Benchtest.Com - Workshop - Sheldon 12" Shaper 4

At this stage in trying to get the Sheldon shaper to cut square and true, the shaper's vise was waiting for me to plane it on the shaper. However, before this could be done. I needed to take care of some of the issues I had noted when I was cleaning up the shaper.

Since I had the tool head and the adjoining swivel block removed from the ram, I decided to see if I could figure out why the tool head gib adjuster was standing proud of its alignment hole. In the second installment, I had noticed that the screw that held the tapered gib of the tool head slide stuck out from the gibbed way enough that the collar of the adjusting screw wasn't seating fully in its hole. This didn't seem right, especially considering that this machine obviously had some wear. All else being equal, the more wear on the tool head dovetail ways, the deeper the tapered gib should seat. I was also having trouble locking the tool head from moving during cuts. I had already had the tool head apart once when I cleaned it, but, at that time, I didn't do any measuring or put the parts on the surface plate to check their flatness.

This time, I would inspect the tool head a little more thoroughly. I again pulled off the crank handle, removed the Acme screw, and took the tool head slide off of the swivel block. I then put the tool slide bottom ways on the inked surface plate. When I checked for color, I had only three contact points. One point on each end of one way and a very thin stripe of color on the outer edge of the other way. The thin stripe of color on the edge of the way was puzzling. The edge of the sliding way had a raised burr where the flat way met the side of the tool head and it had dug a corresponding groove in the swivel block surface. I have no clue what could have raised this small jagged edge. The front surface of the swivel block that the sliding tool head attaches to has no defined flat ways. There's just two semi-circular flat areas and some of that is used to support the tool head bottom ways. I used a fine toothed, single-cut file to get rid of the ridge on the edge of the tool head way and took another print. Now I had two spots on both ways. Each spot was at the ends of the way surfaces. It seems that the tool head ways were a little concave.

Generally when rebuilding a sliding fit, the longer surface is scraped flat and the shorter surface is scraped with a slight depression of a thousandth or two covering the center 40% of the ways. As the shorter surface wears, which usually happens on the ends of the ways first, the depression eventually comes into contact with the mating ways. Without the slight depression, the ends of the ways would wear and the shorter member would rock on the mating ways. In this case, it was the longer member that was slightly concave when it should have been flat.

In the couple hours total that I have run this shaper, I have noticed that the tool head and the attached cutting tool tend to creep down while cutting. This isn't a good thing at all as you end up cutting deeper and deeper into the work. There is a lock on the tool slide that one would expect to stop this from happening, but it didn't. Also, the tool head gib screw seems to sit too high. On the rest of the gib adjusting screws, the cylindrical collar on the screw fits into a cylindrical pocket. On this one, the screw collar stands above the pocket by about 1/10". When I try to adjust the gib, the screw is pushed away from the gib toward the center of the swivel block. This makes it difficult to get a proper adjustment between the tool head and swivel block ways. To get the tool head to lock, I tried cranking down the lock screw pretty firmly, but to no avail. I finally stopped the creep by tightening the tool slide gib almost to the point of not being able to move the slide and placing a piece of copper sheet between the lock screw and the tool slide to increase the friction as I cranked the lock snug. Something wasn't right.


This photo shows how the gib adjusting screw was when I received the shaper. The cylindrical collar on the screw did not seat into its hole.	This is how the screw should fit into its supporting hole. The hole is drilled deep enough for the screw to go deeper if needed to adjust the gib.

In the reading I did before I powered up the shaper, I'd read that you should adjust the tool head so that you are raising the slide when you lock it. This removes the backlash that you would have if you locked the slide while moving the bit toward the work. I used this method from my very first cut without it helping the situation at all. I will give the lock situation some more thought and revisit it after I scrape the ways.


The tool head slide bottom ways are showing very little contact when printed on a surface plate. The non-sliding side of the gib also shows next to no contact and is a bit bowed.	I've marked and scraped a few passes. I'm starting to see some color, but don't want to scrape too deep yet due to the fixed position of the Acme screw.

As I thought about the tool slide operation, I realized that both the crank end of the Acme screw and the end that threads into the swivel block were fixed in their position. Unlike the cross slide of my South Bend lathe, there was no movable nut to keep the screw parallel with the ways as they wear. As the tool head ways wear, the bushing on the tool slide that supports the Acme screw, drops in relation to the threaded hole in the swivel block. Since the swivel block ways also wear, this increases the angle of the screw in relation to the plane of the ways. Since I am scraping these surfaces, the more I scrape, the less parallel the screw will be to the ways. Once I get the flat ways scraped on both the tool head and swivel block, I will reassemble the pieces and check to see how the Acme screw aligns.

