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Is a shaper a tool worth adding to my home shop?
- Thread starter HMF
- Start date
Metal shapers are considered obsolete now. There are, however, many reasons to have one in your home shop. They certainly come in many sizes, I have a 12 " Sheldon, footprint no larger than a grinder. Economy in tooling cost is one big reason to have it in a home shop. No need to purchase a carbide face mill, endmills, and all manner of specialty tools for specific jobs linear in nature when using a vertical mill. Any job requiring facing a surface area large or small is no problem. Tool has dulled? No problem, grind a new edge. Any work requiring linear tool paths are a piece of cake: splines, keyways, gears, right angles, multi-angles, T-slots, concave grooves, convex ridges and so on. You can even use it as a saw! Only your mind limits its application to work metal, all on cheap tooling.
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2010
- Messages
- 1,043
From the standpoint of economics, there is no good reason to have a shaper in your shop. But Damn, they sure are cool to watch! My 12" Vernon seldom gets used for real projects, but from time to time I just set it up and watch it make lovely blue chips.
Randy
Randy
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2010
- Messages
- 195
I bought an Atlas 7" shaper 16 months ago and so far I've turned it on four times to demonstrate it's functionality to friends. I've never needed it to do anything I couldn't do faster on another machine.
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2011
- Messages
- 8,031
Unless you see a need to cut internal splines or keyways, or make square holes, I'd answer no. They have a place on that kind of work, but like everyone said, many ops can be done quicker, if not also better on other machines.
I have one, but I bought it years ago for doing splines, and make money...........because no one else has one in their shop and knows how to use it. They usually get dragged outside in the weather to make room for some new fangled machine
I have one, but I bought it years ago for doing splines, and make money...........because no one else has one in their shop and knows how to use it. They usually get dragged outside in the weather to make room for some new fangled machine
I've owned one for 20 years and mostly use it for internal keyways. Being old and near obselete it was cheap. A standard set of keyway broaches up to 1.25 inches at that time cost about what I paid for the shaper. I intend to keep it "just in case" like a lot of other things in my shop. It does take up a lot of floor space while a set of broaches will fit nicely in a tool drawer. Would I buy another? Yes, if it was smaller and needed a home. LOL.
Bill
Bill
Shapers are fun to watch . Buy they are slower than heck to get any thing done with. I used to run one many years ago boy are they slow . turn machine on take a nap. but they still do some things better like cutting dovetails and removing lots of metal in one pass.
Here is my 2 cents.
I use my 14"G&E tool room shaper a lot, this machine has adj. power feed on all axis including the clapper head. I mainly use the shaper for cutting bevels in thick steel plate for weld joints ,also to square up rough cut stock fast.I purchase used HSS tool bits by the pail full and making good cutting bits that cost only pennies to make (cutter bits of all kind of shapes and fourm tools for spur gears) It did take me a long time to learn to grind the tool bits just right ~but now I think I have the hang of it, but that is what I said to my self last year!.
Shapers do not like carbide tool bits because of the interupted cuts. Just recently I cut a 5/8 keyway for a 2.5 " ID pulley for a lineshaft ,a new broach for this one job would have cost big bucks. Making simple spur gears or dovetails on a shaper is a piece of cake! I can say the shaper is my favorite machine!
Regards Bob
I use my 14"G&E tool room shaper a lot, this machine has adj. power feed on all axis including the clapper head. I mainly use the shaper for cutting bevels in thick steel plate for weld joints ,also to square up rough cut stock fast.I purchase used HSS tool bits by the pail full and making good cutting bits that cost only pennies to make (cutter bits of all kind of shapes and fourm tools for spur gears) It did take me a long time to learn to grind the tool bits just right ~but now I think I have the hang of it, but that is what I said to my self last year!.
Shapers do not like carbide tool bits because of the interupted cuts. Just recently I cut a 5/8 keyway for a 2.5 " ID pulley for a lineshaft ,a new broach for this one job would have cost big bucks. Making simple spur gears or dovetails on a shaper is a piece of cake! I can say the shaper is my favorite machine!
Regards Bob
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I use my Atlas shaper mostly for finishing large (relatively speaking) flats and the thing I like about it is I don't have to stand there and watch it every second. Once I set it in motion I can do something else while it's doing its thing and I come back when I don't hear it cutting any more.
Hi folks, I don't have any experience with shapers but I am interested in Allthumbz question. I would like to make one of the falling block rifles described by "Mr Single Shot " in an old book I have laying around here somewhere. You need to cut a square hole about 1"x1" through a block of 4140 about 2" thick. I hate to buy a big machine for one project though, and space comes at a premium. I was thinking about the slotting attachment for the Bridgeport. Maybe this would be a worth while alternative for you as well Nelson.