Shapers

A shaper is a machine tool used for shaping or surfacing metal and other materials. more...

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History

Shapers have been largely superseded by milling machines or grinding machines in modern industrial practice. They rapidly fell out of favour with modern industry as they were time consuming in operation, the amount of material removal by a single point cutting tool being no match for recent methods, however they are still popular with some amateurs, or where production time is not a factor. The basic function of the machine is still sound and tooling for them is minimal and very cheap to reproduce. They can be invaluable for jobbing or repair shops where only one or a few pieces are required to be produced and the alternative methods are cost or tooling intensive. The mechanically operated machines are simple and robust in construction, making their repair and upkeep easily achievable.

Types

They may be vertical or horizontal, with the horizontal arrangement being the most common. Vertical shapers are generally fitted with a rotary table to enable curved surfaces to be machined. The vertical shaper differs to a slotter (slotting machine) as the slide can be moved from the vertical, a slotter is fixed in the one plane.

Very small machines have been successfully made to operate by hand power. Once size increases, up to a potential 36 inch stroke, the power needs increase and it becomes necessary to use an electric motor. This motor drives a mechanical arrangement (using a pinion gear, bull gear and crank) or a hydraulic motor which supplies the necessary movement via hydraulic cylinders.

Operation

A shaper operates by moving a hardened cutting tool backwards and forwards across the workpiece. On the return stroke of the ram the tool is lifted clear of the workpiece, reducing the cutting action to one direction only.

The workpiece mounts on a rigid, box shaped table in front of the machine. The height of the table can be adjusted to suit this workpiece, and the table can traverse sideways underneath the reciprocating tool which is mounted on the ram, the table motion is usually under the control of an automatic feed mechanism which acts on the feedscrew. The ram slides back and forth above the work, at the front end of the ram is a vertical tool-slide that may be adjusted to either side of the vertical plane. This tool-slide holds the clapper box and toolpost from where the tool can be positioned to cut the straight, flat surface on the top of the workpiece. The tool-slide permits feeding the tool downwards to put on a cut it or may be set away from the vertical plane, as required.

Read more at Wikipedia.org