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What is a metal shaper?

here is a video of one type in use.

Cincinnati Shaper - YouTube

Here is a picture of our vertical shaper, better known as a key seater for keying sprockets, pulleys and gears.

keyseater.jpg
 
Wow, not at all as I was picturing. So is this a specialized machine or a do all workhorse like a mill or lathe? I am kind of picturing it as the power-hack vs bandsaw.
 
So I always lean towards the machining ends of things. I never mean to and dont know much about it but my curiosity always brings me here. So just saying I dont have much knowledge, but trying to pick up what I can....

Would you guys mind explaining the different kinds of mills?

I have heard of

face mills
vertical mill
horizontal mills
knee mills

I am not sure of the difference?

So it sounds like mills phased out the shaper?
 
So I always lean towards the machining ends of things. I never mean to and dont know much about it but my curiosity always brings me here. So just saying I dont have much knowledge, but trying to pick up what I can....

Would you guys mind explaining the different kinds of mills?

I have heard of

face mills
vertical mill
horizontal mills
knee mills

I am not sure of the difference?

So it sounds like mills phased out the shaper?

A face mill is a cutting tool, it goes in any type of mill and it used to make things flat.

A vertical mill is like a big drill press with a table that moves in an x y z with a quill like a drill press to move a tool up and down.

A horizontal is just a mill with the spindle in a horizontal orientation.


hr10.jpg



A knee mill is a mill where the table rides on a knee that travels up and down on vertical slides.
 
There are different ways of defining this. What do you folks think of the following as the "most basic" definitions:

1) A Metal Shaper applies a reciprocating cutting tool to the workpiece in a controlled fashion.

2) A Milling Machine applies a rotating cutting tool to the workpiece in a controlled fashion.

Contrast this with a lathe, which applies a cutting tool against a rotating workpiece.

I like what OldBikerDude37 wrote except that I think that a vertical milling machine does not necessarily have a quill if it has a knee. (Thinking of my quill-less Van Norman 12 in vertical mode.)

As an aside, the tooling for a shaper is a very minor expense and can be sharpened at a bench grinder, whereas the tooling for a mill is a big expense and requires a "Tool & Cutter Grinder" to sharpen.
 
These are not really different animals, many of the older mills a homeshop machinist might want are both. Well, not the Bridgeport i figure but the myriad of deckel style machines are a good example.

They accept all kinds of heads :

An overarm to make a horizontal mill.

A geared tilting vertical head to make a vertical mill.

A vertical belt drive high speed spindle for fine work and engraving.

All sorts of multi axis tilting arms and heads to facilitate work in awkward places inside of castings etc.

A jig boring head.

And even a vertical shaper head to cut internal keyways and profiles that can not be milled.

You can see a few of these contraptions here:

Page Title


As to WHY use a vertical or horizontal, it seems to be a modern-vs-old thing again.

Horizontal cutters are awkward to build with inserts, for one.

But i leave that question to the folks who use horizontal or have done in the past.
While i do have the arm for my/our mill i have so far never used it because work was never large enough to need a big 2" cutter and serious rigidity so far.
 
A shaper generally uses single point tools, like those use in a lathe. Some shapers use the same Armstrong type toolholders. The cutting action is analogous to that of a lathe except that lathes cut in a helix or spriral (along the round, rotating work) and a shaper cuts in a series of straight lines. Shapers are generally driven by electric motor and a crank mechanism.

Vertical mills are in general easier to set up and tool, and depending on the part, use. They can drill holes easily because of the quill they usually have.

Horizontal mills are usually more rigid, thanks in part to the tooling, which is usually set up on a rotating arbor that is supported on both ends. Chips can also be cleared more easily when using endmills on a horizontal.
 
I'm with SBM34, some of the best vertical mills do NOT have a quill. Technically the most common quill-equipped mill, the Bridgeport type, is not technically a "vertical" mill... that's a TURRET mill. A Cincy or K&T is a vertical mill. They have a sliding head in place of a quill and are FAR more rigid and heavy duty than any of the turret mill types. Think of a vertical mill as the metalworking equivalent of a woodworking router. Very good at pocketed shapes, flattening things (face milling), and drilling or boring holes (boring is not drilling, you are using a single point boring bar to enlarge an existing hole to make a very precise, very round, very straight hole).

Horizontal mills can put a vertical mill to shame for deep slotting work. Think of a horizontal mill as the metalworking equivalent to a woodworking tablesaw, just flipped upside down. If you want a 1/8" wide x 2" deep slot in a long part, you can do it in minutes with a horizontal, versus hours with an endmill and ending up with a slot that will likely be wide at the top, due to flex in such a long endmill. Great for cutting keyways. You can usually use a horizontal cutter the desired width and make a single pass cut to depth, instead of having to walk an undersize endmill back and forth so flex doesn't leave the keyway sloppy. I really find no difference in setup on a horizontal versus a vertical, but I started with the Van Norman, which has both capabilities. With both machines on hand, you learn to use each to its advantage. Horizontals are very handy for boring bearing housings and such that sit flat on a base and have a horizontal bearing bore.

