Does anyone know this old metal shaper?

Gunner Asch fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It's not a Logan, unless it's a VERY old one. I built my first miller out of an old discarded Logan. They have some very characteristic castings that are a give-away signature on the 1940s and up.

LLoyd

Have a look here, the section on shapers is about 1/3 the way down the page in the rightmost column.

Thanks for helps to all. I have disassembled it in order to clean varnish and oil; no trace of write or brand! The stroke is about 15" and the ram has square guides. I have added the vise, the two cranks and the single phase motor, so them are not original. I have examined jet all the shaper in lathes.co.uk, but no trace of it.

You owe my employer an hours worth of my salary!

Dave

Look for metric vs inch dimensions on things like the ways and various screws used to assemble it.

Good Luck, DoN.

Feed screws: Tool slide screw is a 6 thread for inch, i think is a acme, isn't it? Both table screw, vertical and horizontal are 4 thread for inch.

They are imperial. Bat all assemble bolts and nuts are metric, i'm sure because i have replace a lot of them.

The dial of tool slide is wrong. It say 4,5 mm a turn instead of

4,23 , i.e. 1/6" .

The metric equivalent of US Acme threads is Trapezoidal Metric threads.

How did you measure the 6 turns per inch?

What is the diameter of the tool slide screw?

Joe Gwinn

I have measured that 2 lenght in picture:

tool slide screw: Px10=42,3 mm D= 20,1 mm

x horizontal screw Px10=63,5 mm D= 25,0 mm

D measure could be wrong about 0,1 - 0,2 mm

Acme is very likely. Trapezoidal threads with a 14-1/2 degree included angle. Reall old machines were made with square threads, but Acme is a lot easier to make.

O.K. 0.250" per revolution for the Y and Z axis.

For the tool slide -- 6 TPI is strange. Not really a convenient size at all for using an index collar on the hand crank. You wind up with 0.1666" per revolution.

Which suggests that it was designed and built in a European country -- and just fitted with Imperial leadscrews where it matters for producing work to imperial dimensions.

Suggesting that it was designed for metric work, and converted by a later owner. Perhaps the conversion was because of easier purchase of the Acme threaded rod in Imperial sizes during a rebuilding. The original threads may well have been square instead of Acme.

Good Luck, DoN.

Don't be confused by how I specify the numbers below. I'm accustomed to using '.' as the separator between the integer portion and the decimal portion of the number, while you are accustomed to using ',' for the same function -- just a difference in practice in our respective countries. Rather than try to remember to use your system, and likely making a mistake, I will continue to use mine and leave the possibility of misinterpretation to you. :-)

The diameters suggest Metric -- and possibly some error in the pitch measurement.

The first screw is close to (but a bit too large for) 3/4" diameter. That would be 0.750" while the measured size is 0.7874"

The screw looks quite new which suggests that it is a recent replacement.

Looking at the photo -- that is P*14 not P*10 shown spanned. And if that matches the actual distance over which you measured, the pitch is 4.23mm -- which is close to your 6 TPI when converted.

The second screw would be more likely to be 1" diameter (25.4mm) not 25.0 if it were made in an Imperial country. But it appears to be cut to 4 TPI anyway, which is strange unless it was for the specific purpose of converting the machine to work in imperial units.

Good Luck, DoN.

Sorry, i have made a terrible mistake. The screw are square threaded. The image i have linked was only an example to let know how i have mesured. (also number of threads is random, i have measured 10 threads and not 14) I'll add real photos of screw soon. I apologize.

However i cannot find any standard table of square thread. Are they not standardized?

Here are the photos of real screws:

they are square screws.

I measured again:

tool slide screw: TPI = 6 (I know, it's unusual, but it's as you can see in this picture

D= 20,1 mm ( i have make this measure again and this is the value)

x horizontal screw TPI = 4 D= 25 mm (I'm sure that it's not 25,4mm , perhaps some clerance...)

Definitely TPI is 4. I made a 4" lenght on the caliper stopped and it fits very well with 16 threads, so 4 threads per inch. Otherwise i have made a lenght of 100 mm on caliper and it's clear that it's very different form 16 threads.

Here are the photos of real screws:

they are square screws.

I measured again:

tool slide screw: TPI = 6 (I know, it's unusual, but it's as you can see in this picture

D= 20,1 mm ( i have make this measure again and this is the value)

x horizontal screw TPI = 4 D= 25 mm (I'm sure that it's not 25,4mm , perhaps some clerance...)

Definitely TPI is 4. I made a 4" lenght on the caliper stopped and it fits very well with 16 threads, so 4 threads per inch. Otherwise i have made a lenght of 100 mm on caliper and it's clear that it's very different form 16 threads.

Not as bad as "terrible". :-)

O.K. Letting us know that it was just a reference photo would have simplified things a bit.

Your problem is probably that you are looking in modern references. Square threads were used before Acme became common.

The only mention which I can find for square threads in a fairly recent _Machinery's Handbook_ (25th edition) is for a 10 degree (included angle) *modified* square thread.

You really want old references for true square threads, and those probably were not standardized at any period -- other than within the company which manufactured the machine in question. In particular, hybrids like a metric diameter (25mm) and an inch pitch (4 TPI or 0.250 pitch) would be specials at *any* time.

If you need new ones -- I would suggest that you go for Acme, and if you want to maintain the inch feeds (so the dials will be correct), I would suggest that you look for a 1" diameter (25.4mm) 4 TPI Acme thread. You will need to make a new nut to go with the leadscrew, but if the original leadscrew is worn enough to need replacing, you almost certainly will have a badly worn nut, too.

The only reason for maintaining a true square thread (if that is actually what you have) would be for historical accuracy, and since you can't find a maker's name anywhere on the machine, I suspect that is not particularly important.

Good luck, DoN.

I'll agree that the tool slide leadscrew is a square thread, but looking at the horizontal leadscrew -- I think that it looks more like Acme. It is hard to be sure with the pixelation from the JPEG compression and the poor contrast with the black background, but I think that I see angled surfaces for the threads. Better contrast could be obtained with some white paper behind the leadscrew.

Yes -- I agre with this.

O.K. So since that one looks to me to be Acme, it could well be the metric equivalent "trapezoidal threads", but not likely with a 4 TPI thread -- unless it was custom made for the machine -- perhaps long after the machine was made.

Good Luck, DoN.