Craftsman 1/2HP shaper-Coping machine or pipe dream?

[Peter Quinn]

My father has retired and moves to FLA next week, he has given me a barely used Craftsman 1/2HP shaper. Its small, but it sets up well and seems reasonably well designed. My main shaper is a Delta HD with a feeder, I'm looking for a second shaper to cope cabinet doors, sort of a dedicated cope set up and nothing else.

I got the Craftsman home today, cleaned it up, tightened the drive belt, stacked a 3/4" cope set on the 1/2" spindle with bushings which fits the hole in the table perfectly. I pushed a cope through with a miter gauge and...stopped the motor dead in its tracks! OOPS. So I slowed the feed rate considerably and...stopped the motor dead in its tracks. So I went REAL slow, and viola, it copes. I was running poplar for test pieces, and actually made a few doors for my kitchen today. Its real easy to go a little to fast and bog this thing down in the middle of a cut, reminds me of using a router.

I have ambitions of using this thing to speed up production as a dedicated coping machine, but at the pace I have to feed it presently I wont be speeding up anything and it still makes sense to use the single delta shaper. I am considering looking for a bigger motor, as the machine did a fine job coping in spite of the bogging, stalling and slow feed rate. Accuracy was fine, the miter slot is smooth, not too much vibration either for a small machine. Ideally I'll get a BIG format sliding table shaper and use the delta as the coping machine, but I need to make some money to pay for that.

Question is anybody ever added a bigger motor to one of these craftsman shapers successfully? I''m not looking to do ANYTHING but cope cabinet doors with it, but I'm not sure how big I need to go, or how small I can get away with to accomplish that goal. I suppose I could pull a motor off of another machine to test it out before buying one. If its going to live in my shop it has to earn its keep, and I'm willing to feed it a new motor, but I don't want to throw good money after...well...it was free.

[Dennis Puskar]

I have that 1/2 HP shaper and I burned up the orginal motor and then replaced it with a 3/4 HP motor from Grizzly about 12 years ago no problems bogging down or whatever.

Dennis

[Peter Quinn]

Thanks for that info Dennis. I was thinking in the 3/4HP-1 1/2HP range would do it. In a search I found a 1500HP Baldor motor! Probably to much.:D Do you ever use yours to cope door parts? No bogging down sounds good. My other shaper doesn't bog, or hasn't with anything I've thrown at it yet.

[Dennis Puskar]

Thanks for that info Dennis. I was thinking in the 3/4HP-1 1/2HP range would do it. In a search I found a 1500HP Baldor motor! Probably to much.:D Do you ever use yours to cope door parts? No bogging down sounds good. My other shaper doesn't bog, or hasn't with anything I've thrown at it yet.
I have made lots of doors with this shaper it was dedicated to use reversible stile and rail cutters. The largest diameter cutter I have used is approx. 2" to 2 and 1/4 diameter. Hope this helps.

Dennis

[Peter Quinn]

I ordered a Grizzly 1 HP motor, nearly the same price as the 3/4 HP, I think the switches should still work from the original motor for reversing at that amperage, though I doubt I will ever reverse the rotation. Thanks for your responses Dennis, I'm going to give it a go. I made a half dozen more doors with it today and it seemed to work a bit better. Maybe sitting unused for 15 years or so it needed a little warming up? I'll change out the motor in any event. Still a very nice tool for the price of a motor. Set it and forget it type of thing for me.