DIY Metal shaper questions

[onelittleshop]

The VersaMil kit (look it up) included a tiny short-throw shaper attachment, ideal for things like spur gears and keyways. The basic "Mil" attaches to the compound of a reasonably stout lathe, so it might be an option if one little shop doesn't have much space.

I was aware of the VersaMil products, and you are correct they are small. Small enough they fit in cramped quarters like submarines. I know Brian, who appears to own VersaMil, posts here on these forums periodically. I know there are pictures of that shaper attachment in other forums dismantled. I also know that the kit is quite expensive (though comparatively $450+ for a cast steady rest on a 12" lathe with less driven pieces is not cheap either) with some parts on eBay right now upwards of several thousands. Finally the stroke of that attachment is about 4 inches and it appears many, not sure how many, are pull shapers instead of push.

I know the Navy used these VersaMils during training on lathes to cut gears, but South Bend had a gear cutting system and so did Atlas (appears to be a plan that used the lathe milling attachment to hold a finished gear to make an indexer on one side and the blank on the other with the gear cutter on a shaft driven by the lathe head and supported by the lathe tail stock).

My CNC gear cutting setup is basically also supporting the cutter between the lathe head and tailstock. Except I have a 60:1 worm gear module driven by a 0.9 degree stepper and the shaft for the blank is supported by a center opposite the driven end. For reference a Sherline rotary table is a 72:1 reduction with a 0.9 degree stepper per their documents. I also made a coupler behind the gear assembly turning the blank that accepts a high resolution encoder so if you use microstepping you can turn that gear blank nearly thousandths of a degree. As everything is fully supported end to end (unlike I have done on vertical mills) I get less deflections during operation. I can also cut helical gears with this setup by tilting the blank holding module on the lathe cross slide. So I wouldn't get much from owning a VersaMil for gear cutting, in fact I can already do the gear cutting on my one small lathe under CNC control while I turn the blanks on the other. Obviously a shaper can cut gears and even toothed pulley profiles, but the gear cutter is cheap enough I couldn't justify the cost of a shaper for this unless the profile was hard to source a cutter for.

I can certainly benefit from a shaper for keyways inside of gear blanks. I do this with push broaches on a 5 ton arbor press currently. I've got a rotary broach as well. The big issue I have is the all or nothing aspect of the push broaching process and the cost of these larger push broaches adds up. I'd rather let a shaper cut away in repeated strokes in some cases than have the push broach wander and cost me a gear.

Size is definitely not stopping me from considering the VersaMil, but rarity and cost would concern me. These systems command high costs even on the used market. That being said, as small and simple as the VersaMil shaper is, it still gives me pause 'how much shaper' I really need.

 

[onelittleshop]

Currently writing up offline a rough comparison of cost to implement a lead screw driven shaper ram with hundreds of lbs of thrust force over a 12" travel versus a hydraulic cylinder driving that ram.

It will take me some time to post it because I'm doing some costing on the various parts of just that thrust mechanism powered by a standard single phase AC 15A outlet.

As it stands: when you consider cutting steel in the 100 SFPM speed and feed it's going to get too expensive using a stepper motor on the ram action. So I'm thinking of using an AC or DC motor to make a crude servo as was previously suggested. That servo would then drive the lead screw design by either a wide toothed belt or a roller chain.

I'll check in periodically. Again thanks for the input everyone!

 

[john.k]

reminds me of years ago (1980s) had a visit from some Swiss fellows looking for machinery to set up (they were just off the boat).....anyhoo,they gave me a lecture about how poor all the machinery they had seen was ,and how incompetant Australians were, they saw my shaper set up to cut an internal keyway with the upside down tool method ....The professor (he claimed) says ...that will never work ,it will jam and break ....you are a fool......So ,I found for them the crappiest machines I could find .

 

[onelittleshop]

reminds me of years ago (1980s) had a visit from some Swiss fellows looking for machinery to set up (they were just off the boat).....anyhoo,they gave me a lecture about how poor all the machinery they had seen was ,and how incompetant Australians were, they saw my shaper set up to cut an internal keyway with the upside down tool method ....The professor (he claimed) says ...that will never work ,it will jam and break ....you are a fool......So ,I found for them the crappiest machines I could find .