After a few passes with a hand scraper, I was getting some color on the tool head bottom ways. Both of the inboard edges of the ways were low. I scraped a few more passes and one of the ways now had pretty good bearing, but the other still had no color along the inside edge. I figured that I had scraped about two thousandths deep and had a thousandth or three to go to get the bottoms of the dovetails flat with full scraped coverage. However, in consideration of the screw alignment, I think I will just refine the surface a bit and scrape the swivel block ways. I will then put it back together and see how parallel the Acme screw is. If I can scrape deeper to get more bearing on the bottom tool head ways, I will.


This is the tool slide lock. The center of the lock screw has been polished a bit. It does not do a good job of locking the slide.	The shiny stripe on the side of the tool slide shows that the lock has been slipping or the slide has been operated without releasing the lock.

The picture above left is the tool head lock. The circle in the center of the flat area is the end of the screw that pushes on the outside of the tool head to attempt to lock the slide. The cylinder to the right side fits into a hole in the swivel block and is secured by a bolt from under the swivel block. The bolt is sunk into a circular pocket that doesn't leave enough clearance for the thinnest wall 1/2" socket I own. I'm not sure why it's designed so that it is possible to rotate the lock if the bolt loosens. I would think if you were trying to lock a sliding member, you'd make the lock so it couldn't be rotated. Not being able to get a wrench or socket on to the securing bolt doesn't help much either. Since the body of the lock was loose and has been able to rotate, the face of the locking screw is now somewhat dome shaped from wear. It is also has a polished finish from sliding against the outside surface of the tool slide. The picture above on the right shows a shiny stripe where it appears that the lock has been slipping against the surface of the tool slide.

The more I think about the tool head lock, the more I question the wisdom of the design. With the lock designed to put pressure on the outside of the gibbed side of the tool head when tightened, it applies pressure to the gib against the swivel block dovetail way. So far, so good. However, by applying pressure to the outside of the tool head, it moves the opposite side of the tool head angled way away from the swivel block angled way. In other words, it locks the gibbed side and loosens the opposite side. This doesn't seem like a very rigid way to lock the tool head.


Rough scraping the bottom ways of the tool head.	A few cycles later. Both inner edges are slow to get color and I am concerned about scraping too much material off.

I am a bit torn between my wanting to keep the shaper stock and wanting it to be a tool that I am confident in using. It would be easy enough to drill and tap for a locking screw that put pressure on the tool head gib, but I don't want to modify the machine until there is no other choice. I admit that the more I learn about old machine tools, the more I want to preserve the ones I own in their original state as much as possible. However, I also want to use the machine. That's why I bought it. If I am unable to control the depth of cut, it's going to be very difficult to use. Once I get the tool head and swivel block scraped, I will find some way to keep the lock from rotating and I will put a new surface on the tip of the locking screw and plane some metal. If the lock still doesn't work, I will consider my options.

With the bottom ways of the tool head slide rough scraped, but not finished, I moved on to the tool head's swivel block. I will scrape the surfaces that mate with the ways on the slide so that I can measure for how parallel the Acme screw is with the ways. When I inspected the dovetails on the sliding member and the swivel base, I noticed that there were no grooves cut at the vertex of the dovetail ways. Instead, there is a small fillet. This is the first machine tool I have scraped without slots at where the angle way meets the flat way. Connelly has a chapter in his book "Machine Tool Reconditioning" about dealing with the lack of grooves and I re-read it. I decided that I would add a small groove at the vertex of the angled ways so that I could more easily scrape into the tight angle. I added the slot with the edge of a 1/16" carbide scraper blade by pulling it along the vertex. I dug out about 1/16" deeper than the tip of the angle. This is just enough to allow my hand scraper blade to get into the corner and scrape both converging surfaces flat. I'll use the hand scraper for the getting into the corner and the Biax for for the rest of the surface.


The left dovetail has had a groove added to the vertex of the angle.	Making a print of the swivel block flat ways using a camelback casting that I previously scraped.

Before I started scraping the swivel block, I set it on some parallels on the surface plate and measured the top surface. The under side of the swivel block is shaped like a top hat. The bearing surface that mates with a circular area on the end of the ram would be the brim and the cylinder that fits into a 3" hole is the extended cylinder above the brim. The picture above left shows a little of the cylinder that fits into the hole on the end of the ram. I was surprised to find that the face that the tool head mates to was not parallel with the circular ways on the face of the swivel block. One side of the semi-circular surface was angled by about 0.003" over the 6.5 inches to the left. The other side way angled about 0.0015" to the right. I was going to need to lower the top surface of the swivel block by at least three thousandths to get it parallel with the underside bearing surface.

