Mystery Shaper

[OrangeAlpine]

Phils69 expressed an interest in my shaper. It is located at our son's house and I prevailed upon him to take some photos for Phil. I decided to share with everyone are A) Phil is not terribly interested in the machine, just it oddness and B) it is odd.

He is not a machinest and really has no idea of the mechanics of a shaper. As a result, they are not the pictures I would have taken, but they are what he took, so we'll try to live with them. If anyone wants better pics I may be able to take some tomorrow.











This machine does not have a bull wheel, so don't look for one. It is belt drive. The rear belt runs through a gearset, reversing the ram direction. The belts are engaged by air operated clutches. They operate on about about 20 psi.


Bill

 

[core-oil]

Bill,
That is a most unusual machine, having the ram direction being reversed by air operated clutches, I have read that on some large American engineering planing machine this was the method used

This should give a very smooth cutting machine, does it have its own compressor built in?

some more photographs would be of interest
Thanks for posting.

 

[OrangeAlpine]

No compressor.

The setup has a major diasavantage. If you forget to turn the air on, it will run the ram all the way forward off the rack (easily reingaged), or, if your living right, back through the wall. It should be setup with a pressure switch that prevents the motor from starting unless you have 15 psi. Other than that, it is good. I especially liked the fact the ram speed is not dependent on stroke.

Bill

 

[dfletch]

Bill. Thanks for the photos of that interesting machine. I am a fan of shapers but haven't seen one like that. It's interesting to see some of the ideas engineers have come up with in the past. Bet they didn't sell many of those. Thanks again.

Doug.

 

[barn]

That is quite interesting. I've never seen anything like it.

 

[Hawkeye]

Interesting. Is it the gear on the left-side pulley that engages the rack? Looks like somewhere around a 10" shaper, but I think I'd be careful about not taking too big a bite.

 

[OrangeAlpine]

Yes, that gear is part of the reverse drive. I'm not sure how to measure a shaper's size. I was going mostly by stroke, which, quite frankly I don't remember for sure.

It's not a G&E, tha's for sure.

Bill

 

[OrangeAlpine]

Stopped by and measured the machine. The table is 10 X 14. Stroke is 16". What size does that make it? I'm sure I don't know. Another mystery to me is the vertical table. It is 14 tall. I keep thinking there should be some way to rotate the table so it would be 14 X 14 and I see no reason for such a large vertical table. But I can't see exactly how to do it. I have never had a need for the larger area, so I've never tried.

Bill

 

[Dabbler]

Hey Bill - very nice machine! It would be a work horse! Great find!

 

[cjtoombs]

I have a hypothesis about the drive. It is apparently a rack and pinion drive shaper, which were never terribly popular, but pretty much went out at the turn of the century in favor crank and to a limited extent hydraulic shapers. These early shapers were almost invariable belt jumpers, with the remainder using mechanical clutches. They also used flat belts and overhead drives, as V belts weren't really standardized until the 1920s and individual motor drives were not yet popular. I think that that shaper is probably vintage 1890-1905, originally used belt jumper overhead drive and was converted to motor drive with the air activated clutches later in it's life (later could have been the 1920s, so take "later" with a grain of salt here). Another think that supports it being from that era is it's relatively light build for that size shaper (I would classify it as 14"), as a 1920s shaper of that size would likely weigh 1.5 tons or so. Also, no table support, or even the provision for one dates it in that range. It could be earlier than that, but probably not later. Hope you find a good home for it. Rack and pinion drive shapers are quite rare today. They have the advantage over a crank shaper of a constant cutting speed and that you can also have a quick return speed. Their main disadvantages were the complex drive arrangement and that the stroke was not as consistent as a crank shaper, and thus couldn't be used to cut keyways or splines in a blind hole.