# Acorn (Atlas) shaper restoration



## Marine Man (May 28, 2021)

Hi Guys. Well here goes my first post about a project. A shaper was the first machine, apart from a lathe, that I trained on as a junior engineer and really loved the machine. As a result for most of my adult life I have yearned after a shaper, but could never find one that I could justify owning. In desperation a few weeks ago I downloaded some plans with a view to possibly building one in the distant future. Well imagine my surprise when the very next day I walked into a friends workshop to see a small shaper sitting forlornly in a corner, covered in grime and being used as a shelf for various items including a two way radio and battery. I asked the friend if he would consider parting with it and he said gladly so long as I replaced it with a shelf for his radio and shared the progress of the shapers restoration with him.
Deals like that don't come around very often so the very next day my friend was the proud owner of a new shelving system, and the shaper was sitting on the floor of my shop!
It is pretty much complete including the original vice and cast iron stand (the stand weighs nearly as much as the machine itself!) After rubbing a bit of the grime off I was pleased to find very little obvious wear and only a few patches of light surface rust on the table. It is in surprisingly good condition for its history and I'm really looking forward to rebuilding this beauty.
One thing puzzles me is that according to most of the literature I have read, these shapers are lubricated using oil cups, yet this one does not have a single one. They are all pressed-in oil nipples similar to what we have on Myford lathes. Now my question is does anyone know if this was this a conversion, or is this some factory variant? I know that the Acorn is basically the same as the Atlas, and that it was merely rebranded for the British market. Did this possibly include changing the lubrication system?


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## master of none (May 28, 2021)

Hi Marine Man look in the shaper forum and you'll find some body there who rebuilt a Atlas 7b shaper with lots of pictures it help me lots when I rebuilt mine.


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## Marine Man (Jun 3, 2021)

Baby steps so far. The clapper box, vice and stand restored and in prime position in the small shop. The stand weighs nearly as much as the shaper!


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## Marine Man (Jun 3, 2021)

The rest of the machine awaiting my attentions
	

		
			
		

		
	



The problem is I have too many distractions, like paying work to get thru first


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## brino (Jun 3, 2021)

Marine Man said:


> The problem is I have too many distractions, like paying work to get thru first



You are not alone in that.

I am watching this thread, thanks for sharing it!

-brino


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## Marine Man (Jun 6, 2021)

Managed to get quite a bit done over the weekend and thought I will share quite a few of the problems I've come across.
First off - paint! I don't know who the mad painter was, but I have never seen a machine so lathered in paint. Graduations, gib screws, feed screws, even the ways were covered in multiple layers of thick paint. 



A general view before stripping
View attachment 368293

An example of the mad painters handiwork!


The main body half-way thru the paint stripping process
	

		
			
		

		
	



...after the paint job. Now to lightly stone the ways
The table is now also completely restored. Luckily it was in surprisingly good condition once the grime and paint had been removed




One of the biggest problems I have is that one of the bearing adjustment collars had picked up the thread and seized to the point I had to bore the whole collar out on the mill. I have to now clean up the internal threads as can be seen in the photo above, but without a tap I'm a bit puzzled as how to go about it.  Any ideas would be welcome


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## Janderso (Jun 6, 2021)

Nice looking shaper.
I’ll be interested to see how you clean up those threads, I have no idea.


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## brino (Jun 6, 2021)

The cleanup is coming along very well!

-brino


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## NCjeeper (Jun 6, 2021)

Looking good on your progress.


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## Shootymacshootface (Jun 6, 2021)

You could try to scrape the threads clean with a tap the same pitch. Maybe weld some sort of a handle on a section of a tap that is not tapered.


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## Marine Man (Jun 6, 2021)

Thanks guys for all the support and encouragement 
Shootymacshootface that sounds like an idea. I'll try something along those lines


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## hman (Jun 6, 2021)

Marine Man said:


> Managed to get quite a bit done over the weekend and thought I will share quite a few of the problems I've come across.
> First off - paint! I don't know who the mad painter was, but I have never seen a machine so lathered in paint. Graduations, gib screws, feed screws, even the ways were covered in multiple layers of thick paint.


A bit off topic ... but I once bought an old fire hydrant, just to put in front of my kitchen window as an interesting prop.  Good Grief, what a huge number of paint coats, and all kinds of colors!  I guess the town where it used to live liked to change the color of their hydrants every couple years - red, yellow, white, silver, etc.  It took me quite a while and many cans of stripper to get it down to the bare metal.  Then I gave it a coat of primer and several coats of what I consider the only proper color for a fire hydrant - RED.

I eventually plumbed "garden hose water" to it, placed the outlet just inside the front cap, and used the top knob to operate a ball valve for added realism.


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## Marine Man (Jun 14, 2021)

A bit more work has been done and a few problems solved. I managed to clean up the internal threads on the counter shaft adjustment collars with a combination of a scriber (used to pick the old thread out), long nosed pliers, an old tap with matching tpi, a thread file and a bit of patience. I'm happy with the end result.


The new adjustment collar machined up pretty well and seems as good as new


The next problem to solve was extracting a broken 1/8 bolt that holds the way wiper housing. It had broken off flush with the casing (as always)
Anyway a couple of washers and some judicious welding with the stick welder saw it coming out easier than expected. The machine was without wipers when I recieved it, so I'll have to fabricate a set when I get a chance


The broken stud welded to the washer and after extraction. Probably one of the smallest studs I have ever removed using the welding method.
Finally I can start the reassembly. Looking forward to that!


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## hman (Jun 15, 2021)

What a nasty looking boogered-up thread!  Glad you were able to get the stud out.  And that's a very nice looking cleanup of the adjustment collar threads.


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## Marine Man (Jun 15, 2021)

hman said:


> What a nasty looking boogered-up thread!  Glad you were able to get the stud out.  And that's a very nice looking cleanup of the adjustment collar threads.


Thanks Hman. I think I've been really lucky with this machine all round.


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## Marine Man (Jun 20, 2021)

And slowly it comes together!
I had to machine a two inch brass spacer to fit behind the sliding block as mine was missing. Looking at other threads this seems to be a common problem on these old machines and one can only wonder how or why someone would leave them out when reassembling the machine. It's fairly obvious that something is needed there.
Anyway the ram is sliding sweetly and everything is looking good.


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## Marine Man (Jul 19, 2021)

Well guys it's been a while. First I was too busy to do much and then last week our country went mad and for a time I thought we were going to become refugees. Anyway things have quietened down and the last few days I really needed time out from the real world, so I have managed to get quite a lot done. Not that much left to do, so I'm hoping the next post will be a video of the machine in action


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## NCjeeper (Jul 19, 2021)

On the home stretch looks like.


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## hman (Jul 19, 2021)

Very nice looking restoration.  Meanwhile, best wishes for your safety!


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## brino (Jul 19, 2021)

Wow, fantastic work!

-brino


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## Boswell (Jul 19, 2021)

What a beautiful machine and restoration job.


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## Marine Man (Jul 21, 2021)

hman said:


> Very nice looking restoration.  Meanwhile, best wishes for your safety!


Thanks Hman. Still finding what happened last week surreal! Anyway it helps immersing oneself in a restoration project


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