5 inch shaper

[threesixesinarow]

This is my little hand powered traveling head shaper. I copied many details from small machines like Perfecto, Adept, and Bradley, but also from some old full size shapers.

I changed the arrangement to make it more compact and portable, with the feed handle higher up and the feed screw farther back than on those. The heavy rectangular base has t-slots on the front and on the top and the whole working part can be repositioned or removed as easily as the two tables I have for it, so that the machine can be mounted directly onto work. I built it planning to add automatic feed and a motor drive as I needed them, but haven’t done either yet.

It takes a pretty good cut! But that depends on the “motor,” too. It has about 8” cross feed and 1-1/2” down feed, and the overall size is about 16x16x16”. I think it weighs a little over 100lbs.








E. H. Knight’s 3” stroke shaper from the October 9, 1952 issue of Model Engineer

Very short webcam video: