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New Old Shaper - Atlas 7b

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rockknocker:
Manxmodder,
You are exactly right, the trunnion was worn (see below). I'll check the bull gear shaft and bearings next.

I spent a while unscrewing, staring, and cursing at the ram assembly before stumbling across a helpful forum online stating that the ram must be removed with the lever and link still attached. I was trying to remove the lever from the ram first. To remove the full assembly, the shaper must be un-bolted from the table and lifted up to gain access to the link (this is not an easy task by oneself, the machine is heavy and unwieldy). Three set screws are removed, then the pin securing the link to the frame can be driven out. Next, the ram slides are un-bolted so the ram can be lifted straight up off the machine. A slight sideways movement once it's partway up, and the ram lever separates from the bull gear and comes right on out!

After placing the assembly on a table, it was immediately apparent that the trunnion bushing was severely worn, especially on the side facing the front of the machine. Also, the heavy amounts of gunk in the assembly had clogged up the oil feed hole to the trunnion pin itself. At the least, the block will need to be re-made. This should be easy, the part is solid brass. However, there was very little, if any, damage to the ram lever itself. The machining marks were still visible on both sides of the slot, indicating that wear is minimal. I have not measured to fully verify however.

Other notes:
* No discernable wear is detectable on the ram slides.
* The inside of the machine is full of gunk and metal shavings.

Manxmodder:
Rockknocker,good that you now know where you're problems are. The yoke slideways don't look too worn from the photos,but I would recommend measuring the width at several points and checking for parallel of the slot along the full length and also across the width for taper.

 Stick with it,you'll enjoy that machine when she's back in running order.....OZ.

hermetic:
Hi Rocknocker, The motor sounds dead right to me! That is what a repulsion motor sounds like as it comes up to speed. I have an ancient huge one on my Covmac lathe!
Phil
UK

rockknocker:
It's been 6 months but I finally have some progress to report! Now that the fence is up, the chicken house is built and chickens purchased, the garden is planted/grown/cleaned up, the yard is reworked, the landscaping is finished, the trailer is built, the swing set is built, and the trampoline is set up, I can get back to playing in the shop!

I machined a new trunnion out of bearing bronze and have reassembled the machine with it installed. For one of my very first machined items, I'm really happy with how it turned out. There are only two bone-headed mistakes in the simple three-operation piece, but none of them are critical...

New trunnion fits perfectly and goes a long way towards quieting the machine down. The only unnecessary clacking I can hear now is the drive and bull gear loading and unloading, but it is very faint.

Some interesting points:
* The original trunnion was actually iron or steel, not brass. This baffles me, as an iron or steel bushing, on a steel pin, sliding in cast iron ways seems like a very poor choice. Maybe it is a "soft" iron, because it did wear significantly without affecting either the pin or the cast iron ways.
* The cast iron ways measure out exactly parallel (within the precision of my measuring tools)
* The motor is actually a repulsion-start, induction-run motor. I had the safety cover off during a start and noticed that the entire brush assembly "lifts" away from the rotor after spinning up.
* Sorry for the poor quality images, the only camera I had handy when I finished the trunnion wasn't a very good one.

rockknocker:
This thing is fun to use!

I chucked up a hunk of aluminum that was laying around, lubed and re-lubed everything on the machine, and started 'er up! This machine can carve aluminum like it's butter! The side-cutting bit that has been in the shaper for the last 10 years (at least) could carve metal pretty quickly, but only left an "ok" finish.

I spent 15 minutes grinding my first shaper bit (with one eye on YouTube) and chucked it up for a finish cut. The finish was beautiful! In the image below, you can see the reflection of the cutting bit in the machined surface. The machine is feeding ~0.015" away from the camera per cut. The old cutter is sitting on the vice, and the un-machined surface has the finish achieved with that cutter. In comparison, the aluminum surface closest to the camera was milled out with a Bridgeport.

Since this is my first hand-ground cutter and is undoubtedly far from perfect, I'm sure this machine is capable of doing an even better job with a capable operator. I chucked up some steel and had a lot more trouble, so I'm working through that now.

More information and images/videos to follow in the next several days!

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