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Thread: Educate me on Shapers

  1. #76
    I just weighed my small combi head with blanks installed and it's 3.75 LBS. My Aluminum 55mm head is just shy of 2 pounds.

  2. #77
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    VanHuskey
    " Nobody (that knows vehicles) will call a Toyota Tacoma a bad truck but if you have to haul a 15,000-pound trailer over a 10% grade mountain pass every day it is simply too lightly built for the job. Just because it has a ball on the hitch that fits the trailer doesn't mean it is a good idea."


    From '86 to 2013 a Toyota Truck was my daily driver. Put over 700K miles on three of them.
    I can tell you with absolute confidence that a 2300lb. Brenderup Baron T/C, two horse, bumper pull trailer, with just one 1100 lb. horse inside, is way too much for one to handle.
    I loved my 'Toy trucks, but they were awful to haul with. Even with an aftermarket AirLift system installed.

    Nick
    I think CMT has aluminum insert heads with limiters. I think.
    Last edited by Mike Cutler; 12-31-2018 at 1:40 PM.
    "The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)

  3. #78
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    Van ,Andrew Coholic that used to post here has a Cantek shaper in his production shop.You could probably PM him for info.

  4. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Kees View Post
    Van,Andrew Coholic that used to post here has a Cantek shaper in his production shop.You could probably PM him for info.
    Thanks, I was trying to remember his name but couldn't. I remember seeing it in one of his videos. Turns out after talking to the seller I am 3rd in line to look at it so if it is a good deal someone will likely buy it before me. Probably for the best, if I am going to spend real money on a shaper upgrade I think I should really wait for an actual European one.
    Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.

    Deep thought for the day:

    Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.

  5. #80
    It's very easy for people who upgrade by necessity or obsession to pooh pooh the capacity of lesser equipment. I always find it kind of.. well, a bit pathetic.

    We have two import shapers in the shop that swing 150mm tall dual hook steel corrugated heads with knives ground at the limits of projection. They dont run 8 hours a day, but they make money on a regular basis.

    Never owned a 27 but I can only imagine anyone who becomes proficient at swapping their bearings came to the realization that they were way over expectations of their investment about a year too late.

    We don't run our shapers as if they were a 2 ton molder disguised in a suitcase sized package.

    Dumb is dumb. Smart is smart. Wever yet to swap a set if bearings. Throughput is not doubt part of that but being an idiot and pushing a small machine for 8x it's worth.. is well.. being an idiot.
    Last edited by Mark Bolton; 12-31-2018 at 6:53 PM.

  6. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    It's very easy for people who upgrade by necessity or obsession to pooh pooh the capacity of lesser equipment. I always find it kind of.. well, a bit pathetic.

    We have two import shapers in the shop that swing 150mm tall dual hook steel corrugated heads with knives ground at the limits of projection. They dont run 8 hours a day, but they make money on a regular basis.

    Never owned a 27 but I can only imagine anyone who becomes proficient at swapping their bearings came to the realization that they were way over expectations of their investment about a year too late.

    We don't run our shapers as if they were a 2 ton molder disguised in a suitcase sized package.

    Dumb is dumb. Smart is smart. Wever yet to swap a set if bearings. Throughput is not doubt part of that but being an idiot and pushing a small machine for 8x it's worth.. is well.. being an idiot.
    Edge work will kill a PM27. Edge work.
    I wouldn't trust anything more than a round over in those things.

    I invested 400 bucks in both the PM27s I had. Still about 300 too much.

    I run small runs on a shaper, more than 150 feet and I set up my 7 head moulder, more than 1000 feet and the big Hydromat gets set up.

    I have ran a Yates N4 for hours a day with way too big a cutter on it and it never complained, same with the invictas, old SCMs, Bauerle, wadkin, gomad, etc.

    Personally, I don't even really care for the steel cabinet scmis and the like.

    Idiots, huh?

  7. #82
    Again, like I said, necessity or obsession. Pick your own column. We run shapers for what they excell at and no more. Never destroyed one at any level. Never got routinely expeditious at swapping bearings, and never went to the lunacy of a seven head in any remote relationship to an operation we remotely contemplated accomplishing with a shaper. Your issues with shapers seem clear if you had to resort to a seven head molder to accomplish what you were trying to do with a shaper in the first place .. again. Hence my point of trying to accomplish the impossible with the shaper to start then blaming the shaper when you should be using the molder (or outsourcing) to begin with.

