Another shaper to think about and a few questions

[Pete O]

I've mentioned before i'm keen to get hold of a shaper, chiefly for cutting keyways and splines. Just back from overseas and I find there are a few on the market within a reasonable distance of me.
One of those is a 12" Macson, which is an Australian-made direct copy of the Alba / Elliott machine in the same size.
I have just got off the phone with the seller. He says he bought the machine 30 years ago and has never run it. It was freshly painted when he bought it and still appears very nice, but I recognise that is no indication of what the important bits may be like. He's only about 30 minutes drive from me so i'm thinking of going and checking it out; I'd appreciate some advice as to how to get an idea of the condition. he doesn't have 3-phase power to run it, but I could take my rotary phase converter which would enable me to power it up- but I'm wondering if that might be best avoided in a machine that has sat for so long? Would it be best to dismantle the slidey bits and clean and lubricate first?
The bloke has a forklift that could load the machine onto my trailer- I'm wondering if it would be realistic to unload with my engine crane?

One other machine for sale a little over 2 hours drive from me is a 18" Alba that appears to be in not as good shape- there are a couple of chunks out of the T-slots on the box table and it has been modified with the addition of a 4-speed truck gearbox with a flat belt drive. i suspect it will go cheap (which appeals to me) and the extra 6" of stroke can only be a good thing, but it would be a nightmare to unload at this end and seems more likely to need lots of work.

Both of these are, of course, missing their vices.

[Roadracer_Al]

IMHO, owning an 8" Rhodes shaper, that bigger is better. If I were to do splines on my machine, I'd have to build a sub plate to hold a dividing head well in front of the table. I can't recall which brand, but some shapers have a hole through the base for shafts so you don't have to cantilever everything off the far side of the table. Very sensible.

The major thing to look for on a shaper is missing parts. Missing bits of the ratchet or feed mechanism can be impossible to find, and hard to make without a pattern.

Obviously, the missing vise is a downer, but on the upside, it's a negotiating leverage when discussing price.

Another thing, for some reason, I've heard a few people say that the lead screws have bent on their shapers. Mine also arrived with a bent lead screw. Easy enough to fix, though.

Before firing up the never-use-in-30-years Macson, I would manually oil all the moving surfaces in case the oil pump is stuck (I'm assuming it's new enough to have an oil pump, my Rhodes is so old, it's entirely manually oiled).

[Dr Stan]

(08-29-2016, 02:24 AM)Pete O Wrote: but I'm wondering if that might be best avoided in a machine that has sat for so long? Would it be best to dismantle the slidey bits and clean and lubricate first?
The bloke has a forklift that could load the machine onto my trailer- I'm wondering if it would be realistic to unload with my engine crane?

One other machine for sale a little over 2 hours drive from me is a 18" Alba that appears to be in not as good shape- there are a couple of chunks out of the T-slots on the box table and it has been modified with the addition of a 4-speed truck gearbox with a flat belt drive. i suspect it will go cheap (which appeals to me) and the extra 6" of stroke can only be a good thing, but it would be a nightmare to unload at this end and seems more likely to need lots of work.

As to cleaning & lubing the slidey & rotating bits that should be done before you ever put power to it.  If you check out the 12" take the belt off the motor & see if it will move by hand.

The truck gear box may be an advantage giving you a larger range of strokes/min.

An engine hoist should handle the 12" with no problems.

The 18" of course is a horse of a different color.  Do you have a tilt bed trailer that has the capacity to haul it?  If so very very careful unloading via rollers & a come-a-long should work.

Another option would be renting a fork lift for a day.

If there is a equipment rental nearby see if they have something like this:


The bed lowers to the ground so one can load & off load heavy cargo much easier & safer.

[f350ca]

Pete, bigger is better but the 12 inch sounds like its in nice shape. I would think 12 inch would be getting into a more industrial machine than the 7 ind 8 inch ones. I went from an 8 inch Logan to an 18 inch Peerless. Absolute night and day. No chatter cutting keyways but you have to watch the feed rate, too much of a cut and the cutter snaps with no hesitation. Never had that happen on the Logan.
Give the oilers a shot and see how it runs, I had to take mine after just rolling it over by hand, but the price could be recouped in scrap if there were major problems.
Extend the ram and look for scoring on the ways. With it extended check for up and down slop. Might be able to adjust with the gibbs if the wear isn't local from a lot of short strokes.

[Pete O]

I went and checked out the 12" Macson this afternoon. I was able to get some browny points by doing a task for my mother-in-law on the way so that put some credit in the account to start with  

I wasn't able to power it up, but turned it over by hand. It turned over smoothly in each gear. I could not detect any slop in the ram with it fully extended. The clapper has no slop in any direction. The ways don't appear to be scored on any of the parts that are visible with the ram fully in or out. All of the parts appear to be there, i.e. ratchet / feed mechanism and such. The feedscrew looks straight to the eye. It has a 3hp 3-phase motor so my convertor will run it easy-peasy. The only fault I could detect with it is that there is some movement in the pinion gear that engages with the bull gear- I realised on the way home that I didn't pay attention to whether this gear is the gearbox output or is an idler. This gear and the bull gear are helical toothed, not sure if that is common or not but I liked it.

The upshot of all this is that I have bought the shaper      

I think I may finally have bought a machine that I can do more work WITH than ON.

The seller offered to sell me a vice with the machine but it is not the original vice and is, I think, a very large milling vice of French make, would not mount properly to the table, so I passed it up. I have a second 6" mill vice that will do for most tasks I think. And yes it will need a table extension to mount the dividing head for splining jobs but heck, what would life be without projects?

Sadly I have to finish another little task before I can pick the shaper up- I had my tandem trailer sandblasted and painted just before we went away and I'm halfway through rewiring it and installing new lights, also have to replace the brake master cylinder. Was working on that today but jet-lag is making me even less productive than usual. Next day off is next Monday, hopefully get the trailer finished then and pick up the shaper Tuesday.

pics from the ad:

   
   
   

[Pete O]

In my excitement I forgot to add, thanks to all for the advice and answers to my questions. I decided to avoid the 18" Alba that is on offer as it looks to be in a sad state.
There are also at least 3 nice looking shapers for sale in Western Australia that have been on offer for about 3 months. That's about 3 days drive from here. I'm stoked that this one came up just half an hour from me.

[Mayhem]

You should have said something Pete - I'm sure I could have gotten one onto a truck heading east for you

Nice score by the way.

[f350ca]

Congratulations! Looks like a stout machine. The helical bull gear should make it pretty quiet running. Haven't seen many shapers that had a table long enough to mount a dividing head.

[Dr Stan]

Nice find.  BTW,

[EdK]

Nice score Pete.

Ed