Marking the swivel block was done with my 24" granite knife edge angle template and a 18" cast iron camelback straight edge. While I prefer marking with granite, I am alternating between the two. If consecutive prints don't match, I've picked up some swarf that I didn't catch when I cleaned the swivel block or straight edge. In the staged picture below left, I show the straight edge close to the work. In actuality, the only time it's this close to the work is when I am marking. The rest of the time, it sits on the other end of the eight foot bench covered with some closed foam insulation board to keep dust and swarf off of the marking fluid. I also noticed that there are some metal flecks on the vise in that picture. Normally the shop vacuum has already been used to clean up and the area is dusted with compressed air from my compressor and air chuck. Keeping things clean helps prevent swarf from getting between the straight edge and work and making you wonder where all of your bearing spots have gone.

I am scraping most of the top surface of the swivel block with the Biax. The only areas I am hand scraping are the tip of the dovetail next to the groove, around the holes and the edges of the circle. Trying to get into this tight a corner with so small of a run-off groove with the Biax would result in the blade hitting the bottom of the groove. I'd rather scrape to within an eighth inch or so and follow up with the hand scraper. In the picture below right, you can see a faint line that marks where the ways of the tool head rub on the swivel block. This area was only worn a little under thousandth deeper than the rest of the surface, but there is a fairly deep scratch on the side with two holes that was caused by the raised edge on the outer tool head way. Aside from aesthetics, the scratch won't affect anything since it's below the bearing surface.


These are the tools for holding and marking the swivel block. I keep the straight edge away from the scraping and covered with a piece of foam.	The section of the swivel block where the tool head ways mate was about 0.001" lower than the rest of the surface.

When working on flat ways in the same plane, such as the bottom ways on the tool head, I would normally scrape both surfaces at the same time. I'd print both surfaces and scrape both surfaces. I find this helps me to keep the amount of metal I am removing about even. However, since I had two planes angled in opposite directions, I chose to work on the side that needed the most metal removed first. I step scraped the side with the two holes until I had the surface parallel with the lower bearing surface to within a half thousandth. I then switched to the other semi-circle and rough scraped that side until I had about the same height when measured on the surface plate. I then began printing and scraping both sides before printing again. About every third cycle, I put the swivel block back on the surface plate to check that both halves of the block were the same height as I brought in the bearing points.


I am starting to get some pretty good coverage with the bearing points. Both semi-circles are now in the same plane within a tenth or two.	The bearing points on the opposite side of the swivel block. I still need to scrape the angled way on this side. The other side gets the gib.

As I mentioned before, the member with the shorter ways is often scraped a bit hollow in the center to keep it from rocking as it wears. However, since I was having trouble with locking the tool head, I decided that the more contact area I had, the better chance I had at getting the lock to work. I ended up scraping both semi-circular areas flat. rather than relieving the center 40% of the ways. With the swivel block surfaces scraped, I assembled the tool head and checked the fit of the Acme screw. It seems to be OK. It's a little difficult to measure the angle of the screw as it is hidden between the two parts, but it turns smoothly with no binding when the tool head bushing and swivel block threads are at their closest points. Since the screw turned well, I decided to scrape the tool head flat ways to better bearing. After scraping them, there is still a bit of a low area on the inside edges of the tool head flat ways, but I have a lot better coverage than I had before and don't want to remove any more metal from these ways. Once I reached the the bearing shown in the picture below left, I made a few more passes to split some of the larger points and called it done. The last few passes also brought in a little more bearing at the ends of the ways.


I have now scraped out most of the low areas along the inner edges. I still need to get a little better bearing at the ends.	This is the non-sliding side of the tapered gib. It may have been replaced at some point. The spot to the left of the cut-out is very high.

I checked both sides of the tapered gib for bearing and flatness. There was a slight curve to the gib that I needed to fix before I could get a true print. I was able to slip an 0.002" feeler gauge under the center of the gib on the surface plate. I took the gib to the hydraulic press and supported the gib between a couple parallels with an dial test indicator to measure how far the gib bent when I applied force. It took a couple tries to get the curve out. Once I had a relatively flat gib, I printed and scraped both sides. I checked my progress by measuring for parallel between the two angled ways as shown a couple pictures down. Scraping the gib went pretty quickly as I wasn't looking for a high points per inch count.


