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Its a shaper! New to me machine - Prema model 04

geshka

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 9, 2016
Don't know why , I was always fascinated by meal shapers. As one of the folks on youtube said - there are only two devices in the shop you can work on while sitting - one is the shaper, other is toilet sit.
Jokes aside, I was watching many videos and restoration blogs and wanted this machine rather badly. I was plowing trough local ads site, local and remote junk yards, visiting estate sales and so on, without any luck. I should say that Ottawa area in Ontario is not an industrial region at all. All faded glory of auto and machine makers was concentrated west of Toronto.
As usual I found shaper just under my nose - 10 miles from my home somebody was keeping machine that was "too big". I negotiated the price quite quickly and arranged delivery - here are first pictures of it.
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2019-08-09 08.46.06.jpg
Loading and unloading with "tilt-and-load" truck was piece of cake including chit-chat and questions like " what are you gonna do with this piece of junk?"
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Ok. Machine is on the ground - now close inspection time...

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I know , I know - it is heavily rusted and seized and dirty and vise is not original... but it is part of the fun, isn't it ?
To be continued

BTW - is there way to rotate pictures that were uploaded ?
 
Better buy a few gallons of Rust Buster Penetrating oil and start spraying. It will take weeks if not months. After it is wet with the spray, use a 5 pound lead or brass hammer and tap on things to set up vibrations so the spray works it's way in, slowly but surely have to be patient and do this slowly or you will break something. It must have been sitting outside for years from the rust and faded paint.

Once it's apart look on here or online about using citric acid mixed with water to soak the rusty parts in. It is a home made version of Evapo-Rust One of our members in England uses it all the time on Rusty machines. I will see if I can message him to come and advise you. Keith Rucker also shows how on You Tube, YouTube I hope they gave it to you or paid you to take it.

I would hold off on trying to move any of the ways before everything is loose with the oil. Once it's loose, remove all the gibs first before doing anything. Find a manual too. You may find one on Vintagemachinery.org It looks like it maybe a an internal hydraulic system as I don't see a V belt pulley on the outside. We should be able to help after you get it apart, some of us have real time experience running and repairing shapers.

I just remembered his name...Andrew Mawson and I messaged him ...the UK guy
 
OK Richard I've found your thread :)

Here folks is the reply that I sent to Richard to hs question:

Quote Originally Posted by Richard King
Andrew....a fellow has a rust bucket and I was mentioning your cetric acid mix...can you help please Page not found - Practical Machinist : Practical Machinist
Richard,

Greetings, I hope that you are well, I see that you are keeping yourself busy !

Your link is to an edit function in the post, and as I'm not the author it refuses to take me there, but the Citric Acid mix is very easy and effective - in fact I was using it this morning to clean up some second hand soft jaws that I'd won. I permanently have a bucket of it under my sink for the odd thing that needs cleaning up.

Nothing is too critical in the mix - I use a couple of cup fulls of Citric Acid crystals in a two gallon bucket. There doesn't seem to be much advantage to making the solution any stronger than that. A warm solution works faster (not surprisingly) than a cold one but even cold it works given time.
 
Thanks Richard and Andrew.
Yes - citric acid to the rescue. I am usually using basic components like acid or base or caustic, not just because I studied chemistry in the school :) but also because I hate commercial products that charging huge premium for the nice colour and pretty smell and have weak, diluted active component.

Anyway, inspection continues. Guts of the machine looks fairly OK.

This is clutch which is still operational.
clutch.jpg

Bull gear with stroke adjustment assembly.
bull gear.jpg

what concerns me is a rust on a sliding surface of the ram :(
rust.jpg

Ohh, BTW, I found way to post images in right orientation - first little win :D
 
what concerns me is a rust on a sliding surface of the ram :(
View attachment 263060

Take every bit of that you can get at off with a flat scraper, gently, first. Not a rebuilder's scraper. You don't want to cut or scratch the base metal under the rust, and you need not.

More like the ones used for paint. Bit of flat stock can work, a putty "knife", brass or aluminium, even. Or micarta or sacrificial bits of laminate flooring re-cut or cut new for "sharpening" periodically. Did I forget to mention "no need to scratch"?

