I'm the proud new owner of a bridgeport vertical slotter attachment. This
mounts on the back of my bridgy. You swing the heads around to use the
slotter instead of the regular head. I paid more than I should have, but
space is such a premium in my shop to make it worth not having another
machine in the way.

My far and away number one use for this unit will be to cut internal keyways
in sprockets, pulleys etc.

What tooling is made for cutting these keyways? Especially in smaller
I.D.s. How small a key can be cut?

BTW, I bought this from reliableendmill, the fellow Scott Logan has issues
with a couple threads down. No problems here.

Karl

Have you looked at it yet? I think it just uses like 1/4" square HSS bits
you grind to shape, like a small lathe or shaper does. A buddy of mine has
one which he's never used, keeps offering it to me on "long loan" but I've
never had occasion to need it yet. He has a bunch of bits that came with his.
He lives a few hours from here, so I can't just pop over with my digital
camera, though.

Grant Erwin
Kirkland, Washington

Karl Townsend wrote:

I'm the proud new owner of a bridgeport vertical slotter attachment. This
mounts on the back of my bridgy. You swing the heads around to use the
slotter instead of the regular head. I paid more than I should have, but
space is such a premium in my shop to make it worth not having another
machine in the way.

My far and away number one use for this unit will be to cut internal keyways
in sprockets, pulleys etc.

What tooling is made for cutting these keyways? Especially in smaller
I.D.s. How small a key can be cut?

BTW, I bought this from reliableendmill, the fellow Scott Logan has issues
with a couple threads down. No problems here.

In article zQH%c.10559$w%6.2952
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net,
says...
I'm the proud new owner of a bridgeport vertical slotter attachment. This
mounts on the back of my bridgy. You swing the heads around to use the
slotter instead of the regular head. I paid more than I should have, but
space is such a premium in my shop to make it worth not having another
machine in the way.

My far and away number one use for this unit will be to cut internal keyways
in sprockets, pulleys etc.

What tooling is made for cutting these keyways? Especially in smaller
I.D.s. How small a key can be cut?


Here are a couple typical tools that I sold on ebay with my
shaper attachment....

http://www.suscom-maine.net/~nsimmons/ShaperTools.JPG

I've seen smaller tools made by clamping a tool bit in an
adapter that fits in the shaper ram, 5/8 dia IIRC.

Ned Simmons

Here are a couple typical tools that I sold on ebay with my
shaper attachment....

http://www.suscom-maine.net/~nsimmons/ShaperTools.JPG

I could certainly hack up somethin like that. It looks totally non rigid to
me. Did these work well or do they skip and then dig in?

Maybe I'm a dreaming here, but I thought maybe a special shaper bit was made
that looks kinda like a broach with one tooth and then has the round
mounting shank so its all one rigid piece.

Has the shaper become such an arcane machine that tooling isn't made for
them? I've looked though my catalogs with no success.

Karl

Karl, Ned, Grant . . .

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.

Bob Swinney
"Ned Simmons" wrote in message
...
In article zQH%c.10559$w%6.2952
@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net,
says...
I'm the proud new owner of a bridgeport vertical slotter attachment.
This
mounts on the back of my bridgy. You swing the heads around to use the
slotter instead of the regular head. I paid more than I should have, but
space is such a premium in my shop to make it worth not having another
machine in the way.

My far and away number one use for this unit will be to cut internal
keyways
in sprockets, pulleys etc.

What tooling is made for cutting these keyways? Especially in smaller
I.D.s. How small a key can be cut?


Here are a couple typical tools that I sold on ebay with my
shaper attachment....

http://www.suscom-maine.net/~nsimmons/ShaperTools.JPG

I've seen smaller tools made by clamping a tool bit in an
adapter that fits in the shaper ram, 5/8 dia IIRC.

Ned Simmons

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

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

Wow. My buddy bought a Series I BP with 2J vari-speed head, DRO and
powerfeed, plus a pile of tooling, a Kurt vise and a shaper attachment
from the closing K2 plant on Vashon Island, WA for I think $2200. Of
course that was back about 18 months ago when the machine tool market
was completely shot.

Karl, you must have *really* wanted this thing. Congratulations. I'm
sure you noticed that I was wrong in my earlier posting that the bits
were ground out of square HSS bits. They are in fact ground out of round
HSS bits.

The Bridgeport shaper attachment just bolts to a lug on the rear of the
ram of the mill. Any BP clone can probably work to hold one. The BP shaper
ram reciprocates vertically.

Grant

Karl Townsend wrote:
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

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 21:32:35 -0500, Robert Swinney wrote:

As I said, I'm shaper-dumb! The pix were good but I couldn't tell if the
shaper head strokes vertically or horizontally.

The photos of the ones I've seen have a vertical stroke. What I'm curious
about is, is the head designed to lift the bit out of the cut on the return
stroke? I've toyed with the idea of making a shaper head for my miller, powered
by the horizontal spindle driver -- mostly as a way to figure out how shaper
heads are designed. Seems like a fairly simple affair; a disk with a radial
slot in it which carries a pin forms a crank. The pin can be moved within
the slot to change the stroke length. On the pin rides a connecting rod
and that is attached via a wrist pin to the shaper's square section spindle.
Things get a lot more complicated if the bit needs to be lifted out of
the cut on the return stroke. I can't imagine how that would be done.

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

Karl Townsend wrote:

I'm the proud new owner of a bridgeport vertical slotter attachment. This
mounts on the back of my bridgy. You swing the heads around to use the
slotter instead of the regular head. I paid more than I should have, but
space is such a premium in my shop to make it worth not having another
machine in the way.

My far and away number one use for this unit will be to cut internal keyways
in sprockets, pulleys etc.

What tooling is made for cutting these keyways? Especially in smaller
I.D.s. How small a key can be cut?

BTW, I bought this from reliableendmill, the fellow Scott Logan has issues
with a couple threads down. No problems here.

Karl


Let me guess, you were the $1000 winner of the recent ebay auction. It was
looking better at $450.

So why is the slotter a good deal ? It seems like a lot of trouble to turn
the mill around, and the price of the slotter is more than what a stand-alone
shaper would be. What can it do that a shaper can't ?

--
Samiam is Scott A. Moore

Personal web site: http:/www.moorecad.com/scott
My electronics engineering consulting site: http://www.moorecad.com
ISO 7185 Standard Pascal web site: http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal
Classic Basic Games web site: http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic
The IP Pascal web site, a high performance, highly portable ISO 7185 Pascal
compiler system: http://www.moorecad.com/ippas

Being right is more powerfull than large corporations or governments.
The right argument may not be pervasive, but the facts eventually are.

So why is the slotter a good deal ? It seems like a lot of trouble to turn
the mill around, and the price of the slotter is more than what a
stand-alone
shaper would be. What can it do that a shaper can't ?

My number 1 reason is floor space. No room for a nice big rigid shaper.

My reason for finally paying whatever it takes is a broken internal spline
on my airblast sprayer. The worn unit is causing a vibration that shakes the
whole tractor.

The bridgy slotter with a rotary table is the perfect unit for internal
splines, keyways, square holes, etc.

Now my problem is tooling. Can't find it. And Peter Wiley just sent me a
copy of the slotter manual that shows the set I need on page 1.

Karl

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

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

The B/port slotting (not shaping) heads are vertical stroke. No
clapper, fixed tool. Used for internal splines, keyways etc, not
terribly rigid.
Have to disagree on this one - I have the Bridgeport Model E on mine
and there *is* a clapper in which the tool is mounted (and not to
start a flame, Bridgeport called it a *shaper* head)
Ken.

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