The back side of the gib has been scraped.	This is the initial print of the sliding side of the gib after being straightened on the press.

The next step was to measure the angled ways to get some references before I started scraping them. I needed to know if the angled ways were parallel with the flat ways I had scraped. I was also curious if the machined flats on the sides of the tool head could be used as a reference. After finding surfaces that I would have assumed to have been machined at the same time as the ram dovetails were not aligned, I didn't hold much hope, but I was pleasantly surprised. The angled way was within a half thousandth of lining up with the angled dovetail and on the other side was about one thousandth from aligning. The two outside flats were within a half-thousandth of being parallel. I also added a couple precision shafts along the angled ways and checked to see that the shafts were parallel. They were parallel within a half thousandth over the length of the angled ways.


The sliding side of the gib has been scraped. Now it's time to re-measure the dovetails so that I can keep the angled surfaces parallel as I scrape.	Measuring the angled ways with reference to the flat ways and the machined flats on the outside of the tool head.

The next check was to see if the distance between the swivel block angled ways was constant. To check this, I needed to add the gib and measure, again using the shafts which would contact the ways around their mid-point. Half inch diameter shafts were just about the perfect size. I used a surface gauge with the pins extended to contact one shaft and the dial test indicator's stylus on the second shaft. Total error over the six and a half inches was a little under a thousandth. After some more measuring, I found that most of the error was caused by the gib's sliding surface side. I scraped the gib to correct the misalignment.


Measuring to check whether the angled way and the surface of the gib are parallel. They diverged from each other by less than 0.001"	Scraping the angled way on the swivel block. I will use this surface along with a 55° angled straight edge to mark the angled tool head ways.

With the gib scraped, I turned my attention to the angled way of the swivel block. I alternated printing the way between using a straight edge and test fitting the tool head. Since I don't have a 60° angled straight edge or template, I made do by using the tool head ways as a template. I used both ways from the tool head to try and keep the angle correct and used the straight edge to keep the surface flat. It worked OK, but a proper template would have made it a bit easier. Once I got some bearing points on the swivel block way, I used it to mark the tool head. As you can see in the pictures below, I was able to keep the scraped way pretty close to the proper angle. One of the ways marked along the bottom edge and the other shows color on top, bottom, and center. Now all I needed to do was to scrape the tool head ways to get points along the whole surface.


Checking for bearing on the tool head by marking from the swivel block. There is some bearing, but not a lot. Excuse the blurry picture.	The opposite side ways shows a little more color in the center of the ways than the other side. It's about time to do some more scraping.

Before I could scrape the angled ways of the tool head, I again needed to add some slots at the vertex formed by the angled ways and non-bearing machined flats above them. I have read of people cutting the slots with bare hacksaw blades, angle grinders, and cutting them on a mill. However, cutting them with a sharp corner of a scraper blade does the job. The finish of the slot isn't that great, but it doesn't need to be. The slot just needs to provide a place for the scraper to run off so I can scrape far enough into the vertex of the angled ways.

The angled ways are not very wide, so I chose to scrape the dovetails with a hand scraper. It is much easier to control a hand scraper than the Biax in such a small space. I also didn't need to remove a lot of metal, so the scraping should go pretty quickly. Since I could now use the scraped swivel block angled way as a template to help me keep the angled ways at 60°, I wouldn't have to use two worn angled ways and split the difference as I had when scraping the swivel block. I will still need to take the tool head back to the surface plate every few cycles to make sure that the distance between the ways remains constant. Having the angled ways parallel to each other is an important consideration.


As with the swivel block ways, there is no channel at the vertex of the ways and non-bearing flat surface above the angled way.	Using the edge of a 1/16" thick carbide scraper, I cut a channel at each vertex.

After a bit more scraping using both a 55° template and the 60° ways on the tool head as printing masters, I began to get coinciding prints on the angled swivel block way. I printed with the template first using the red Canode, then print over the top of it with the tool head inked in Prussian blue. I was looking to see if the two prints matched each other. This would indicate that the angle of the swivel block way matches the angle of the tool head way and that the swivel block way is as flat as the print from my template can show. I've found that when printing with the Canode first, the red doesn't smear as much as if I print red on top of blue. The fact that I am using a 55° template on a 60° angled way doesn't affect the prints. All I need is for the angle of the template/straight edge to be less than the 60° angle of the ways. I am using the 55° template because it is thinner than my 45° straight edge and doesn't overhang the angled way as far. I would prefer to use an even thinner straight edge if I had one. The wider the surface is on the printing master, the harder it is to keep it perfectly flat on the thin surface that I am trying to mark.