Iron rust is still Iron, but Oxygen too, so it hasn't much strength to it, is easily made to fail in shear. Side-loading, in other words.

The less you have left to react with chemicals - if even still wanted at all - the easier it will be to keep smaller doses of them right where you still need such without their getting out of control, and the better the chance they will do a job "while you watch" and can be neutralized, same "shift", not get into crevices, hide-out, and do more harm than good.

Yah - it is more physical work to push rust off than slather with an acid or caustic and go away for a beer.

But it is easier to do in small chunks, stop and come back later, there is less messy clean-up, there is far lower risk of corrosives damage. It even gives you grins - big ones - as you find the damage isn't so bad after all.

PS: Minimize use of Scotch-Brite. Whomever thought that stuff is "non-abrasive" and does not SHED abrasive particles hasn't been paying attention.

Use wire brushes very "selectively". Hand-operated, Brass or Bronze bristle are OK. Power and Steel wire, not so much.

"First, do no harm".
 
Yes, indeed. Will need to clean it up very carefully. Usually I am doing that brass brush, in heavy cases flexible scraper.

Here is vise being removed with adapter plate attached. What you see as a wet surface is WD40 liberally applied on bolts and nuts. I am warming up seized nuts with propane burner and then spraying with WD40, hoping that penetrant will be sucked in while gaps are expanded. Actually this works :). In most cases :D
vise-on-wire.jpg

I also removed vertical sliding assembly with clapper box - one adjusting screw is missing, one is broken.
vertical-feed3.jpg

This is what makes me crazy - who can stick screwdriver or whatever between gib and dovetail and bent gib in this manner? Or how else this could happened? :mad5:
vertical-feed1.jpg

Same on other side
vertical-feed2.jpg

Is that possible to straighten gib after such exercise?

Anyway - lot of work ahead.
 
Rust Removal -- My Experience

Thanks Richard and Andrew.
Yes - citric acid to the rescue. I am usually using basic components like acid or base or caustic, not just because I studied chemistry in the school :) but also because I hate commercial products that charging huge premium for the nice colour and pretty smell and have weak, diluted active component.

Anyway, inspection continues. Guts of the machine looks fairly OK.

This is clutch which is still operational.
View attachment 263058

Bull gear with stroke adjustment assembly.
View attachment 263059

what concerns me is a rust on a sliding surface of the ram :(
View attachment 263060

Ohh, BTW, I found way to post images in right orientation - first little win :D

Look up "electolytic rust removal" There is a lot online about this and it works very well.

PLEASE don`t use any acids such as hydrochloric or acetic (vinegar) These WILL remove metal. Citric acid is questionable as it also removes metal. I tested it on a 1/4" dowel pin and kept track of the reduction in dia, which was appreciable as well as a roughening of the surface finish. "Evaporust" and similar are an entirely different chemical process; chelation, I believe. These will not attack parent metal and remove only rust; therefor are safe for precision parts and tools.

I use electrolytic rust removal quite a bit and have put my own "spin" on it. I use washing soda (sodium carbonate) as electrolyte and the power source is an old auto generator, driven by an electric motor. I can tell you how to connect this up if you need help. For an anode, I use a piece of Duriron pipe. Carbon or graphite would also work. Please don`t use copper, stainless or especially lead since these go into solution and are toxic waste problem.

The electrolytic process is driving the oxides of iron back toward elemental iron and it becomes loosened in the process. Simply scrub the black slime off the part with water and a SS wire brush. This process will not remove any solid metal so is safe for precision parts and surfaces you want to preserve.

Good luck with your project!
 
Nice project - that will be a beautiful machine once you get it working and repainted.

Evaporust works really well for this sort of thing, if you can afford a couple of 5 gallon pails of it. It's a chelating solution and won't remove any iron or steel or other metals. Only the different ferric oxides are affected. Any parts that you can submerge will be usable within a day. If you could set up a pump to irrigate the ways with a drain pan to collect the runoff it would get that part sorted quickly also. But I don't know if that's practical: you don't want the evaporust pooling inside the machine or getting into the drive and electrical areas.
 








 
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