Shapers who else has one?

[ieezitin]

Hello.

I have this Atlas 7B which i purchased about two years ago, these pictures are from me bringing it home from an auction i purchased it from.

Getting it off the truck.




Placing it on the trolly ready to be wheeled into the shop, pretty cave man. The trolly shown acts as a Davit point to raise equipment in my shop, i buy and sell allot of equipment and i made this thing to make my life easier, you will see the jib extension in another shot.




Here you see the jib installed, now its ready for the lift.




Here you can see that i have raised it up and now pushed it under the table where it will live for a while, when i make new tables ect i build in the feature that this davit will slip underneath to place the heavy object believe me its a ball saver.





All placed and ready to go.




through my apprenticeship (late 70ies) i truly learned the value of a shaper, our shop had 50 or so machinists and you had to buy time on equipment for your projects to complete your work, naturally everyone hit the milling machines, i got sick and tired of waiting so i exploited the virtues of a shaper.

Its limitations (relating to speed) are in fact its strength, which i adopted what i learned into my shop, this machine is always working, it toils away at facing and squaring up blocks of material with hardly no supervision from me, while at a fraction of a cost for tooling, i can do set ups and concentrate on other tasks while the shaper is making trash into valuable material.

It really is a versatile machine, with imagination some of the most complicated machining tasks can be performed on a shaper, the trick is the tool holding and tool holder, shapers love spring and should be exploited especially when it comes to surface finishes, i have planed stainless that looks like glass when finished.

I will in the future get a larger one, but i don't yet have the power requirements in my shop to service a 20" shaper for example, but its on the books for the future.

one more comment on a shaper, they are fascinating to watch and to operate, the sound and smell is totally unique to any other machine tool, they have a clunk and whisper that's so intoxicating when experienced you want one for yourself.


Happy days................. Anthony