Anyone have a Shaper?

[Sam Salvati]

Any knifemakers out there have a metal shaper? I am getting a small 7" Logan soon, would love to see some pictures of other's setups and things they have found them useful for. Going to make dovetails for powerhammer dies in mine pretty much.

 

[Dan Pierson]

I drool at them from time to time Bet you could find the slowest way yet to make an accurate
tapered tang with one...

 

[ken erickson]

I have always wanted one of the older table top shapers such as the Atlas or South Bend. Not sure what I would do with it though! After seeing this picture I sure could consider the Logan also!



Hope to see some pictures of your little Logan when you get it set up.

 

[timgunn1962]

Lovely machines for the hobbyist. Slow but tooling is dirt cheap.

I have one, an Elliot. Have never used it. Bought it by mistake.

Have you noticed how, unlike most machines, little shapers are almost perfectly scaled-down big ones?

It was an ebay purchase. Nothing for scale in the photo. I asked the seller how long the stroke was. He said 165mm. I thought "that'll be the 7" benchtop machine; ideal". Bid on it. Won. Paid with paypal. Arranged, as a favour with an engineering company we use at work, for one of their guys to pick it up and drop it off when he was next working on my site.

The following week it arrived: 18" stroke. 2 1/2 times as long, 2 1/2 times as wide, 2 1/2 times as tall and 15 times as heavy as expected.

3 years on, it's still at work unused, partly because I don't have the space for it but mostly because I'm too gutless to explain it to my wife.

 

[mete]

I think the only shaper I've used was in HS a looong time ago .It has somewhat limited use and certainly is slow .You have to be careful not to take larger cuts when impatient !!

 

[12345678910]

I love those little ones.

I missed two at auction twenty years apart, one went for $700 20 years ago while a full sized one couldn't get a 50$ bid from the scrappers because no one wanted to move it. Another went for under a $100 because the auction was in a barn with no light and only the buyer saw it.

If you ever want to pull it apart and make good drawings, I'd be waiting in line for them.


It would cut internal keyways in drive wheels really nicely.