04-10-2013, 03:36 PM
(04-05-2013, 07:34 PM)TomG Wrote: Wow, I'm a seriously late comer to this party. I can't believe I didn't hear that someone was building a shaper from scratch before now.
Gerard, your gearbox looks very well designed a machined. It must have taken some time to cut all those gears. Did they all mesh properly, or did some require fitting? Is the design based on an existing shaper gearbox or did you design it from scratch. It is excellent work either way.
What size is your shaper? It's hard to get a feel of the scale from the pictures.
Thanks for taking the time to post the build thread. I'll be patiently awaiting the next installment.
Tom
Hello Tom
Thanks for your positive comments. Originally I was intend to build a Gingey shaper but the casting of the parts ware an outright failure. So I came up with the idea to build a shaper of steel. I have searched waste material and according to the dimensions of the found material I made a new design. Some parts were so rudimentary that I've created a completely new design. The columns of my shaper are 395 mm x 340 mm. The ram stroke is approximately 230 mm. The horizontal table displacement is 240 mm and the height adjustment of the table approximately 190 mm. When my shaper was almost finished, I got the idea to build a gear box instead of a step cone pulley. I do not like it relaying a belt every time when I wants changing the machine speed. I had no model or pictures of an existing gearbox. I have designed them fully from scratch so it must fit all in the still build shaper. It has taken me quite some time to calculate and draw everything. If the main axis, driven by the motor, has a speed of 240 rev/min the shaper can work at 30, 45, 60 or 90 strokes/min. I think that 90 strokes/min fast enough. Had to prove that it is too low, I can make the motor pulley larger so the speed increases.
Gerard