New (used) shaper auction find!

[Erik Litts]

I'd been going back and forth about finding/building a better router table or getting a shaper. An auction yesterday made up my mind for me. I picked up a Mini-Max T-3 Sliding table Shaper and a crap-load of blades for just shy of $750. It was out of some guy's woodshop and while it's clear that there's some surface rust going on and the fence is on backwards, it looks to be in pretty good shape. My only issue is that I didn't see the sliding table in the pictures, so I'm hoping when I get there I find it sitting on a shelf somewhere.


On a related note, auctioneers amuse me sometimes when they don't correctly group or identify items. There was a Hitachi b600a Resaw up for bids too that I didn't grab. However I did pick up the 9 boxed saw blades for the machine that were just listed as generic "Assorted saw blades" with a crap picture. Paid $15 for all 9 and those things cost over $100 each, mainly because they were so cheap I figure I can resell them to defray the cost of my new toy. I also think there are some replacement knives for the Woodmaster 712 they had for sale included with the shaper blades. I'll have to see if the guy who bought that wants to buy them off me.






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[Mike Kees]

That Minimax is a pretty solid shaper. What motor /spindle size did you end up with ? The pile of tooling I am not so sure is going to be vey useful. looks like a bunch of the smooth edge knives that were run in "Collars" bolted together. Also looks like you suspected , that some of the tooling is for other machines. Good deal regardless. If you are brand new to shapers find someone with experience to help you sort out the tooling. Your best bet safety wise is solid brazed cutters and or a "euroblock " head available from Amana or CMT . These heads have a two pin and dovetail wedge design to hold knives in place. There are literally hundreds of knife profiles available at roughly
$15 a set. Quite a few shaper threads and shaper tooling threads on here (SMC) as well as a few guys who really know their stuff.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

That looks like a lot of blades! Just saying..... Let us know how it works out.

[Mel Fulks]

They look like the old type bolt on moulder knives to me. Don’t know anything about what works on Minimax.

[Bob Falk]

I have the same shaper. The sliding table is nice, fence/dust chute not so much so. You will want to purchase a power feeder.

[Erik Litts]

I was definitely uncertain about all the blades since as Mel noted, they looked more like moulder knives. But I wasn't sure if maybe there was some method for using them on a shaper and I figured the shaper was worth most of the sale price anyway. And if the blades won't work on the shaper, I can try and figure out what they DO go to and try selling them for a buck or three for each set to offset my expenses.

[Bill McNiel]

Erik,
I might be interested in one or more of those blades for the Hitachi.
Bill

[Erik Litts]

Erik,
I might be interested in one or more of those blades for the Hitachi.
Bill


Ok. I'll PM you this weekend after I've actually brought them home and can tell what sizes they are.

[Jared Sankovich]

Knives look mostly like bevel edge and square head. I see some corrugated in there as well. Most people will be scared of the bevel edge and square head stuff. The corrugated will be fine if you buy some corrugated heads to run them. The strange assortment of gibs makes me think a lot of those are woodmaster knives.

[Erik Litts]

Well, I'm happy to report that upon pickup I did find the sliding table tucked away in a corner. It's gonna take some TLC to clean it up, but that's ok. I also figured out that the owner had put the whole table top on backwards, not just the fence. So I guess I'll be taking that apart during the cleanup process.

[Jim Becker]

Always nice to score something like that! A shaper with a sliding table is a really nice find! Congrats.