Vintage Boice Crane Shaper

[Maui]

I just picked up a vintage Boice Crane shaper earlier today. It is a surprisingly heavily built machine. Unfortunately it didn’t come with the fence or any cutters other than the one that is mounted on it. The owner said that his father purchased it new around 1950 or so, and used it for years in his cabinet shop. It came with a Walker Turner Driver Line motor. I wasn’t able to see it run before buying it since there was no plug and the wiring was questionable anyway. Once I got it home I pulled all of the wiring off of it and set it up to run on 110V. After lubricating the bearings (I suspect they hadn’t been lubricated in several decades) it seems to run quite well. On the motor tag it lists the horsepower rating as 1 hp, but the maximum current draw at 110V is listed as 15.2 amps. At that current, the power draw is 2.25 hp, not 1. I’m wondering if the current listed is the peak current rather than the continuous rms value. Any electricians out there able to field this question?

I can restore this machine to proper working condition pretty easily, but I’ve read that some people have converted machines like this to router tables instead of restoring them. Has anyone here done this type of conversion? Did it work well? Any opinions of whether or not to pursue that conversion instead of restoring it?

Maui

 

[lafester]

Re: Boice Crane Shaper Motor

You don't see too many 1hp 1750 motors, nice find for sure.
I am not an electrician so I can't speak to the amp rating.

 

[larry_g]

Re: Boice Crane Shaper Motor

Power in does not equal power out. There are losses in the motor.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Maui]

Re: Boice Crane Shaper Motor

Half of the input power is not being given off as heat and other losses.

 

[Bigblockyeti]

Re: Boice Crane Shaper Motor

To add to the aforementioned heat losses, many older motors usually had pretty stout service factors sometimes up to and rarely even over 1.5 vs. a 1.0 on the latest, greatest chinesium. Multiple the service factor by the nameplate horsepower to get the most continuous power that can be developed without causing damage.

 

[Maui]

Re: Boice Crane Shaper Motor

I added some photos of the shaper to the original post.

 

[theoldwizard1]

A shaper is just a router table on steroids ! Lots of steroids.

Both will turn you into "3 fingered Willy" before you can blink !

 

[Stuart in MN]

Here's a chart of full load amp ratings vs. motor horsepower: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/elctrical-motor-full-load-current-d_1499.html The name tag values on your motor match pretty closely.

 

[Maui]

Here's a calculator thst can be used to determine the motor current:

https://www.jcalc.net/motor-current-calculator

Note that the current calculated for a 1 horsepower motor operating at 110V with an efficiency of 95% and a power factor of 86% is 8.3 amps. This is more in line with what I would expect for a 1 HP motor. So the amp rating on the motor tag for this Walker Turner motor is probably a peak amp draw, and not a continuous current.

Maui