel table facing could be
epoxied in place and machined flat by the planer being built.
Philly Resins, and others, offer buckets of their stuffs for "home-
bakers". I think that I would maybe even try a chain & sprockets
(off-the-shelf cheap components) for the table longitudinal drive,
but for the reversing mechanism I would have to retain the flip-
flopping of flat twisted belts...if just for the "warm feelies" of
the olde tymes.

Art (Houston)

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Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 23:45:24 -0000
From: "dreilanderecht" 
Subject: Re: Small Hendey Planer not a shaper

Hi Art. I found the single screw interesting, although as did someone
else, I wonder how you make sure that the horizontal bar is in fact level.

I agree that the concrete, epoxy/granite etc is fine. I might still
go with cast iron, since I have good foundry access, and since half
the point for me would be in making a semi replica of an old style
machine rather than an ideal modern shaper. So it would probably use
the twisted belt drive and so on. I have even wondered if I can fit
in the birdsclaw feet that I should still have a pattern for
somewhere. (The sort with a birds foot holding a ball...)

I certainly don't think the concrete is likely to creep. The epoxy might
be more likely to, but I don't think even that would be a problem
provided you allowed a long enough cure time before applying loads.
Anyway, this is still a way off, I have lots to do on the launch engine,
and there are other things to get on with too, like the little divider
and vice for the Ammco.

regards
John     With too many projects in New Zealand!

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Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 23:50:16 -0600
From: "Ray Ethridge" 
Subject: Re: Re: An Eccentric-Elliptical Geared Quick Return Shaper

Art: Hmmm, you must have been napping when Duffy gave his metal removal
rates for his new Rockford. With a 0.5 inch cut, 0.050 deep at 150 feet
per minute gives you something like 18 cubic inches of mild steel per
minute. That is head and shoulders above anything else I have in my
stable, my vertical mill can not even hope to do a tenth that,and it is
a pretty solid mill compared to what most hobbists have. I dare say that
there are not many people on this board that have machines that can
equal this performance.

I am sure you can find all sorts of commercial machines that will make
this sound paultry (but not at the $2500 that Duffy paid, and certainly
not at the $1250 I paid!), but as far as a machine that a hobbist can
afford, that is pretty high up on the food chain. And after all, this
is really a hobby for me, I am not using my shaper commercially. I just
want to make big blue curly chips go zinging off a piece of steel.

I was looking at the exercise for a completely different reason apparently.
I was thinking that someone might have a sick shaper, possibly one with a
screwed up or missing bull gear or scotch yoke that wanted some way to get
the machine going again. I still think it would be far easier to retrofit
a hydraulic cylinder to a shaper and get it going than it would be to put
in a screw drive, and certainly easier than an epicyclic drive. I do not
plan on making a hydraulic conversion of a shaper, I don't need one. I
have a Rockford. It cost me less than it would cost to go buy the
hydraulic components to try to modify a shaper, so there is not much point
in me doing that. I was only saying I have a system that would work. It
was scrounged for a completely different purpose. The automotive power
steering units might be sufficent, I believe they are capable of somewhere
around 500 psi if I remember correctly. That 500 psi on a 2 inch cylinder
will give you a thrust of a ! little over 1500 pounds, you will be able to
move metal with that. I don't know what their volume is, but based on the
speed that you can move a steering rack from side to side I would think
you could run maybe a stroke per second or so. But geez, no way I would
use a Chevy one! And yes, I did see your demo, you showed it to me. It was
interesting, you did in fact demonstrate that the mechanisms would work.
If you put it on a shaper, you could make chips, assuming you used
appropriately sized components. A screw drive machine will work, I don't
have any doubt about that. It is an interesting concept. But superior to
the hydraulic units? Mmmm, I dunno. Each to his own, you can play with
the stepper motor drives, electrically driven screws and all the limit
switches and such, that is your "thing". I have spent more than enough
time doing that sort of thing already, my hobby is making chips and I get
way more bang for my buck using hydraulics.

No need to console Rocky, he understands you like to diddle with gadgets.
He knows I will never put any kind of electric gegaws on him!