    Reminds me of my guys blaming the pencil when they mark the tape wrong. Guess I should buy them a seven head pencil lol.

  8. #83
    I have an early 1941 vintage Delta HD shaper with a 2 hp bullet motor. It is useful and I picked it up in good shape cheaply. But it is a light duty shaper.

    I do find it useful...but will upgrade at some point.

    I do find even a small shaper to be of use.

  9. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    Again, like I said, necessity or obsession. Pick your own column. We run shapers for what they excell at and no more. Never destroyed one at any level. Never got routinely expeditious at swapping bearings, and never went to the lunacy of a seven head in any remote relationship to an operation we remotely contemplated accomplishing with a shaper. Your issues with shapers seem clear if you had to resort to a seven head molder to accomplish what you were trying to do with a shaper in the first place .. again. Hence my point of trying to accomplish the impossible with the shaper to start then blaming the shaper when you should be using the molder (or outsourcing) to begin with.

    Reminds me of my guys blaming the pencil when they mark the tape wrong. Guess I should buy them a seven head pencil lol.
    Shapers are 150 foot an under machines. Face mouldings have no business being run on a shaper. I can set up the sash sticker real quick, the 7 head wadkin fairly quick and the big hydromat takes a while when all the horizontal heads have outboard bearings.

    Time is money. That is why shapers are short run machines. You have to handle a board too many times before it goes through a shaper.

    I just need to bust blanks for a moulder, it does all the flattening and straightening and profiling. Lumber in one end, money out the other.

    I still stand by my statement that pm27s are crap.

  10. #85
    welp, you've got two kinds of people here. Those that try to make money with their tools, and those that don't try.

    I have two 27's. I've said this a half dozen times. When I bought them, I never thought I would need anything more than what they had to offer. I was incorrect.
    The tolerances just aren't there. Lightly built and under powered. It doesn't take many hours or much abuse and they start getting sloppy. One of mine has seen really light use coping and I haven't had to pull the spindle. The other one has been out a few times. Panel raising beats those things to death when you're doing full cuts.

    For a hobbyist they're fine, and when I didn't know any better, they were fine. I know better nowadays though. That was a tough learning curve.
    I bought a used SAC shaper for $1200 on an auction, (on a recommendation from Peter Quinn on here actually), within a few seconds of it running, just a bare spindle, I knew I wasn't doing the best I could before and the standards had changed. That set me off getting a nice scm shaper, then upgrading all of my heads, then getting another SAC, and now another. That first quality shaper sent my pounding down the path to upgrade my tooling across the board to make things more profitable. Fighting subpar results and inadequate setups is no way to make money. That genesis happened about four years ago. I went from leasing space with not much equipment to owing very little on a building I own three times the size of my leased space in a short amount of time. I'm already thinking about an addition. I couldn't have done it without the equipment, and I owe it to Peter and that SAC.

    If I'm fanatical about it, its because I look back at the time I wasted fighting. The money I threw away reworking things infuriates me. I had a lot of PM stuff. A couple of saws, a jointer, planer, shapers, dust collectors. The only thing I've got left from that is one of the saws, which it's a pretty nice 66, a 6" jointer that fills a roll just fine, and those two 27 shapers that I can not wait to send their rattling carcasses down the road. As soon as I pull them from service, they're getting bearings, a clean up, and getting tossed on Craigslist where they'll get snatched up in a couple of days.


    Realizing what I didn't know was humbling and a killer for me.

  11. #86
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    The last twist of this thread has me a little confused, though admittedly not a state of mind I am completely unaccustomed to.

    While I understand Mark's position and especially when considered in terms of the hobbyist it makes sense. Honestly, I am not sure how much of the thread his comments were meant to cover, I took it as the last part regarding the PM27. I see that as simply a question of what tooling is appropriate for the machine. The lure of a Combi-head for a hobbyist is that it becomes one if not the main piece of tooling you have for your shaper, it will spend a lot of time on the spindle. From my point of view the 125mm steel head is larger than someone should run on a PM27 or similar shapers and the 96mm head does MOST of the things the larger one does and actually has an advantage if you want to run 40mm inserts that can be commonly found in the US. If Mark thinks the 125mm head makes more sense to buy then express the opinion, it is certainly worth a lot more than mine on this subject.

