Shaper selection

[Warren Lake]

yes 4 is non tilt

[Mel Fulks]

A Delta/Invicta RS 15 is another machine to watch for. really good solid machine ,mine is 7.5 hp three phase. I have two shapers ,my other one is a Minimax T50 with sliding table and tilt spindle. It is a 5 hp machine. These two are a good pair as they cover most of the bases for me. And yes the tilt and sliding table are used a fair bit.

I used an Invicta for several years in an employment and liked it.

[Patrick Kane]

This poor guy selling the Gomad, we are all screaming "scalp him!". Lets hope he isnt a SMC member...

That listing has the hallmarks of a high risk/high reward. Offbrand maker, disheveled photos, and poor description. Finally, and most importantly, you dont NEED the gomad. The harder negotiations are when you really really want the machine.

Reminds me of my jointer buy a few years ago. Here are the images i had alongside a seller description of "16" joiner". I mailed the guy a personal check for the price of a new grizzly 8" jointer, and waited for a uship guy without front teeth to deliver it. Ended up being a 20" machine with a tersa head(which is what i gambled on). It very well could have gone the other way and showed up with frozen bearings, no motor, or worse, not shown up at all! Atleast its close enough you can go and look at it. I prefer to negotiate before i drive 3 hours round trip, but atleast you can always back out if its a disaster upon first glance.

[Mike Kees]

Mark ,Cantek is a whole' nother' animal from Grizzly, Powermatic,etc . They are a way heavier build, I have seen other shapers from Taiwan with the "511", 512 model number under different names that are the same machine. I would not hesitate to have one of these in my shop.

[Jared Sankovich]

The 511/512/513 imports are decent and a lot different than the grizzly machines. I have a 511 and it's been great for what it is.

Hardwood artisans (who are local to me) are running a couple dfda-4 shapers in their production shop. I asked how they liked them when I was there looking at a Maka and the shop manager said they had been great.

As for the invictas they are well built. The ti-14d would be the tilting/sliding version. My only complaint is the quill travel could be more. It's only about 5.25" and you can't raise the spindle base above the table.

[brent stanley]

I personally would always go for capacity and capabilities over creature comfort type features like CNC controlled fences if I had to choose. Granted I do this every day, often many times a day, but setting fences and spindle height on a well made, accurate machine can be very fast. I have a friend with a new Martin T27 and a guy with a Panhans that have CNC fences and apparently you can't count on either of them to always give you perfect results every time. So if you're doing fine work you're still going to need to do some test cuts and maybe tweak. Don't get me wrong, on balance I'm sure theyre very handy, but in the opinion of a couple of pros who are daily users to make a living, they're not infallible magic.

[Mark e Kessler]

That Gomad shaper is in a totally different class than Hammer. Given the price and location there's no reason not to check it out or to think that it needs bearings just because of its age. I think Stark Mtn in New Haven still runs one and they couThere's a clean looking T110 with 3

Yea, that Gomad is in a different class than the Hammer for sure. The Gomad is really too big with the side table for my current shop but i could make it work. I am looking at subbing out some of the work but plan on doing most of it because the money will pay for the shaper, tooling ect plus pay off a car and then some, the time/duration isn’t as important plus I am doing it for a friend.

That t110 sold, guess he never deleted the listing.

[Mark e Kessler]

Phillip and i have a very similar approach to used tools. I actually saw that shaper weeks ago, because i have a problem with searching the entire country for used tools even though i have no business buying or storing them right now. Its how i ended up with two Martin table saws that i then had to sell later. I should probably keep my mouth shut, but those Gomad shapers are kind

Honestly I think the Gomad is just to big for my shop and after this job I don’t plan to do much end work, of course i never planned on doing 115 shutters either. I would have no problem sinking 5k into something that is way beyond what I would be able to buy new

[Mark e Kessler]

A Delta/Invicta RS 15 is another machine to watch for. really good solid machine ,mine is 7.5 hp three phase. I have two shapers ,my other one is a Minimax T50 with sliding table and tilt spindle. It is a 5 hp machine. These two are a good pair as they cover most of the bases for me. And yes the tilt and sliding table are used a fair bit.

I have seen A few of the invictas for around $2500, the t50 is another that i would check out

[Mark e Kessler]

This poor guy selling the Gomad, we are all screaming "scalp him!". Lets hope he isnt a SMC member...

That listing has the hallmarks of a high risk/high reward. Offbrand maker, disheveled photos, and poor description. Finally, and most importantly, you dont NEED the gomad. The harder negotiations are when you really really want the machine.