Ray Ethridge
If I were to make a relatively inexpensive shaper today, even for the
hobbyist crowd, I would use a version of the "screw drive shaper" a
design that has also been around for a hundred years. I would
direct drive the screw that linearally directly drives the ram. The
other axis would be simple old-fashioned stepper drives controlled by
the likes of a mere 286 which would be fast enuf for a shaper
operating, as it does, as a slow serial machine. In fact, I have one
such working model test bed sitting on top of one of my benches--it
is driven by a red plasma screened IBM portable suitcase 386 (= FREE)
using PowerBASIC code (downloadable for free). (Of course, the main
problem with any shaper is it's slow ram speed and single point
tooling with meagre resultant MRR.) My test bed's motor is a small
version of a Bosch DC motor my wife scrounged: it's the ticker from a
garage sale (= DAMN CHEAP) "Weed-Whacker" (Italian for a Torpedo who
does-in Mary-Jane smokers. "Gots any weeds?"...or just "Ich haben
milch!" :-) )

Shapers' MRR rates could be increased dramatically with high-powered
30,000 RPM 30 HP vector-drive spindles...but, then, they would be
milling machines. Interestingly, there was a 1960's-70's German
vertical mill that had its spindle mounted at the end of a CNC
controlled ram. I'll have to relocate the PIX--I think they're
at "Practical Machinist" too.

I imagine that a 7-incher hobbyist shaper, with direct DC motor
powered screw drive, could be made to "smoke"--I've got a NIB surplus
(= moderately cheap) GE 90VDC motor sitting in the stable...champing
at its bit. The 4 NIB 25 clam each DC variable speed reversible
controllers (got from Dennis C.) are also champing...rarin' to go. A
couple of cheap Hall-effect switches, and some odds and ends, should
constitute an economic drive system for a small hobbyist shaper.

I also have a similar small DC motor devise--that uses olde tyme
micro-switching (for demo purposes only)--direct screw drive DC
mechanism. (Didn't I demonstrate it to you a year ago? Not perfect
by any means, but it works, it's feasible, it's easy to do, and it's
parts can be "scrounged" very cheaply. It also has a "Weed Whacker"
ticker, and its ticker will probably be the one that is first fitted
to experimentally drive the ram of my manual English 5-inch
traversing head shaper. (PIC in Perfecto album here of that
shaper.); but, I really need a slightly bigger Whacker ticker...and
garage sale season is all but dead this year else I'd send my wife
and the Baskerville hounds out in pursuit of a
suitable "victim"...somewhere across the fog obscured frozen tundra.

As I also said, Ray, your Rocky was the culmination of 1950's shaper
design and technology, but, for all practical purposes, hydraulic
power, for both industrial machines and store-bought hobbyist ones,
is dead. I am, however, awaiting with much anticipation the viewing
of your to be contrived hydraulic shaper forged of scrounged
components. Do you think that a Chevy truck power steering unit can
cope with both your pressure and volume demands?
And, Ray, no one is ever going to do it...again. Shapers,
industrially, are DEAD. They just can never be made to have the high
MRR that would be required for them to be built, whether
hydraullically or electro-mechnically. But, if by some chance that
they could/would be, I would place my bet on electro-mechanical
systems as being both faster and more productive, and cheaper to
build and maintain. Just my gut feeling. (Now, after I said that,
go console Rocky and tell him I'm sorry. Please? :-) )

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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 20:41:38 EST
From: n8as1x~xxaol.com
Subject: Re: Re: An Eccentric-Elliptical Geared Quick Return Shaper

>I was looking at the exercise for a completely different reason apparently.
>I was thinking that someone might have a sick shaper, possibly one with a
>screwed up or missing bull gear or scotch yoke that wanted some way to get
>the machine going again. I still think it would be far easier to retrofit
>a hydraulic cylinder to a shaper and get it going than it would be
>to put in a screw drive, and certainly

ted clark did that very thing in an early edition of HSM ....incidentally
,got one letter to editor that he went to a lot of trouble for some bull
gear teeth missing....i would think it a good answer to a machine w/ worn
innerds ....more so if one has some hydraulic components readily
scrounged........