I certainly am not trying to insult anyone. My milling machines are not your milling machines - I'm sure many of you have very nice equipment outside of my circumstances. My silly little lathes would be considered laughable by many here, but they work for me.

I really do wish I could have caught that FaceBook Marketplace sale but, unfortunately, the timing was too fast and the price too low so it slipped away. That machine would have been fine for me as others noted.

Again I'm not over explaining to be rude, I know from looking it's probable someone else will find this topic one day and I want to save them time.

I didn't explore a bunch of options I knew about until people mentioned them because the original post would have been a wall of text. Instead as people bring these things up I address them as they evolve.

I honestly do appreciate every single post and poster in this topic, including yourself john.k.

 

[Frank R]

Google "Gingery shaper" and you will find info on others who have built shapers.

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

Unless you have a big pile of heavy plate steel to work with, with current steel prices I don't think you could buy the steel needed for less than a complete shaper is going to cost. With scrap metal pricing today, the scrappers are your competition. Find a used machine, tear it apart and re-machine the surfaces, hand scrape them if you are so inclined. I think it would be pretty neat to apply all the technology available today that was not available when shapers fell out of favor. Imagine if they had progressed along with all the other machines, this ain't your grandpa's shaper

 

[onelittleshop]

Google "Gingery shaper" and you will find info on others who have built shapers.

I have all of Gingery's books in paperback. They are great for DIY ideas in my experience - for example how he got the lathe build lined up as he constructs it.

The only thing is Gingery books often involve casting. I don't mind casting aluminum as I actually have a propane fired furnace and all the gear (including an Oberon face shield). I could even do cast iron which, actually, is historically valid work from where my shop is (they used to have a considerable iron works here for decades). I also have a DIY induction heater for small casts - which won't save huge amounts of money because it's the large castings with all the material costs.

Unfortunately those larger castings are a little more work than I want to do right now.

That said:
MetalMill52 on YouTube built a Gingery shaper without casting a few years ago.

https://youtu.be/sGXpecU9IEo

In my mind what I want is smaller than this. What I really want is closer to the size of the manual metal shaper linked earlier, but more automated. As that FaceBook MarketPlace ad is now down, let me link a picture:

Perfecto Shapers

Something like this as a place to start.

 

[onelittleshop]

Unless you have a big pile of heavy plate steel to work with, with current steel prices I don't think you could buy the steel needed for less than a complete shaper is going to cost. With scrap metal pricing today, the scrappers are your competition. Find a used machine, tear it apart and re-machine the surfaces, hand scrape them if you are so inclined. I think it would be pretty neat to apply all the technology available today that was not available when shapers fell out of favor. Imagine if they had progressed along with all the other machines, this ain't your grandpa's shaper

I think you might be right if the machine is the size of a typical 7" Atlas Shaper. Last night I found a person in NJ who happens to collect tools and has 8+ metal shapers in his collection for about $1,000 each.

We were joking back and forth because he had some really big shapers and the more I kept asking for small units, he kept offering things weighing in at thousands of pounds. Which would basically turn my shop into a room for only that shaper.

There is a big gap between where those manual metal shapers were on size, and what one often finds starting at 7" shaper ram stroke and up.

I can think of ways to get 12" of shaper ram stroke in a more modular way as far as the chassis. I can certainly operate the other shaper axis, besides the shaper's ram, with simple stepping motors.

So for now I'm pretty focused on what powers that shaper ram if not a Scotch Yoke. As it stands it looks like the lead screw would end up a bit more expensive than hydraulics and have much less maximum thrust force. The thing is the lead screw could not have a hot hydraulic leak under pressure, and the shaper ram just has to have enough force for the job.

The 6" diameter lead screw mentioned earlier in the topic is likely because as a planar the workpiece moves not the cutting tool, and planers can have multiple cutting tools. So in the case of a planer one has a long lead screw to do the trusting plus moving the workpiece weight as well, and that means a much larger diameter lead screw.

I think currently: around a 1"-2" diameter lead screw will be fine for hypothetical ram. Maybe with a lead of 0.5 IPR so as to get to 100 SFPM for mild steel with a 3400 RPM motor on a speed control with some gear ratio to the lead screw to keep the motor at maximum RPM and power output around 100 SFPM. Either a permanent magnet DC motor from a treadmill, which they make up to 3HP commonly, or use a 220 VAC 3 phase VFD compatible motor to a TECO-Westinghouse 1 HP 115 VAC single phase input VFD.

The HPU tends to make up for the lead screw costs if you use hydraulics instead. I often see 12 VDC HPU for vehicles but then I need a car battery (lead acid or some other chemistry) to absorb the surge currents if I use that indoors. The lead acid car battery now becomes a $100 plus 5 year replacement item, but a big NiMH or LiFePo battery has steeper upfront costs with a longer life of use.

 

[john.k]

Quite simply,I could find all the hydraulics needed in my yard ,all for scrap price ......I would also make any sliding components using round hardchromed cylinder rod.....I have scrap cylindrs with up to 4" dia rods.,which maybe someday Ill use for a bit of tube or rod ,but more likely to end up in the scrap when the price spikes......as I said to someone else here about hydraulics,go for the axial piston ,variable angle swashplate type.....these pumps need no external valves .....none.

 

[Jim Christie]

I was wondering if you might be able to adapt an old bench lathe with a turret tailstock and a cutoff slide by adding a riser under the turret slide and then attaching an old lathe compound slide on the end of or in place of the turret to give a vertical feed.
Greg mentions that some of those machines are not popular and while I think his looks to nice to scrap and the stroke maybe a bit short it was from his picture in this thread that I got the idea.
for sale: Wade 7 turret lathe, Baltimore MD, $600
Those add on turret tailstocks used to come in a variety of shapes and sizes .
I would think that the slide action if in good condition would be as solid as many of the other hand shapers mentioned in other posts and the machining is already done for you .
As to powering it some have an arm feed like Greg's and others are rack and pinion driven by a hand wheel so you could connect hydraulic or other electrical devices you might have on hand to power the stroke.

 

[Scottl]

You want a hand shaper, how hard have you looked?
Strong Arm Shaper – martinmodel.

Whatever source you found that mentioned cutting edge failure at only 38 lbs of force should be ignored as complete BS. What does that even mean? 38 lbs applied over how much surface area? Whatever numbers they were making up, I've seen reliable and trusted data pointing out it takes a minimum of 150 lbs of down feed pressure on a HSS drill point just to drive a dead sharp 1/2" drill through mild steel. That's the axial load, the radial torque numbers would obviously be much much higher. Given the handle length and feed pressure I've applied on any drill press or mill I've run, that number seems if anything a bit on the conservative side. I've also broken hundreds of 10 - 50+ ton rocks with much less capable high carbon tool steel points and a 5,000 psi hydraulic hammer driving them. If that 38 lb number per ?????? came from running test results on a shaper in India, then it all sounds just about as informative and trustworthy as there India based scam call centers are.

Also these plans to fabricate from bar stock.

Acto 6 Hand Metal Shaper Plans - Machinery Plans

 

[onelittleshop]

I was wondering if you might be able to adapt an old bench lathe with a turret tailstock and a cutoff slide by adding a riser under the turret slide and then attaching an old lathe compound slide on the end of or in place of the turret to give a vertical feed.
Greg mentions that some of those machines are not popular and while I think his looks to nice to scrap and the stroke maybe a bit short it was from his picture in this thread that I got the idea.
for sale: Wade 7 turret lathe, Baltimore MD, $600
Those add on turret tailstocks used to come in a variety of shapes and sizes .
I would think that the slide action if in good condition would be as solid as many of the other hand shapers mentioned in other posts and the machining is already done for you .
As to powering it some have an arm feed like Greg's and others are rack and pinion driven by a hand wheel so you could connect hydraulic or other electrical devices you might have on hand to power the stroke.

