T-nuts - video

[Jon]

T-nuts. By Blondihacks. 25:14 video:

[metric_taper]

Seems I keep seeing youtube videos of big-time channel machinists('s) that acquire a shaper.
40 years ago, they were being sold for scrap from local machine shops. Right when CNC was starting to be the thing.

I ended up with a Rockford horizontal miller #2 (build in Rockford Illinois, company morphed into making automatic truck transmissions, then aircraft turbine engine generator transmissions, to adjust the 400Hz, then avionics power distribution systems, and now Raytheon), with a Brown&Sharp #10 spindle. Built in the 30's, power feed in all 3 axis of the knee (amazing engineering). Originally powered from overhead lineshaft, the original owner (Sattler, big company now), installed a Lima conversion with a 3HP 3phase motor, driving a 4 speed Model A transmission, with the reverse converted to a low gear, then a flat belt to the big sheave of the machine. Someone spent much time radius-ing the main mounting frame, for the conversion kit. I got it, as his son inherited the biz, and sold the machine to me, as he was tired of his crew using it when much faster ceramic index tooling was available, on much newer equipment. I'm toying with the idea of converting the spindle to NTMB40, but much disassembly is required. I had to remove the knee to get it out of the machine shop a few months ago, and did some deep cleaning, but was impressed by the minimal wear on that vertical knee way. I think it had 60 years of real machine shop use before I "hanger queened" it. I used it once in my early ignorant learning days, and then got a vertical Wells-Index milling machine. Never looked back for any project on the horizontal, that I have enough tooling to make stuff with. For me, the idea is to get it done now, not using the oldest machine in the shop, and getting a shaper would be a step backwards for most any project I can want to do, besides keyways. Have press, and DuMore set for internals, and endmill for externals. You still got to control the manual machines, so AI is not in my life yet.

[RetiredFAE]

I'd like to pick up a small shaper, grew up using one in the late 50's, but here in NV they are pretty much a myth, no one seems to have one, and the shipping costs to buy one from back east are extremely high.

[metric_taper]

I have a 3-1/2" vise my dad made in 1939, from a rough casting, it was finished on a shaper. I can still see the shaper steps on the long rail sides and piece parts. I think it was a university trade school for engineers.
Shapers seem to be so rare from the scrap drive where horizontal millers became vogue, and those left, the seller knows they have value as a rare quality machine tool, and they start becoming 'priceless'.
Not personally having operated one, I can't see what special operation that I need performed in my repair of "things that should be thrown away" hobby. There probably is one, like a deep blind internal spline, I just have not seen where I would have to replicate such a thing with the low grade junk I repair.

[RetiredFAE]

A small horizontal mill is another oldie I grew up with that I would like to acquire.
I do have use of a friend's planer, it's bed will take a workpiece 4 feet by 8 feet, he jokes he will will it to me, it only weighs about 16,000 pounds he says.

[metric_taper]

An Eight ton machine, that needs to be left to children or grand-children to show love (or punishment, better then a piece of coal).
That must have some big hydraulic power supply taking up a separate floor space? I do see youtube videos of a guy that was taking straight edge, rough iron castings, and roughing them in for final hand scrapping. It was a machine that was in the 6x12 range. He showed him buying it, and moving it to Texas. I think his part was just a subcontractor for that machining operation. I assume his product was used for class teaching, where you take the one week class, and learn how to scrape in the straight edge you purchased with the class. It would be a handy thing to learn. But just trying to finish the minions of huge things I've started over the past 50 years, and new tasks (rotting window frames) get in the way.

[RetiredFAE]

That 16,000 pound planer has a 25 HP 660 V 3 Phase motor to drive the hydraulic motor, which as I recall has a 50 gallon reservoir. The thing is huge, but years ago when i first met him, he had, in his 20,000 square foot barn/shop a larger one, bed was 8 feet by 16 feet, twice the size of the current one. He donated that one to a museum somewhere, they sent a rigger and semi to transport it. It had a huge diesel engine to power the hydraulic motors on it. I only saw it running once, it would take tool bits in the planer head up to 6 inches wide in groups, or one single bit in the center that was 12 inches wide.
Don't remember the manufacture brand, but it was painted a sea foam green color, and he said that was the original factory paint job.

[piper184]

Being a fan of old South Bend machines, I started with a lathe, then a mill and a couple of years ago came across a shaper. Had to drive a day and a half to get it but it was worth it. Really good condition and the S/N is 00005S. There are no records available so I can only imagine that it was one of the first off the assembly line after they changed to the self lubricating design.

One of my first projects was making some blocks to go fit a non-standard dovetail angle. Couldn't buy a cutter for that angle but it was easy to do on the shaper. I don't use it for much, but it sure is fun, which is what a hobby is supposed to be.

[Mook]

Use a CNC mill as a shaper?

[DIYer]

Thanks Mook! We've added your Metal Form Shaping Method to our Machining category,
as well as to your builder page: Mook's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Metal Form Shaping Method by Mook

tags: CNC