best wishes
docn8as

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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 20:53:37 EST
From: n8as1x~xxaol.com
Subject: cranks for shapers

just rcvd a 9/16 sq.hole & a 3/4sq. hole crank from    www.wttool.com
wholesale tool...appears investment cast ...dull chrome ? finish , smooth,
w/ revolving handle ...full sized ...$12 & $13.....ABT 1/10 OF ARMSTRONG
.....they are cast iron ....i needed 13/16 (unavailable ) had a lot of
fun opening it up w/ shaper. cape chisel (been a long time since i chipped)
& barstead file.....made a tool holder & ground a bit out of 3/16 x 1/2
...everything in the way! vise hanging 1/2 off table , cutter flexing...
next got a 3/8 boring bar & opened it up ,leaving the corners undone .....
should have fitted another longer bit & ground it to step out the corner ,
but by now was so ticked off I took a cape chisel to it,finished w/ a file
...good fit & decent finish ,but a real PIA.....thot abt buying a 7/8 &
brazing in couple pieces 1/32 shim stock & SHOULD HAVE ....i was going to
make the cranks , but the cheap asian stuff has been taking
all my fun away from shop making activities

best wishes
docn8as

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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 05:32:11 -0000
From: volzmechatronicx~xxyahoo.com
Subject: Jurassic Dino Planer to Get Electronically Controlled Ticker!!!

Have any of you been wondering what Matt I. has been up to? He's
been busy in his shop resuscitating a one hundred and fifty year old
Thayer & Houghton Planer made in Worcester, Mass, back about Civil
War time. The T&H planer of Matt's has a table about 18 inches wide,
48 inches long and the tool head can be raised 20 inches over the
table. It was patented in 1856 with Patent No. 15,413. (For those
wishing to see the patent see my previous messages--about Nov or Dec--
to see how.)

Matt is not just resuscitating this dino (I luv dino's...unless
they're run via ancient hydraulic liquid technology and then they
REALLY need to be resuscitated...with ball peen hammers and cold
chisels)--he's giving it a MODERN new millenium drive system. A VFD
controlled motor will replace line shafting and belts and shifter--it
will reverse automatically for each table cycle--and the VFD itself
will be controlled by a Programmable Logic Controller or, as Matt
calls it, a "Micro Brick PLC".
(See: http://www.geocities.com/smxplc/main_pl1.html )

If someone were to make a MODERN shaper with a direct drive linear
screw, powered and controlled like Matt's planer will be is the right
way to do it. (Eviscerate that leaking hydraulic woolly mammoth and
give it a new life. Do as Volta did: energize its "hydraulics" with a
zap of juice and watch that froggie jump...with joy.)

See Matt's PIX of his planer before cleaning, painting, tuning and
electronic revitalization:

http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_abstract.txt
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_casting_1.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_casting_2.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_mobile_base_1.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_mobile_base_2.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_rear.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/planer_top_rail.jpg

Way to go Matt!!

Art (Houston)

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Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 17:17:39 -0000
From: "Harprit Singh Sandhu" 
Subject: More castings

More castings posted under Castings in the Pic section.

Incidentally the vise will fit almost all 7 inch shapers with a
little bit of work so take another look.
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/Metal_Shapers_Pix

Regards
Harprit

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Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 23:12:33 -0600
From: "J. R. Williams" 
Subject: Logan Shaper [FEED MECHANISM MOD -- COULD APPLY TO ALL BRANDS]

I recently made a modification To my Logan's feed unit.  The bearing
area of the  cast iron body was worn enough to cause problems with the
functioning of the ratchet.    I had made a new ratchet shaft and knob
some time ago and today this project surfaced.  I bored out the  cast
iron housing and machined a  new bushing from "Oilite" stock. The
bearing is now two times the width of the old body and 'fits' the
shaft.   After installing a new taper pin and adjusting the ratchet it
works as designed and does not skip or hesitate.

Joe W

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Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 14:06:59 -0000
From: "frankdorion" 
Subject: Clutch for an AMMCO Shaper?

Anybody have suggestions on how to put some sort of clutch mechanism on
a 7" AMMCO shaper?  It seems like something might be done by redoing the
hinged belt tensioning mechanism so you could slip the v-belt. I'm
thinking there may be safety issues there though, like the belt grabbing
unexpectedly at the wrong time.Anyway, any thoughts on possible clutch
mechanisms would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Frank

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Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 09:20:07 -0500
From: "J. R. Williams" 
Subject: Re: Clutch for an AMMCO Shaper?

Frank. Consider using an automotive A/C clutch. All it requires is a
simple 12 volt power supply. I had one on an old air compressor I
assembled from a Ford/York compressor. You could use a variable voltage
supply so the clutch could be 'slipped' for a slower start up.

