Shaper toolholders

[Rickabilly]

(08-21-2012, 07:58 AM)Sunset Machine Wrote: Got the thing to "clap" by running the speed up. Got the work to come loose and had to watch the shaper beat it to death until the motor stopped. No clutch, no brake. It throws chips 6 feet, right where I park the car. The concrete is badly spalled, cleanup won't be any fun..

Oh and Greg,
The best thing I ever did with my shaper was to bend up a simple sheet steel "chip catcher" it just clamps into the tee slots on the end of the table and stops the chips shooting across the floor it's just a simple wall with a hooked top and a trough at the bottom I use a steel trash bin on the floor below the trough and occasionally push the shavings with a wooden stick out of the end of the trough into the bin "simples"

and you might want to think of a DC injection brake if it's taking more than a stroke to wind down. At 60 strokes per minute you can do a lot of damage in 6 seconds/strokes, Personally I've never seen a shaper without at least an emergency clutch (overcentre release on the drive belt) for emergency stops, While Shapers appear docile they can be very dangerous, I once saw a 28" 8Hp shaper break loose and "Barge" itself across the floor when an Apprentice set it on full speed 120 strokes / minute and full stroke, just to see what would happen, He found out all right, another lost it's ram when a similar incident occurred, this time by accident when an experienced tradesman simply selected the wrong gear, Planers are even worse, there were stories where I did my Apprenticeship about a 16' planer table that broke free went through a double brick wall and landed on a roadway, 50 years later you could still see where the wall had been repaired and the big chunck missing out of the steel column it clipped on the way out.

The thing is the rythmic sound and movement lulls you into a false sense of calm and then whoops no fingers, even the tiniest shaper will take your fingers off in a split second, it's not like a Mill or lathe, with rotating tools you're always wary, they scream at you to be careful but a shaper just beats away calmly and you start to trust it.

I love using shapers and slotters and I'm not trying to scare or brag or any of that but I have packed three fingers in ice so far in my time and two of those were where guys thought that the shaper wasn't going to catch them while they flicked a shaving out of the way, "it was going so slowly! I never thought about it I just brushed the shaving away with my brush and then I saw blood"

Best Regards
Rick