Drummond shaper

[Fretters]

Final piece of the shaper tidied up. The vice.



The clapper I finished last night.



Now it's simply a case of tidying up all the screws, nuts & bolts, before reassembly can begin.

Found a photo, the other day, of just after I uncrated the shaper, showing all the parts in their previous condition.

 

[dutchgray]

Looking good with all the rust and muck cleaned off.

 

[Fretters]

I am chuffed with how well it's all cleaned up.

I have the fun part now of fettling the screws & bolts. I use a flat needle file & a fine file to take all the burrs & sharp edges off, & tidy up the slots in the screw heads. Takes a while, but well worth the effort. They're sat in a bowl awaiting attention.



I'm hoping I'll have this reassembled over the weekend, so we'll get to see it in all its glory.

 

[Provincial]

On special screws that have slots buggered, I have had good luck with peening the distorted metal back into shape before cleaning up the slot with a file. Sometimes it requires threading the screw into a nut or heavy block to hold it firmly.

 

[Fretters]

Side-tracking again, got that Drummond con-rod boring jig reassembled today. Some before photo's.

 

[Fretters]

Afters. New 3/16" BSF brass cheesehead screws cut to length & fitted to replace the Allen head screws which were there previously.





Turned the end of a small rod to fit the adjuster ring holes, for adjusting it.

 

[BombShelter]

Thanks for sharing, I've found some old equipment has beautiful industrial design even though that wasn't a thing back then. I keep my tiny Craftsman Metal Lathe around just for eye candy.

Beautiful work!

 

[Fretters]

Thanks.

I've started reassembling it today.

 

[Fretters]

Ordered some 5/16" square bar, which turned up yesterday. That'll allow me to make a replacement for the one missing gib screw, & to replace the slotted head gib screws atop the machine with square head screws. They're all ¼" BSW thread.

 

[Fretters]

I can honestly say, I'm not the speediest of people at making screws. I've spent more time today than I expected, making these.



It now has square head gib screws throughout, rather than a mix of square & slotted. Also replaced the missing screw from the right hand side.

 

[Fretters]

New spacer made for the arm. It's slightly longer than the original, (on the left):



so that the nut, when tightened, can't clamp the washer onto the arm.



Also made it a snugger fit both on the stud & within the slot to remove any slop.

 

[Fretters]

Made a replacement for this, yesterday.



Replacement is just a slitting disc on grinder, hacksaw & hand filing affair, so not CNC quality, (I know you lot can be a judgemental bunch ).




The previous isn't the original plate, so I've made one which is closer to original in size. Made the pin/shaft a press fit into the plate rather than threaded & nutted though, mainly for cosmetics. New pin/shaft is also a slightly better fit in the casting.

It's part of the carriage advance mechanism. This photo shows the old plate & other parts of it fitted.

 

[Fretters]

A photo of the new part test fitted. Need to make a new spacer & bolt, (due to me using thicker bar), to bring the lever back inline.



Also gives a good before & current conditions view of the shaper overall.

 

[dutchgray]

It's looking good, I did think that feed plate was a particularly rough hand made affair, I guess someone was in a hurry to get it working again a long time ago.

 

[Fretters]

I guess someone was in a hurry to get it working again a long time ago.

Most likely. I tried fettling it a bit, but I know it would have kept drawing my eye. Plus, with it pivoting the arm from the bottom, the angle it was driving the gear from wasn't ideal, & those tines are too long to allow it to be rotated 180°. Hence, figured it would be simpler to just make a new plate.

 

[Fretters]

Made the new spacer. I've kept the original bolt though, so made a second spacer to take up the slack. Original pictured sat atop the new spacers.



It's got the bar inline to where it ought be now.

 

[Fretters]

It's got a handwheel again. Made a brass sleeve for the shaft end, to match it up to the bore of the handwheel..

 

[Fretters]

Realised last night after posting that, bar mounting it to the bench it's currently sat on, & refitting the clapper & vice, it's now finished. It'll be bolted down front left on that bench. It's the only spot in the workshop where it can go.

 

[dutchgray]

Very nice job done, don't forget to drill a hole for the knee screw to drop below the bench surface when the table is lowered.
We expect to see some swarf made in the next few days, I want to know how hard work one of these is to operate.

 

[Fretters]

Cheers. You did just say weeks?

I'll hopefully not forget the hole. Also going to have a look round & see if I may be able to get hold of a baking tray or suchlike, big enough to go underneath it. It's been suggested a tray would be a worthwhile addition.

 

[Fretters]

A couple of little finishing touches I need to do, but, it's all abouts there.

 

[Fretters]

The last two bits are sorted, so I'm classing it as functional now.

First task was making some brass screws to replace the steel ones. With them bearing on the side of the toolholder, I wanted something a tad more forgiving there.



They're just there to take out a gnats of sideways slop between toolholder & housing.

Second, with my bench not being very deep, the front of the base was overhanging the front of the bench, & the screw was exposed, so added a couple of wooden blocks to the front of the bench in order to provide a bit of extra support, & to protect the screw.

 

[Fretters]

Made a new shoulder bolt for the sliding jaw on the vice today, from ⅝" bar, instead of having a fully threaded bolt in there.

 

[Fretters]

It's finally done some shaving today. Not pretty, but it works.



The tool used is the one which was in it when I got it. I'll be changing that over. Noted a few bits I may/will have to tweak, but it's done it.

The chunk missing from that piece of steel is what became the new arm on this shaper.

 

[dutchgray]

Nice restoration, so how much effort does it take to make a cut?

 

[Fretters]

I only took light cuts, (& bearing in mind I still need to work on my technique), but it didn't actually need vast amounts of effort. The fact that tool has a minimal cutting tip possibly made it harder than it would be with a wider profile tip, as it had a tendency to try digging in, & anything more than a light cut, that tool can't manage. I was expecting my arm to feel dead by now, but it doesn't. Once you start getting a feel for it, it's surprisingly easy.