Joe W

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Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 13:08:09 -0400
From: "Okey Caynor" 
Subject: RE: Clutch for an AMMCO Shaper?

Humm, now one other way could be with a friction clutch from an old cub
cadet. The one that drives the mower deck, could be on the end of a 7/8
shaft, with an adjustment to the "button" to vary slip.

Okey Caynor  (Central Ohio)

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Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 17:36:24 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Hello and Perfecto

Mike Ousby  wrote:
> Two pics posted to Metal_Shapers_Pix ·
> Metal Shapers Pix in folder Perfecto mods.
> Hope that you're not going to tell me the flamin' obvious, which I
> already know , that's there no autofeed fitted?? :-) :-) Mike Ousby

Mike--I could tell you the flamin' obvious...but I won't....

I have never seen a manual Perfecto that was coverted to powered operation
and the reason that none were converted was probably a simple one: get a
powered version. I have a OEM Perfecto-5 powered version. You could,
perhaps, attempt to mimic its mechanism to convert yours but that is much
easier said than done.

I'm sure you have looked thru all the files and photos here and at our
sister site and have gone thru all the retired files and photos as well in
Archives at Links here.  You probably have also gone thru all of the PIX
at metalworking.com as well as Chaski BB and Practical Machinist sites.
Tony G's shaper archives at lathes.co.uk has several PIX of manual shapers
--none Perfecto--that have been converted to powered operation: the
powered Adept conversion is pretty neat. Charles Camilleri (Malta)
motorized an unknown manual shaper. See Msg #10756 here. If you like what
he did, he is easy to converse with via email.

A while back I made an electro-mechanical ratcheting mechanism using a
"rescued" Bosch DC reversible motor with micro-switch stops and a
motorized timing switch mechanism...just to see if it would work. For the
ratchet part...I used a reversible el cheapo ratcheting wrench: the
obvious cheap & available ratcheter.  You could devise an improved version
to ratchet drive your traversing Perfecto ram assembly much easier than
fabbing a pure mechanical one. A reversible DC motor riding piggy-back
atop the ram as it traversed could also be used to directly screw-drive
the ram: the Super Cinninati 43 of 1955 used a direct screw ram drive. I
placed a PIC of my crude but working experimental electro-mechanical drive
in "Photos" at our PIX site.

On my CNC benchtop shaper working model I used stepper motors.

That all said...I already know the obvious: that what I said obviously is
NOT what you wanted to hear or see.  Well...anywho...TGIF!  :-)

Art (Houston)

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Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 02:30:51 -0000
From: "joe mama" 
Subject: motorizing perfecto

in the files section of the mwmills group jwe has posted part 01 of a
three part series on motorizing the perfecto shaper.

reg'ds, joe

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Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:41:35 +0100
From: Mike Ousby 
Subject: Re: motorizing perfecto

Thanks Joe. This is the result of me and JWE having a discussion on
another list. There are two more parts to be posted AFAIK.

Best
Mike O

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Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:21:19 -0500
From: "physist" 
Subject: Lucked Out

Art suggested that I should put a gear motor on the Springfield and do
away with the belt and shaft reduction. I looked at them and they were
out of my budget. I also wanted to retain the old Century motor.

The Surplus Center had two used gearboxes one was an 8:1 ($70) and the
other was a 9:1.($60) They both were listed as having a 13/16 MALE 30
tooth spline. This would mean making a female 30 tooth spline. Well I
thought I would give it a shot. At the worst it might be a week of
filing. BTDT. So I bought the 8:1 because it was shorter and lighter.
(Rated at 1.75 HP). Well it just arrived and included in the box was an
adapter from the spline to a keyed shaft, 7/8 diameter. The motor is
3/4. Well you can't have everything. I figure a 1/16 split sleeve and
a key 1/16 wider should put me in business.

Jim B.   Verona, NJ

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Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:38:44 -0000
From: "Art Volz" 
Subject: Re: Lucked Out

Jim -- Super! And the split sleeve adaptor--with the split itself
accommodating a key--is exactly the way I would have done it, and
have done it in the past. I've also used shim stock, cardboard, and
beer can metal. I like the beer can metal method best as it is
quite an enjoyable process, can take the better half of an
afternoon, but I can never figure out afterwards why I have so much
beer can metal left over that I didn't seem to need, or to use????

