Should I grab this shaper?

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Greg_Lewis
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Location: Fresno, CA

Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by Greg_Lewis »

LVRR2095 wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:14 pm I have never let the fact that I will never use something deter me from buying it! All I consider is “do I want this?”

Keith
^^^ :lol:
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
Glenn Brooks
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Harper, did you pick up the Shaper?

Glenn
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Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

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EOsteam
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by EOsteam »

I passed on the shaper. The money I would have spent will be dedicated to the purchase of more castings for the engine. Also, after much thought and an honest appraisal of how much it would be used, the purchase was not justified. The other drawback was the 500 mile one way trip to pick up the machine. Thanks for all your opinions!

Harper
tetramachine
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by tetramachine »

I believe the old quote is "You can make anything on a Shaper, EXCEPT money". About 10 years ago I picked up a nice SB Shaper They are 7" machines. The table is to small to mount anything except the 3.5" vise. There are no Tee slots, and One hole. That machine took up space of 24 x 48 when not in use, and 2 foot more with a garbage can in front to catch the chips.
Sold it after 6 months of stepping around it. It was replaced with a Cylindrical grinder that is used much more often,
My wheels don't slow me down
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by Greg_Lewis »

7-inch Atlas shaper. Machining the slide valve surface. Nice smooth finish with no swirls.
24.JPG

Machining the smoke box saddle. Table is off the shaper, lots of clamps and angle blocks. This uses the "bonk" method. With each stroke of the shaper, the big C-clamp gets a bonk with a fist to pivot it over for the next stroke. Obviously, the saddle casting had to be carefully placed vis-a-vis the toolhead.
25.JPG
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
Doug_Edwards
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by Doug_Edwards »

Greg,

I love it! Nice job of being innovative to use what you have on hand. I think innovation is one of the best attributes a machinist can have.

I have a picture from the 50's somewhere in my filing system that shows the saddle of a 1" scale cylinder block being machined in a similar fashion. Someone had installed a worm gear on the tool head, and used the worm to rotate the tool head.

There is an SP movie out that I think is on utube called something like "this is your railroad". There are two versions. The older version has some footage of the saddle being machined on a cylinder block using a shaper actuating a pivoting tool holder to generate the arc of the saddle. The length of the arm from the pivot point to the end of the tool dictates the radius of the saddle. Wonderful footage, even if rather brief.

Regards,

Doug
http://www.precisionlocomotivecastings.com/
Building a 70 ton Willamette in 1.6"
Building a 80 ton Climax in 1.6"

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Andypullen
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by Andypullen »

I have a 12" Sheldon shaper. It may sit most of the time, but there are times when it can do a job more easily than a milling machine.

Attached are 2 recent jobs for my shaper.

The first one is the decorative covers for Allen cylinder steam chests.

The next 2 are intermediate rods getting their ends slotted. The rods are stainless steel and a 8" diameter x 1/8" wide slitting saw burned up on one turning at 60 rpm with flood coolant. So, I had to find another way to cut them. I made a fixture to bolt to the side of the table and purchased a good quality HSS parting blade and turned the machine into a horizontal slotter. It's working very well. I'm taking .005" deep bites while the cnc mill is running on other parts.

Andy Pullen
Attachments
steamchest covers.jpg
Rod slotting1.jpg
rod slotting2.jpg
Clausing 10x24, Sheldon 12" shaper, ProtoTrak AGE-2 control cnc on a BP clone, Reed Prentice 14" x 30", Sanford MG 610 surface grinder, Kalamazoo 610 bandsaw, Hardinge HSL speed lathe, Hardinge HC chucker, Kearney and Trecker #2K plain horizontal mill, Haas TL-1 lathe.
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Should I grab this shaper?

Post by Greg_Lewis »

Andy:
I did my rods the same way. Crossheads, too. I remember a machine shop here in town that had started back in the 1920s with a stationary engine out back and line shafts and belting to all the machines. When I found it in the 1980s, I noted a huge hydraulically operated shaper in the middle of the shop. This thing must have been the size of a Chevy Suburban. I asked the old machinist, who must have been at least 120 years old, if he ever used it, and he said not often but there were jobs that couldn't be done any other way. (And when the shop closed down, the twin-head, 60-inch-table, vertical boring machine — almost two stories tall — sold at the auction, probably to a scrapper, for $150. :( And the "watchmaker's turn" with the 40-inch faceplate and 20-foot bed went for $300.)
Greg Lewis, Prop.
Eyeball Engineering — Home of the dull toolbit.
Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
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