Originally Posted by
Warren Lake
Mike
we didnt have a feeder and likely not ideal for what we did at the time. I remember standing over a shaper that sounded like a 747 at the airport shaping an oval mirror frame. The jig had only two handles one on each end. We put free knives into a ball bearing head on set up, knives were serrated heads were Winconsin. Wish I remembered what RPM they ran it at at the time, 3,500 RPM the number ive been told is max. It was pretty unnerving. big old cabinetmaker real deal standing over you as you tried to not let him see your arms shaking
I always thought that jig was made wrong it should have been a matching shape so you could do hand over hand. The way it was with a handle at each end was really awkward as you changed hands. Knives were thrown once while I as there. Then years later one maniac did it at least a few times while i was there.
I think of the old guy he said they had two shaper operators (400 plus employees that shop) and the two guys worked in a room by themselves doing big church windows with huge cutters. Said they were laid out on the floor as at times they were so large.
Warren
Kind of the same here. I went through school in the 70's and everyone was kind of making the same types of projects. I don't think a Jr. High/High School kid would have the discipline to make an entire cabinet set. Maybe that's why there was no power feeder.
A lot of guys were trying making their own guitars. You could buy an old Silvertone, Kay, or Tedesco, at a swap meet for $5.00. Take the neck off and try to make you own Gibson SG copy. We used to make these really stupid mirrors with black lights in them also. Why we thought adding a fish tank bulb to a mirror was cool, I don't remember, but we did. Those were the kind of projects we were using the shaper for. Black light poster frames were popular too. I bet our parents laughed themselves silly at the junk were making. Better than the resins, plastics, and ceramics classes. About 90% of the projects coming out of those classes was, well, lets just say you could call them were very "arty" pipes.
It was a lot of fun and I don't remember anyone getting too terribly hurt, so we must have learned something useful. I doubt there exist classes like those any longer. Too bad really.
If I had to do a lot of work with a shaper, I'd definitely get a power feeder. The safety and quality aspects, just can't be argued.
"The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)