This print was made with the angled straight edge. I will make another print with the swivel block to check for the proper angle.	The second print from the tool head ways shows that I have matched the angle of the ways pretty closely.

Once I had both the two prints matching each other pretty well and decent points per inch showing on the swivel block ways, I installed the gib and measured the gibbed way and scraped dovetail using the 1/2" shafts again. The divergence between being parallel was now down to within a tenth of so. It only took a couple hours a night for a week to get this far on one way. I'd never make any money at being a machine reconditioner, but it's a hobby, so making money is not the object.

The next step was to measure the remaining tool head way that fits with the tapered gib. I again set up the two 1/2" shafts and extended the pins on my surface gauge to measure the divergence from parallel. I had one tool head way that had been scraped and one that had not. As I had expected, the outer ends of the angled way were further away than the center. I would need to scrape the center section of the way until it was the same distance from the opposite way as the ends were. To double check my findings, I installed the gib on the swivel block and slid the tool head on to the ways. I then tightened the gib and slid the tool head to mark the ways. I had color only in the center, but was impressed to see that the center portion was marked over the entire width of the way. It won't take as much scraping to get this way good bearing.

With all of the scraping I have done, the gib now doesn't have much adjustment left. I had figured that this would happen. I've gone from a gib that wasn't seating deep enough to a gib that was seating too deep. Considering how much metal I have removed from the flat and angled ways, this was no surprise. The more I scraped off the flat ways, the larger the space became between the angled ways. To compound the issue, I have also had to scrape the angled ways and the gib. My plan at this point is to finish scraping the one remaining angled way and see if I have enough gib adjustment to get the tool head to fit with a small amount of clearance on to the swivel block. If not, I will shim the gib with some long feeler gauge stock to get the proper clearance. Once I determine the proper thickness of the gib, I will machine and scrape in a new one. I've done this on my import miller with good results. I do find it somewhat amusing that I started with a gib that was not seating deep enough into the dovetails and now have to build it up to get it to seat properly.


Measuring between shafts to make sure that the ways are equidistant from each other.	The side of the tool head that the gib rides against is starting to show some even color.

I finished up scraping the last angled way on the tool head. Printing the gibbed side angled way was more time consuming than the opposite side as I needed to print from my straight edge in red, then assemble the swivel block with the gib inked in blue to make another print on top of the red. Once I got the spots to coincide on the two prints, I could then start refining the surface for better bearing. The picture below left was when I had finally got the two prints to pretty much match up. After another few passes, I had enough bearing points. By this time, I had no adjustment remaining on the gib and was using a five thousandths thick feeler on the back side of the gib to get enough thickness to lock up the gib.

I again measured the divergence between the two angled ways as shown above. This time there was next to no movement on the DTI dial. The tool head and swivel block were finally finished. On to the next concern. I have been thinking about the lock not working while I have been scraping. I posted a question about it on the Yahoo Metal Shaper group and received some mixed views about whether my last resort of tapping the tool head for a locking screw would be a good idea. My first choice has always been to try and get the lock working as it was designed before I attempt to modify the tool head lock.

I think that my best chance of getting the lock working would be to provide a new surface on the tip of the locking screw. Since there is also a slight depression on the side of the tool head where the screw contacts, I have also decided that I would like to put a new surface on the side of the tool head. Since I found that the machined sides of the tool head were parallel with the center line of the angled ways, I will be able to come up with a fixture to set up the tool head on my surface grinder and clean up the sides of the tool head. I will also take a skim cut off the top of the tool head to get rid of the battle scars around where the clapper box attaches to the face of the tool head.


Printing with the swivel block and gib shows that the angle is correct. I am almost finished scraping the tool head and swivel block.	Always something. The coolant pump sprung a leak. I stripped down the pump to find that the roto flex seal had self destructed.

I had not used my surface grinder much in the past year and have neglected the coolant. I set up a cast iron block to do some test grinds before I started work on the tool head. About half way through grinding a 4" x 6" block, the coolant pump sprang a leak. It has always dripped a little from the impeller housing seal, but now it was coming out in buckets. Always something to keep me on my toes.

