- Joined
- Sep 4, 2013
- Messages
- 113
I'll tell a story here, maybe it'll ease some minds...
My grandfather was a jack of all trades, brought up farming, you know how that goes. If he couldn't build it or fix it, it wasn't allowed on the farm. He always had a itch to machine things, but didn't have the advantages we do now of Google and YouTube to teach himself. This is the story of just one of his machines. An old shaper, not pretty at all, he bought it at an auction for who knows what, and dragged it home. I think he used it once, and by the tiny drill press vise mounted to the table, I'm sure he wasn't successful with it. Fast forward to '97, and he was so sick he couldn't force himself to the shop anymore. Not long after, he passed, leaving his children to squabble over his stuff, even though he'd laid it all out in his will. My uncle and father ended up with the tools, and the only reason this shaper remained was because it was so big and heavy no one could handle it. Eventually during a clean out, the shaper was moved into the back corners of the main barn, covered with a tarp, and buried by a bunch of other junk by my father. Jump ahead another decade or so. I had found a huge old vise in a scrap pile, it only needed one jaw pad. Pricing having these made was just crazy. One day, I mentioned this to my father, who said "too bad we don't know how to use that old shaper in the barn".
"What the hell is a shaper?" I said. After a brief explanation of what little he knew about it, I decide to see if it even still worked. Longer story short, after some oil, and minor electric work, the old beast roared to life, and that machine made me fall in love with machining. It is one of my most prized possessions, not that it gets used much, since I bought a mill, but I would never get rid of it.
Basically the point to this whole thing is: even though he didn't give the shaper away or sell it off to an already established machinist, it still found a good home, and you never know when your old "stuff" will ignite a flame in someone to learn as much as they can about the old way of doing things. Maybe the person that should get your stuff just doesn't know they need it yet!
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My grandfather was a jack of all trades, brought up farming, you know how that goes. If he couldn't build it or fix it, it wasn't allowed on the farm. He always had a itch to machine things, but didn't have the advantages we do now of Google and YouTube to teach himself. This is the story of just one of his machines. An old shaper, not pretty at all, he bought it at an auction for who knows what, and dragged it home. I think he used it once, and by the tiny drill press vise mounted to the table, I'm sure he wasn't successful with it. Fast forward to '97, and he was so sick he couldn't force himself to the shop anymore. Not long after, he passed, leaving his children to squabble over his stuff, even though he'd laid it all out in his will. My uncle and father ended up with the tools, and the only reason this shaper remained was because it was so big and heavy no one could handle it. Eventually during a clean out, the shaper was moved into the back corners of the main barn, covered with a tarp, and buried by a bunch of other junk by my father. Jump ahead another decade or so. I had found a huge old vise in a scrap pile, it only needed one jaw pad. Pricing having these made was just crazy. One day, I mentioned this to my father, who said "too bad we don't know how to use that old shaper in the barn".
"What the hell is a shaper?" I said. After a brief explanation of what little he knew about it, I decide to see if it even still worked. Longer story short, after some oil, and minor electric work, the old beast roared to life, and that machine made me fall in love with machining. It is one of my most prized possessions, not that it gets used much, since I bought a mill, but I would never get rid of it.
Basically the point to this whole thing is: even though he didn't give the shaper away or sell it off to an already established machinist, it still found a good home, and you never know when your old "stuff" will ignite a flame in someone to learn as much as they can about the old way of doing things. Maybe the person that should get your stuff just doesn't know they need it yet!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk