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gould and eberhardt shaper

T

todd goff

Hot Rolled
Joined
Feb 8, 2007
Location
south carolina
I finally have gotten my gould and eberhardt 20" shaper back together. I stripped two gears out a while back and couldn't find the right ones to repair the hand feed that you use to set the length of your cut (I guess.) Well, I finally got off my lazy butt and had some slack time at work and got it together. This machine has set outside for a long time which is my fault, but I am going to find a place for it in my shop (somewhere.) The ways were gummed up so I took the bars off that hold them and covered it in used motor oil and let it set a while and wah lah it turned smooth as could be. My question is this; what is a shaper good for?
 
All kinds of things. You can cut internal keyways, do slotting, just put a good flat face on whatever, with a dividing head, you can cut gears, make "V" blocks, just about anything that your imagination will allow. lindsay Publications has several books on shaper work that were published during WWII. Well worth the price.
 
They're good for stuff like this, among many other things:

shaper01.jpg


In this case, since our only milling machine is a rigid head, this was the easiest way to do this angle cut.
Andy
 
Todd, shapers are great fun. It's uses limited only by your imagination. They are good for getting a nice surface finish with inexpensive HSS tooling.

1557813884_10ddbc9061.jpg


Cleaning up the inside of a Armstrong forged tool post for another shaper

1558017822_31d5bde29c.jpg


And a lathe parting tool can be handy also
1558033038_801422754a.jpg


Of coarse we all expect to see some pics of your shaper now. ;)

ME
 
Some time back, somebody on PM posted a saying he'd learned from an old-timer: "You can make anything on a shaper except money!"

I don't actually take that literally, although I do think the shaper's strength is "one-off" or repair jobs rather than mass production.

Compare the tooling cost to a horizontal mill on the deep slot job illustrated above. When that cutoff tool gets dull, a trip to the bench grinder ought to take what, 15 minutes? And, if you needed a new cutoff tool, what's it going to cost? Then ask yourself how long it would take to bring a milling cutter through the T&C grinder, and how much a new milling cutter costs.

Besides, there's something cool about a machine that generates chips that CLANK when they hit the floor.

John Ruth
 
In my mind, the ability to square up internal recesses as shown above, and the elimination of expensive end mills like dovetail cutters make it worth the floor space. And there is just something cool about them (which is the justification for 75% of my shops anyway).

Rob
 
cleaning up a piece of rusty flame cut plate, fit a limit switch wired into your VFD and its a case of start up and forget.

yes I should be feeding to the fixed jaw........
P9100098-1.jpg
 
I got the shaper moved to the house today, but the problem is that I have to make some room in my shop; don't know how i'm going to do that. I guess I bought this machine probably 15 years ago and it has sat outside for the whole time which is a crying shame and I ought to have my butt kicked for this. I have been in the process of fixing it up and finally got the gears modified where they would work for the hand crank on the ram travel and got it freed up. Everything else seems good to go, but I need to repaint it and the only positive about it setting outside is that the paint peeled off on pretty much about 85% of the machine down to the primer. I will take some pics of it later on, but right now, let me tell you I am ashamed of the way I let it sit outside. It is a gould and eberhardt 20 inch universal and I was wondering if the universal stands for something special (I am shaper stupid, what can I say.)
 
Universal shapers have two degrees of freedom in table (tilt and rotate, both around horizontal axis) that a plain shaper does not have.
 
RDL, Do you have pictures of the tool that gave you that fine finish?


Here is a link to a very similar bit.

shaper finishing tool

The idea is to take a shallow .003-.005" DOC and a small crossfeed, .005-.010" depending on what your shaper will do. Lube and a tool lifter help also.

ME
 
Would that finishing tool be called a "Skiving" (sky-ving) tool?
--Doozer

I don't really know, but I bet JOHNODER does.


Here is a link to another kind of finishing tool.
finishing tool

And here is a pic of a finishing tool I made that is similar to the one from the link. It is made from 1"x2" T1 HSS that I bought on EBAY. I bought a 6' length so I could make 8 or 10 different tools. If I ever finish the rest of the tools I will send them out for heat treat.
1558052350_86be7c28da.jpg


After heat treat I will give it a final grind. Hope it works out.

ME
 
 
"Skiving"

Skiving tools are fun. My only experience has been on a turret lathe with plastics.

The tools have no "direct" infeed as they are tangental cutting tools.

On the TL, the tool, broad and with all "inverse" shapes the part was supposed to have, and further, with a nice "lead in angle" in plan (so the cutting is not all at once), was bolted down on top the crosslide (at the right elevation) an was fed across towards operator under the work piece. That single movement finished the operation.

The part magically and very very quickly took shape.

There is some rubbing involved unless intricate back off grinding ops are resorted to on the tool.

Worked good in plastic.

Probably work good in soft metals if the rubbing is reduced enough. Probably need flood coolant or cutting oil.

Probably does not work worth a flip on stuff that is less interested in being machined - like 4140 prehard :D

John
 
RDL, "Lube and a tool lifter help also." Do you mean using a hinge behind the tool?


Some shapers came from the manufacturer with a tool lifter. There are different types, but basically they lift the clapper box at the end of the cut so that on the return stroke the tool does not touch the work. Since it is not dragging the tool bit or the chips along with it, the finish is better.

ME
 
Thanks for the explanation Michael.

My Elliott does not have such a feature (I've seen the marks that prove it). I assume that given the age of the machines that there is a mechanical linkage to the Clapper. To retrofit such a feature it would probably be easier to use a solenoid that would be triggered near the end of the stroke.

It would be nice to mount the solenoid inside the ram but I don't know how to push the Clapper and be able to rotate the head. The obvious position is to place it above the Clapper. A hinged lever would allow the solenoid to tilt up the Clapper without stopping the Clapper from lifting or being lifted further.

If someone has pictures of how this feature is implemented on their Shaper it would be most helpful.

Raymond
 
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