A place the shapers shine is for cutting the bevels on plates for weld test coupons. The tool marks on the bevels must run parallel to the direction of stress in the weld, especially when the weld test coupons will be given a guided bend test. A shaper is the ideal machine for giving a good surface finish with the tool marks all parallel to the direction of stress in the weld. Use a face mill cutter to bevel a weld test coupon and it has to be ground and polished with fine emery flap wheels to bring things into specs for a weld test coupon.
We had a 24" stroke Rockford Hy-draulic shaper. It was a great machine tool and could really hog off the steel on all kinds of jobs. Unfortunately, the younger mechanics were intimidated by it and of the "Bridgeport Mindset", so the shaper went. we got it for a locomotive resoration project. It is the ideal machine to machine drive box shoes and wedges and crosshead shoes. Again, this isbecause the tool marks all are parallel and in the direction of motion the parts see in service. with the universal table on the Rockford Hy-Draulic shaper, it is a very easy machine to set up to do the shoes and wedges.
We buy our weld coupons nowadays at the powerplant. the outfit that furnishes them produces the bevels on a Rockford Hy-Draulic planer, doing ganged setups of many coupons at a time.
A shaper is an amazing machine and quite under-estimated or dismissed nowadays. You can grind a form toolbit to do all kinds of jobs a whole lot easier and cheaper than chasing after custom-ground milling cutters. Overseas, I had to deal with some broken gears on a lathe. I needed the lathe to make anchor bolts and parts for a stationary diesel engine and generator we were erecting. There was an old G & E shaper. We built up the busted gears with braze metal. No dividing head, so we simply clamped the gears to the front of the shaper table, using structural steel and anything we could grab. I ground a form toolbit, and lined thing sup by eye. Downfed the toolbit carefully and shaped the gear teeth a little undersized. Since we'd used bronze brazing to repair the teeth, they were then 'run in"- cold forming the bronze repaired teeth against the orginal iron and steel teeth on the undamaged mating gears. We made alot of parts on the lathe we'd repaired, and we got a stationary powerplant going thanks to that shaper.
I am always amazed at what the Rockford Hy-Draulic shaper peeled off without breathing hard, while a regular mill would be pushing its envelope. I've used the Rockford Hy-Draulic shaper on scaly heavy steel plate, peeling though areas that were flame cut, or through weld to machine things down. Stuff that would tear up a milling cutter or at least make for some real tough going didn;t seem to faze the Rockford Hy-Draulic shaper with a good toolbit.
In my own lifetime, I've seen jobs where an internal keyway of good size either had to be repaired (builtup with weld, remachined) or simply cut fresh. Too big to broach, not that anyone was about to spend the cash to buy some huge broach, let alone have a press to move it. The solution was the shaper with a boring bar. Those shops did not have slotters ( a vertical variation of a shaper), and a simple shaper was handy for cutting internal keyways.
We used Hendey and Cinncinnati shapers in brooklyn Technical High School in the 60's. No one thought anything of turning us kids loose on shapers back then. We were taught the anatomy of a conventional shaper, and we thought they were cool machines. Nowadays, people tend to relegate the shaper to the back corner of the shop and forget it ever existed. These same people are of the CNC and DRO mindset, so I guess shapers are not in their thinking.
Joe Michaels