Art (Out in Animal Farm, saying "Hi!" to my gearmotors gang of four: "Hi
there, gearmotor...Hi, there...you on the butt end of my Lewis...Hi....")

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NOTE TO FILE: Very likely the auction and its pictures mentioned in
this next message will disappear by the time many of you read this.
What is important is the concept and the ideas shared by the group
about automatic shaper lubrication in the following conversation.

-------

Thought I'd seen it all, but... [Metal_Shapers]
Posted by: "speedphoto300" speedphoto300x~xxyahoo.com
Date: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:33 pm ((PDT))

Check out Ebay item 170140164651, it's a Lewis with a mechanical fuel
pump to provide forced lubrication. Genius!

Joe

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "Joe Smith" joex~xxjesinc.net
Date: Wed Aug 15, 2007 10:22 pm ((PDT))

Interesting! I recall a similar setup on a SB 9" I bought about 30 yrs
ago. Can't remember how the pump was powered in his setup. The Lewis
looks good too. Wish mine had the door.

Joe Smith

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "Irby Jones" irbyratx~xxcox.net
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:46 am ((PDT))

Some day I plan to continue Art's idea of getting castings made up of
the Lewis doors WITH the Lewis logo cast into them. I've made the logo
and need to make up the molds for the door itself and the hinges. I
know a couple places to cast them. It's a back burner project, so it's
taking a while.

Irby

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "Ed Godwin" eng4turnsx~xxyahoo.com
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:19 am ((PDT))

Joe: If you think you've seen it all, then I guess I'll have to post some
pictures of my Porter-Cable that I fitted with a cast alumunium external
oil reservoir with an internal oil pump from a 1976 Kawasaki KZ900,
chain-driven off an external motor with lube lines to all bushings,
bearings and the ram slide.

The chain drive is enclosed in a cast alumunium housing with a Lexan cover
so you can see the workings. Develops about 40 psi at the speed I've got
it running. Typically, I just turn it on for about 15 seconds for every
5 or 10 minutes of operating time.

Ed in Florida

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "speedphoto300" speedphoto300x~xxyahoo.com
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:16 am ((PDT))

Ed: You're absolutely right, I would like to see photos of that. I'm
sure others would too. I mull over projects like that, but seldom
get them to the execution phase.

Joe

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "frankdorion" fdorionx~xxcomcast.net
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:59 am ((PDT))

This mechanical fuel pump idea looks like a great idea for my early model
South Bend shaper. At the risk of sounding mechanically-challenged (I am
when it comes to anything automotive!), how are mechanical fuel pumps
powered? Also, any thoughts on methods of metering the oil flow that would
be more effective than a simple valve on the output side of the pump?

Frank

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "Ed Godwin" eng4turnsx~xxyahoo.com
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 11:44 am ((PDT))

Frank: These old mechanical fuel pumps were driven from a cam lobe on the
distributor shaft. The cam lobe bore on a lever arm that was pivoted on
a pin in the fuel pump body. The other end of the arm was attached to a
diaphragm that pumped the fuel to the carburetor. Obviously, these pumps
cannot develop the pressure required by modern fuel injection systems so
they went the way of the carburetor.

You knew these old pumps were going bad when they starting leaking gas on
the driveway under the engine.

For a shaper, I would just play around with simple drilled orifices in
each line to each lube point. One could get much more sophisticated and
buy the metering devices such as supplied by Bijur with their one-shot
machine tool lubrication systems but I do not know how much pressure is
required to actuate the Bijur devices.

Ed in Florida

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "Joe Smith" joex~xxjesinc.net
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 1:12 pm ((PDT))

For my Lewis, I am considering a drip system using an overhead tank and
felt wicks. I don't see where that much oil is needed. I would use a
master valve under the tank to limit oil flow when the shaper was not
in use.

Joe

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "J R Williams" jrwillmsx~xxhal-pc.org
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 2:13 pm ((PDT))

Joe: Wire in a small solenoid valve to shut off the oil when the unit
is not running.

JRW

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Re: Thought I'd seen it all, but...
Posted by: "Joe Smith" joex~xxjesinc.net
Date: Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:50 pm ((PDT))

Thanks, Good idea

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