If in your posn you could find a B/port slotting head at the right
price I certainly wouldn't hesitate in grabbing it. A true slotter is
more rigid but for most jobs involving internal keyways of typical HSM
size this doesn't really matter and it's a hell of a lot better than
trying to do the same job using a boring bar and cranking the saddle
of the lathe back & forth. Also making nice square corners on inside
holes is a piece of cake. IIRC the B/port slotting head has a stroke
of 4" or so. It also isn't hard to make a slotter for a big horiz
mill, or adapt one. Usually the horiz mills have them as accessories
along with h/duty vertical milling heads so a spacer plate and new
drive shaft should be all that's needed to fit one up.
I tried using my shaper as a slotter but never mastered the technique.
People say it can be done but I never could get the setup rigid enough
despite making a custom h/duty angle plate to hold gears in the
correct alignment, minimising overhang of tooling etc. The shaper is
great for roughing out castings, thick steel covered in rust, mill
scale etc. Saves wear & tear on expensive multitooth cutters.
What IMO would make a really great machine is a horiz mill like yours
(if I haven't mixed the attribs) with a B/port J head on the end of
the ram. I've had my eye out for a cheap universal horiz mill for
years to do this to; got a small 30x8 table horiz mill with power X
feed but power X Y & Z plus a table you can set at an angle would be
perfect. I even have a spare J head I mounted on the other end of my
B/port ram from the original M head. Don't need it but one day
maybe....
"Robert Swinney" wrote in message ...
Thanx, Peter. It is always good to hear from the voice of exerience.]
Bob Swinney
"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
om...
The B/port slotting (not shaping) heads are vertical stroke. No
clapper, fixed tool. Used for internal splines, keyways etc, not
terribly rigid.
A shaper has a horiz travel ram with clapper box so the tool can
lift/drag slightly on the return stroke.
I have a 7" stroke slotter and a 20" stroke shaper. The slotter has a
fixed base (no knee) with 3 axis movement - X, Y and rotary table, all
with independent power feed. Ram can be repositioned to adjust start
height of cut, also length of stroke can be varied as per shaper.
The shaper outweighs my B/port. Useful but I get a lot more use out of
the slotter. Try cutting a 3/8" internal keyway 4" long with an arbour
press and set of keyway broaches. I mill a lot of my own gears and
doing the keyways is trivial now.
PDW
"Robert Swinney" wrote in message
...
As I said, I'm shaper-dumb! The pix were good but I couldn't tell if
the
shaper head strokes vertically or horizontally.
Bob Swinney
"Karl Townsend" wrote in message
news
I'm just about totally ignorant re. shapers. I would kind of like
to
see
if
a shaper attachment is available for my mill. Can someone tell me
what
I
should look for? I have a Comet mill with a 10 x 54 table and an
extendable
ram that swings around to bring an attachment on the rear to the
front,
and
vs. It occurs to me this might be an economical way to get a
shaper.
Comments, please.
I'm sure my bridgy slotter would fit on your mill with maybe a minor
adaptor. Unfortunately, they seem to be in demand and more expensive
than
buying an entire shaper. Of course, then you don't have a vise and
rotary
table that fit.
Here's the link to my purchase:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ME:B:EOAB:US:6
Karl