Reminds me of my jointer buy a few years ago. Here are the images i had alongside a seller description of "16" joiner". I mailed the guy a personal check for the price of a new grizzly 8" jointer, and waited for a uship guy without front teeth to deliver it. Ended up being a 20" machine with a tersa head(which is what i gambled on). It very well could have gone the other way and showed up with frozen bearings, no motor, or worse, not shown up at all! Atleast its close enough you can go and look at it. I prefer to negotiate before i drive 3 hours round trip, but atleast you can always back out if its a disaster upon first glance.

yea, I definitely don’t need that Gomad. It’s also a little sketchy that its listed in Montpelier and NH, one by a Woman and the other by a man, the woman says she is friends with the other, i was thinking maybe a divorce deal, he originally had it listed for more

[Mark e Kessler]

I personally would always go for capacity and capabilities over creature comfort type features like CNC controlled fences if I had to choose. Granted I do this every day, often many times a day, but setting fences and spindle height on a well made, accurate machine can be very fast. I have a friend with a new Martin T27 and a guy with a Panhans that have CNC fences and apparently you can't count on either of them to always give you perfect results every time. So if you're doing fine work you're still going to need to do some test cuts and maybe tweak. Don't get me wrong, on balance I'm sure theyre very handy, but in the opinion of a couple of pros who are daily users to make a living, they're not infallible magic.

i for sure don’t want a CNC fence for one it’s why out of my league second i do like a little bit of fiddling but some precision with repeatability so i would like a pinned fence and mech readout

[Jared Sankovich]

I have seen A few of the invictas for around $2500, the t50 is another that i would check out

The RS15s used to be relatively inexpensive. If you are considering one and forgoing the tilt/slider and pined fence there are a lot of other euro shapers in that weight/performance class beyond scmi Martin or invicta.

[Joe Calhoon]

I personally would always go for capacity and capabilities over creature comfort type features like CNC controlled fences if I had to choose. Granted I do this every day, often many times a day, but setting fences and spindle height on a well made, accurate machine can be very fast. I have a friend with a new Martin T27 and a guy with a Panhans that have CNC fences and apparently you can't count on either of them to always give you perfect results every time. So if you're doing fine work you're still going to need to do some test cuts and maybe tweak. Don't get me wrong, on balance I'm sure they're very handy, but in the opinion of a couple of pros who are daily users to make a living, they're not infallible magic.

Brent,
That has not been my experience at all with the T27 and T12. Those fences are accurate to 1\100 of a MM and if everything calibrated right should be very dependable. I Have set up a few T27s, even one in a Chinese shop and we use a T 12 in the Alpine workshops. They are always dead on with no test cuts needed. There are a few things that need to be set up on these to get good results. Please send your friends contact info and I will get in touch with him to see what is going on.

In my own works I use 3 different shapers on a daily basis. My T26 Martin that I bought new 20 years ago with automatic fence and shaft height has been accurate to 1/10mm in both axis. The only time I need to tweak it a bit ( usually 0.1 or 0.2 mm is when doing door and window sticking cuts using the split fence removing 1 mm from the edge. About a year ago the fence started going out of calibration. I replaced the encoder and all is good now. I think it was $400 but that shaper doesn’t owe me anything. This shaper is also easy to set up for first time cuts because you can bump it in 1/10th mm increments.
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my second most used shaper is the Hofmann. It has a solid cast fence with mechanical digital readout. I really like this fence., it is totally coplaner and has a nice fine adjust. That is very important on a manual machine. This one has a digital readout for shaft height that is not totally accurate. It’s a 20 year old machine and either need to replace the encoder or it might be dirty. The mechanical digital fence readout is accurate to about 0.2 mm. Almost as good as the T26 but no worries about electronics. It’s a solid cast machine with no vibration. This one and the T26 work well with euro tooling that comes with drawings and cutter diameters on the cutters.
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My third shaper is the 40 year old Martin T23 that I restored. It is total manual but has some features that most shapers of this era did not have. The height is adjustable in 1/10th mm increments via marks on the hand wheel and the fence has really good fine adjust for either the whole fence or each fence half independently. Pretty quick to dial a cutter in especially if using some setting aids. This one though gets used mostly for tenoning and end cuts. I have a shop made digital gauge for tenon depth. The other shapers have a massive footprint and needed for what I do but the T 23 is pretty compact and weighs in as about 2000 lbs. I had a few SCM and other pre 1990 Italian shapers. They are not bad machines and pretty solid. None had fine adjust on the fences. I set up some new Griggio shapers in a shop and they were not too bad. I’m sure the newer SCM good also. If I ever downsize from semiretirement to total hobby work I could get along just fine with the old T23.
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[brent stanley]

Thanks Joe! I'll reach out, though I believe he's already worked with Martin to get within their specs. If the machine were stolen tomorrow, he would buy the same again without hesitation so no question it's an exceptionally helpful feature. Are you going to WinDoor this year? I'll introduce you.

[Mark e Kessler]

What about SAC, I know nothing about them. There is a 2002 T145, cast iron slider, tilt 9hp on ebay for 8k, seems a bit high. Also with forward (towards operator) spindle, that seams awkward as far as usability compared to tilting away.