    I admit that the "upselling" (that I am fully guilty of) that occurs on most every hobby forum in all of the internet can be obnoxious at times. I also admit that the dismissal of tools/machines is also not a good look. We should all try to be "better". Hopefully this thread won't have Nick looking at his PM differently as it will do anything a hobbyist like myself will likely ever ask of it. It doesn't, however, change the fact that there are legitimate tooling issues that should be addressed. Just because it fits on your machines spindle and is smaller than the table opening with all the rings removed doesn't mean it is the best choice just like a 1 1/4" x .042" Lenox Trimaster may not be appropriate just because you can shoehorn it onto the wheels of a specific bandsaw.
    Of all the laws Brandolini's may be the most universally true.

    Deep thought for the day:

    Your bandsaw weighs more when you leave the spring compressed instead of relieving the tension.

  12. #87
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    Van, thank you for that post. I started this thread, excited that I may purchase a Shaper in the near future, but the last couple of pages leave me with the impression, that if I don't buy a commercial grade unit, with a new msrp north of $6K, I'm basically wasting my money.

    I'm not in the income bracket where such tool is viable or necessary for my hobby, so this has been a good enlightening experience and I'll save money for wood and projects and keep using my router table.

  13. #88
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    Keep watching the ads. Martin found his used SAC and it only needed a stop button. Deals come up. I started with a little 3 hp SECO. It was a decent machine to learn on and decide what I really needed. I found a SCM T130 with a sliding table that had never been turned on for $3750 and then a Martin T21. The little SECO is crap in comparison but if you find something for less than 1000, you can get enough use to wait until the real deal shows up. Dave

  14. #89
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisA Edwards View Post
    Van, thank you for that post. I started this thread, excited that I may purchase a Shaper in the near future, but the last couple of pages leave me with the impression, that if I don't buy a commercial grade unit, with a new msrp north of $6K, I'm basically wasting my money.

    I'm not in the income bracket where such tool is viable or necessary for my hobby, so this has been a good enlightening experience and I'll save money for wood and projects and keep using my router table.
    Chris
    I will tell you for a damn certain fact that you do not have to spend that kind of money. Take away my drum sander and I barely have $6k wrapped up in all my stationary machines.
    I've worked with, and known, some extremely talented cabinet makers that make nothing but high end cabinets for homes, boats, and airplanes. You want to see a kitchen remodel go close to seven figures, before appliances, these guys are the folks that get that work. They have basic machines. Maybe two or three of them that they never change and are maintained by a retired machinist out of General Dynamics, but their "game" is not to process linear feet per minute. Hell, I know a custom framer, that has 4, old DeWalt 705's, and he's been in the custom picture framing business for decades. This guy's work is hanging in museums.
    I'll make an inflammatory statement here;
    If a person cannot produce a quality cabinet set, or do good work, with a properly functioning, 3-5HP, Powermatic, Jet, Grizzly, Delta, Woodtek, etc shaper. They won't make any better product with a more expensive machine. They'll make the same quality faster, or they'll become more efficient at making an inferior product. There are 100's and 100's of custom cabinet shops all over the US that have what would be termed "light duty' shapers,and these folks are doing just fine with them!
    It doesn't take expensive machines, any machine, to do superior work. It takes attention to detail, patience, willingness to learn, and developed skill. A machine is only a reflection of the user.

    Buy a shaper, new or used, get a few cutters, maybe a basic shaker style cabinet set, that are within the machine's ability to use, and have at it.
    The unfortunate part is that you may have to "teach yourself". But there is a lot of good info access available now to a person.
    Last edited by Mike Cutler; 01-01-2019 at 12:55 PM.
    "The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)

  15. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisA Edwards View Post
    Van, thank you for that post. I started this thread, excited that I may purchase a Shaper in the near future, but the last couple of pages leave me with the impression, that if I don't buy a commercial grade unit, with a new msrp north of $6K, I'm basically wasting my money.

    I'm not in the income bracket where such tool is viable or necessary for my hobby, so this has been a good enlightening experience and I'll save money for wood and projects and keep using my router table.
    I'll say used is the way to go. There are a lot of quality shapers that pop up for short money from shops going out of business, retiring, up sizing or downsizing. The best thing about buying used (other then price) is they often come with a feeder attached.

    I've spent $1850 (total) on three shapers (2 sliding table one with tilt) and three feeders, and passed on a lot more just due to space constraints. My point is you don't have to spend close to $6000 to get a shaper with a $6000msrp

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