Surface grinding on a shaper?

Like most grinding attachments to it's a good way of spraying abrasive over , which is never good.

That said, as long as your shaper has enough traversable area for the grinding you need - why not?

BugBear

Im sure someone (maybe nick or mark rand) attached an angle grinder to one. :)

Dave

Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie, I cut the welds down..

I patched up the various dings, holes and crash sites on the table of the drill press that I got from JS. I used MIG for the job and intended to cut the whole thing back to flat with brazed carbide cutters in the shaper. Didn't work at all. So I drilled a bit of 5/8 square bar to bolt onto the 4 1/2" angle grinder in place of the side handle. Said bar got clamped in the tool holder of the shaper.

It did a very good job of restoring the drill press table but... As people have intimated. It gets grit everywhere and will _without doubt_ destroy the shaper. The only way to avoid destruction would be to fit bellows over the ram and the cross rail and to completely seal the body. I did it once, but would not do it again.

Because of their mode of operation, shapers are even more vulnerable to damage with a toolpost grinder than lathes are. I wouldn't stop anyone from doing it, but I would suggest it as an option last resort only.

Having said that, I do now have a surface grinder, and it's a very useful tool. You don't realise how useful they can be until you get one.

Mark Rand RTFM

Thanks for the replies, they've given me food for thought. As I say, I would like a surface grinder but space is an issue. There's also some things I don't understand about them but that's probably best in another thread.

John