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Making tools to mend tools to work on tools

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madjackghengis: Hi Richard, I know the feeling exactly :lol:, I love my shaper because it is so useful for making parts for other machines, even more than for projects.  I've long considered adding power feed to the down feed on the shaper, as I've done several jobs on dovetails, and I've worked on shapers with such, and they are so nice to work with, but the controlling it throughout the angle of swing has kept me from getting on with it.  I've been researching the addition of a stepper motor and control to my rotary table, as Kwacker's has so nicely shown, and I am suddenly struck with the ease with which one could put a power down feed using a stepper motor, and simple switches to control it, and not have to make strange levers and such to work when the head's at angles, so watching you cut your dovetail, has given me the idea, now I have to try to make it come to life.  I'm thinking perhaps the controller Kwacker's designed could also control this down feed concept.  How big is your shaper?  I've got a seven inch Atlas, and a twelve inch antique which I need to fix before I can use, but both could use such a set up.  Didn't mean to steal your thread, but you gave me the idea. :lol:  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished support, and then seeing it tested :poke: :beer: cheers, Jack

RichardShute: Hi Madjack. Now I really know what you mean !! The power down feed to the head is something I'm really lusting after, much more than a power table up-feed. I'll see what comes up, but the machines fitted with power down feed that I've seen recently have all been too big, I mean BIG, like 42" stroke big. Now I do like a long stroke, but that's a bit much... My machine is an Elliot 10M (10" max stroke), it's a nice size for home use and very competent, but I would like probably a 14" ideally, but if an all bells & whilsltes 18" or even 20" came up I'd be sorely tempted. I am a somewhat recent convert to shapers. Although we've had the machine for some years I got a bad impression early on for a variety of, truthfully, trivial reasons that were partly my fault, but the mud stuck in my view of it. It was only a year or so ago that I used it again and sorted some details and now I love it to bits. Silly of me really, and I feel guilty for having had a great machine sitting there and mentally maligning it completely unjustifiably. Still, we're friends again now and it gets regular use. Cheers Richard

madjackghengis: Hi Richard, I am hoping getting a handle on the controller and stepper motor for the rotary table will prepare me to use it, and its extra room for programming, which has been spoken of many times, to control a stepper motor on the down feed.  With my Atlas, the table up feed is locked solid except when moving it, and that is not to be done while cutting, so it is not a useful axis for working, only for setup, so my only choice is the down feed, and it makes far more sense as it is the source of so much of the shaper's capabilities, including profiling, which I've done by hand on simple profiles, but which the shaper was used for extensively, when it was a major tool in the machine shop.  It would be worth putting a serious accurate feed screw for downfeed, with a stepper motor, something with no backlash, so it wouldn't have to be as solidly tight in its dovetails.  I haven't used my 12 inch yet, having received it in need of rebuilding, but like you, all the ones I've used with a power down feed have been with three and four foot strokes, and far bigger than I need.  I don't know when, but I will be doing that power down feed, as soon as I get past the rotary table, as it will give me to knowledge of how to do it.   :nrocks: :beer: cheers, Jack

RichardShute: There must be a word for it - that brief moment of mildly smug satisfaction you have of a job nicely done that lasts right up to the moment when you realise you're actually looking down the barrel of a major cockup. Well, after my earlier satisfaction at making the dove tails rather nicely I had just such a moment. The bearing block was a nice snug fit on the machine dovetails and when offered up it all looked great until I lined up the horizontal spindle and realised that the centre height was wrong and the subsequent arbor bearing would all but break through the top of the boss in the casting. The feeling of desolation was further compounded by the fact that despite strenuous efforts, I could not find anyone else to blame. The error goes right back to the pattern, it's not a machining fault, but how I achieved the blunder is a mystery. So what now? I left it all for a week while I cooled off and had a long think about what to do next. To get the arbor through the centre of the boss, the bearing block needed to rise by about 1/4", just about the same as the thickness of the web below the dovetail, thus reducing it to naff-all and ignoring for a moment that the dovetails get wider (and looser) as they get deeper. In principle, the casting is scrap, but I decided to 'fix' it as best I can just for the hell of it. I made some very thick gibbs for the dovetails and screwed and dowelled them in place permanently. I was so disgusted at myself at the error I didn't actually take any photos of the mess, you can see the cap-heads and ends of the dowels that retain the gibbs in the machined side-face at the top of the block. I then took 6mm off the top of the bearing block and re-machined the dovetails 6mm lower leaving the web at the bottom about 1/16" thick. Way to thin for comfort and yet still not really far enough down ideally, but by this stage it's 'beggars can't be choosers'. The top face was scraped flat and the reference dovetail scraped to match the gauge I'd made earlier. All pretty undramatic and according to plans, shame about the preceding mire. I then made the locking clamp in the same style as the axis locks on the machine. The shaper was still set up for the angle and as a lock it's not that critical. And then bored and counter bored the bearing block to accept the clamp so I could actually start on the bearing bore. One of the novel features of the machine is that unlike the Deckel, the overarm is purely passive so after mounting the bearing block to the overarm and locking the overarm clamp-gibb I could than also clamp the bearing block to the table and finally slacken the overarm locking gibb again. This allows me to use the horizontal spindle to bore the bearing exactly on centre as the machine is machining itself. This went well enough putting a simple 1" pilot hole in the bearing block, but the grand plan has faltered again at the next step. Groan... Both spindles on the machine are MT4, but it transpires that the horizontal spindle has a collar with a rectangular recess to drive the arbor. This arrangement prevents me from fitting the boring head into the horizontal spindle. There are two obvious solutions: find a boring head that fits the recess or use a smaller boring head with an adaptor sleeve, which more or less amounts to the same thing. However, as I'm unlikely to shell out for another boring head I am considering how to 'make' my existing one fit. Some have removale shanks, but sadly not this one. Morse tapers are very slow, so I am thinking about rolling up a sleeve from 020 shim and wrap it round the shank. This will make the boring head seat about 3/4 or more further out and allow the head to clear the drive collar, with an extension of some sort for the drawbar it sounds 'possible'. I'll report back on this when I have tried it out Richard

joshagrady: --- Quote from: RichardShute on April 17, 2011, 07:37:08 PM ---There must be a word for it - that brief moment of mildly smug satisfaction you have of a job nicely done that lasts right up to the moment when you realise you're actually looking down the barrel of a major cockup. --- End quote --- The Greeks called it "hubris", my father calls it a "learning opportunity".  For what it's worth, I think you're doing a fabulous job finding solutions rather than just sinking into the mire of difficulties along the way.  I don't know about you, but I'm learning things from this post. Josh

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