I was told by the guy who gave me my shaper that you can make anything but money with a shaper. A shaper can indeed do a LOT of things a mill can do... face work, slot, cut offs, pockets... but you have to do some creative thinking and careful setup. To make a square pocket, you need to drill holes at the four corners and then slot down, then clear the center, stopping precisely at the bottom every time... hairy to say the least. Mill is a lot easier to use because it will cut indiscriminately in any direction. A shaper is also VERY slow, when compared to a mill of similar power and capacity. A shaper spends about 45% of the time doing nothing as the ram retracts for another cutting stroke.

A shaper cuts much flatter surfaces than a mill with a face mill cutter. No matter how square the facemill is, it will deflect a bit under load and cut a very shallow scallop. 99.99% of the time it is of no concern. First time you hand scrape a shaped surface versus a milled surface, you will understand how "unflat" the milled surface really is.

Also, a minor calrification to Lathe Fox's post above... both lathes and shapers can use Armstrong tooling, but shapers use the T style with no rake (cutting bit is held at a slight upward angle in the lathe holders). Having that upward tilt will cause a shaper cutter to dig in and chatter much worse unless the tool is ground to provide no rake (eliminating the point of having the raked tool holder). T style holders are used in the lathe for brazed carbide cutting tools.
 
horz mill

Hi,

I have a Vernon O horz. mill, would not want to be without it. and I have a Wells index vertical mill great machines and can do a lot with them.

I was surprised with what I could do with the horz. mill.

ben80
 
I might be a little biased....

Not many modern job shops have shapers but that doesn't mean that they can't be very valuable in a one man shop that does one-offs for personal projects and customers.

There are some jobs that they can do better than any other machine but they only cut in one direction, so the retract stroke is wasted. Not as bad as it could be, almost all shapers feature a quicker backstroke than cutting stroke.

A lot of detractors of shapers seem to fall out of the conversation when someone mentions that it can be fired up and walked away from, while you do other things like run a turret mill that cries like a baby if you ignore it.

The sound changes when the cut is complete on a shaper and if that doesn't seem like enough, setting up a limit switch or 2 will let it take care of it'self, even if you die of a heart attack.

A look through past posts here will show things like $400 shapers with extended tables, a tubular part controlled by a dividing head, shaper cutting long, perfect splines inside. Sure you can do that on a $150,000 pull broaching machine, faster, with a $1,200 custom broach but first you must make the broach. Is your customer that needs two splined tubes up for that? And the broaching machine can't shape your anvil.

You can cover the top of a rough casting with little swirly (unattractive to me) marks on a turret mill or make a flatter shiney finish on that same part and many times, it will be faster on a shaper. The cutting tool on the shaper cost you $4 and you sharpened it in 5 minutes. The end mill cost $18 and you can't sharpen it*. An outside shop will though, for more than the shaper tool cost new.
*well, you could shell out a few thousand dollars for a tool and cutter grinder, lucky if you get the needed tooling though.... and you ain't gonna' get that endmill sharp in 5 minutes.

The turret mill gets all pissy if you wont bottle feed it coolant, the shaper doesn't know what coolant is.

Truth be known not a lot of todays machinists never ran a shaper and they rely on folklore about them:stirthepot:

In 1955 after school, with a 24"? (been a while) Cincinatti shaper, I gang cut the majority of the metal off of thousands of pieces of square stock and kept 2 Bridgeports busy on 2 shifts, detailing them into mil spec hinge halves. The shaper got pressed into service when the shop owner noticed that at the rate of mill production, the contract was in danger of being terminated for non-performance on this gov. job. Me an' the shaper saved us all but only I wore a cape....:D

Oh yeah, I kept the areas around the shaper and the mills cleaned up while the shaper happily snicked away. That sorta' cemented my opinion early on....

Bob
 
The great thing about shapers is that you can make almost anything with them.






Except money. :D

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
 
I have a 7 inch atlas shaper and would not be without it.
http://www.greg-andrews.com/Atlas_Machinery/1938_atlas_7_inch_shaper.gif

I don't use it often but when i do it saves hours of work and a lot of money on special cutting tools.

I can buy a lot of high speed lathe tool blanks for $50 dollars and grind any shape cutter for pennies.

I even made a surface grinder attachment for my shaper so i can polish metal
http://www.greg-andrews.com/Atlas_Machinery/1938_atlas_7_inch_shaper.gif
Popular Mechanics - Google Books
 
Great Information!

If looking to score a nice used unit (mill) do you guys think its worth it to grab a horizontal or just wait for a vertical. In general it looks like the horizontal is built more suited for surfacing, where a vertical is more suited for drilling/plunging activities. Or perhaps a shaper would be a better do-it-all machine?

I cant quite picture how it could do all those things you have said though. I just see it surfacing parts?
 








 
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