I stopped grinding and stripped down the pump. I thought that the coolant I had chosen had rust inhibitors, but from the look of the inside of the pump and the bottom of the tank, apparently not enough of them. The pump shaft seal was totally shot. My DoAll manual shows the part as being a roto flex seal, part number 090-029307. DoAll's web page shows the old part number as 90029307 with a new number of 2930. Unfortunately they are out of stock. I gave DoAll a call and found that their parts department uses another number, 002930, and that they expected stock at the end of the month - a week and a half away. I ordered the part, then cleaned up the pump housing and tank.

I rigged up a old pump I had to supply coolant to the grinder and got back to doing my test grind the next day. The part came out nice and square, but has repeating patterns on the surface. Not deep enough to measure with any tool I own, but not the kind of surface finish I was proud of. The old belt that turns the spindle has taken a set. Tuning the spindle by hand, I could feel a good deal of resistance in one position. I ground a couple more test pieces and switched wheels a few times. The more I used the grinder, the better the surface became and the less I felt the resistance from the belt set. The belt still need to be changed, but the surface finish was now good enough for me to continue with this project.


Lots of rust. I need to find a coolant that will withstand extended periods of inactivity.	Setting up the tool head on the grinder with a angle block and 1-2-3 blocks to keep the ways 90° with the magnetic chuck.

I set the tool head on the mag chuck and ground the top surface, then checked it on the surface plate. The top surface and bottom ways were true within a tenth and a half. When I checked the sides of the tool head, they were out of square with the ways and top surface by about a thousandth. I set the tool head up on an 5" angle block with a couple 1-2-3 blocks under it and clamped the tool head to the angle block. I checked the flat ways and now found them square with the surface plate. I transferred my setup to the mag chuck and again checked it for squareness. I ground the one side, then flipped the tool head over and ground the other side. I now had a tool head that was square with itself.

The next issue to address was the tool lock. As I had said, the 1/2" bolt that holds the lock body to the tool head resides in a circular pocket. My thinnest walled 1/2" socket didn't fit into the hole. On a chance, I tried a 13mm socket and it fit with a tiny bit of clearance. I cleaned up the mounting surface of the lock body and loosely attached it to the swivel block. I assembled the tool head and tightened up the gib so that it was locked up, then used some shim stock to keep the distance between the lock body and tool head even. I used some light duty thread locker on the bolt's threads and tightened it up.


I found I had a 13mm socket that had thinner walls than my 1/2". It took 0.012" in shims to prevent the lock body from rotating during tightening.	Test fitting the lock screw after grinding the top and both side surfaces. You can see the gib shim behind the gib on the left side.

The last step was to get rid of the slightly domed tip on the lock screw. I removed the T handle from the screw and chucked the screw up in the lathe and cut it square. I built a small jig to hold the screw, then stoned the end of the screw to improve the finish on its end. After reinstalling the screw, it seems to be a lot better at locking the tool head.

I had cut a 0.007" thick shim to put behind the gib so that I would have plenty of adjustment. While I will eventually machine and scrape a new gib, I've decided to go ahead and try the tool head out using the shimmed gib. I have used some larger shim stock and was able to cut it to fit the gib better than just using a feeler gauge. While I have made gibs in the past that were not stress relieved, I would like to stress relieve this one and that will require me to build a heat treating oven. I've been thinking about building one for a while and now have the reason and motivation to build it. However, I want to finish the work on the shaper, so the shimmed gib is going to stay that way for a while.


I turned the end of the screw square, then used a fine stone to dress the end of the lock screw.	The tool head now seems to have much better gib adjustment. The lock seems to fit better also.

I've also decided that I will paint the tool head before I put it back on the shaper. While I hadn't planned on repainting this machine, it seems a shame to spend all of the time on scraping the tool head and leaving it with peeling paint, so I now plan to paint the pieces I have reconditioned. I like the darker gray that appears to be the original color of this machine before it was painted over in a lighter gray. Since I need to strip the old paint off the tool head, it will take a week or so to complete. I will end this installment by saying that I think that I have a pretty good chance that the tool head will now lock and won't creep down as it did before I reworked it. I am very pleased with the feel of the tool head ways. It is a big improvement from the way it was. The gib adjustment is now very smooth and I am better able to regulate the tension supplied by the gib. When I get the tool head back on the shaper, I will cut some test blocks secured directly to the table, since the vise is still in pieces. If I have stopped the creep, I will then move on to scraping the table support and the boss it rides on. Once that is complete, I will finally plane the vise rails. I still have a fair amount of work to do, but I am getting closer to completion.

Shaper 1

Shaper 2

Shaper 3

Shaper 4

Shaper 5

Shaper 6

Shaper 7

Shaper 8

Shaper 9