I actually have seen a variant of the Craftsman 109 made by Dunlop (it's a toy size metal lathe) that someone in the California area put a manual lever feed on the carriage decades ago (they all seem to pop up in California). I do not know what exactly it was modified for, because the pace it could move the carriage would not be great for metal working, so I suspect cork or wax turning. However, I could see someone using the entire carriage as a shaper with the tool in the lantern assembly like that in soft materials. There was a block clamped onto the bed ways like a steady rest to form one end of the pivot for the lever. I could see this working especially if those metals shaped were round and could be held stationary in the lathe chuck as you pull that lever. Although I don't think the Craftsman 109 lathes have indexed gears in the headstock, like the Atlas variants sold as model 101.x by Craftsman. Someone probably had some trick to lock that headstock rotation, today you can 3D print a wedge. I also can't imagine the tiny longitudinal feed screw and half nuts on a Craftsman 109 appreciating these shaper level forces if engaged. One of these modifed units was auctioned off on eBay in the last 3 months and I have the pictures somewhere.

So yes, if one doesn't mind reorienting the axis movements of a shaper as we often see it, I could see modifying a lathe assembly to make a shaper.

As I mentioned earlier in this topic I've seen a person in India on YouTube use a lathe leadscrew to shape teeth into soft metal gear repair.

https://youtu.be/Nd6m-FdoheQ

I'm sure that lathe in the video above is considerably heavier and more rigid than a Craftsman 109.

 

[onelittleshop]

Also these plans to fabricate from bar stock.

Acto 6 Hand Metal Shaper Plans - Machinery Plans

I actually have bought these Acto manual shaper plans some time ago.

I avoided these in the discussion so far for 3 reasons -

1. The $50 cost to buy the plans made me worry as a new forum poster someone would think I had a financial interest. I do not. Please do not approach me to get free copies - I will not do that out of respect for the designer.

2. Gingery is pretty well regarded, and if people were too critical for every issue they may have, no post like this could hurt the value of the Gingery books.

3. The Acto shaper is a little more manual shaper than I wanted in scale and weight. However, if it really came down to the dynamics of the machine I think this machine is solid, but I bought the plans and did not build it. Mostly because the costs added up so fast it almost made as much sense to buy a used shaper in that size and weight range and perhaps recondition it.

 

[onelittleshop]

Imagine a Boynton & Plummer style 'traveling head shaper' built on a reused small cast lathe bed.

https://youtu.be/gmAAJWqjtrI
https://youtu.be/eXhui2DNdF0

Except you use a single lead screw with a stepper for the X travel, a hydraulic or lead screw for the Y travel of the shaper ram, and a very simple 'knee' / table driven by another lead screw and stepper. Control all that with a simple controller.

You can still use an indexing head with this, as the 'linkage' is now computerized so you don't move the X with the indexer, you just move the ram clear of the indexer / blank and use the 'knee' / table to increase DOC.

You can get small lathe beds usually for $100 used. The rest you can buy or make dovetails, box ways, or even use fully supported linear bearing rails.

In fact, maybe just use plates to fixture such a shaper head such that the entire assembly is mostly in the same geometric plane to the workpiece surface being worked on. This way you can space the linear bearing rails quite far apart increasing the support structure. Then you just need to maintain a good stable perpendicular mount to the 'knee' / table structure. Maybe for testing you could just start with ground 2-4-6 or 4-6-8 blocks to hold the 'knee' / table to the head assembly. This idea seems like it might keep things trammed easily. However, the one thing that this might risk is if your head is hydraulic and travelling the hoses will move.

 

[gwelo62]

Any drawings available on the internet?

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

I've never operated a shaper so this is armchair speculation. I've tried to do some simple grooves by cranking a piece past a fixed tool on a Bridgeport and discovered that chatter is almost insurmountable. My guess is a shaper works as well as it does because of the mass. It's probably hard to make that heavy ram oscillate unless you abuse it. Even if you build something with hydraulics, you'll still need the mass of a standard shaper. Makes me think the easiest path is to start with a shaper!

 

[Doozer]

You could donate your blood or work fast food
and make $1000
faster than trying to cast or fabricate a shaper.
Why is this fact lost on people.?
The home shop machinist potato heads
are famous for this thinking.
But, whatever.
Living the cheap lifestyle is so counter productive.
You waste so much time trying to save a dollar,
you could have been making a dollar.

I am a cold hearted bastard, I know.

-Doozer

 

[MrStretch]

I had a 7" AAMCO shaper for a while years ago. It looked cool but I never used it. Traded it for a 70lb Fisher anvil and some tongs, think I got the better end.

 

[john.k]

The OP hasnt been back in 2 years..............so maybe he found a shaper ..or not.