Originally Posted by
andrew whicker
I do think the pockets are the way to go. I just can't believe the prices Castle is asking. And that those machines are missing from used and auction sites.
The shaper is fine. I definitely did not take into consideration the amount of abuse it was subjected to. But... new main motor bearings, some simple re-wiring on the secondary motor, cleaning an old school switch, lots of generic cleaning (still have to figure out why the angle lead screw is so sticky), a chrome plated arbor, lots of moving effort, new electrical and I'm pretty much ready to go. It was / is a fun project and I enjoy learning the ins and outs of a machine. I still have to build a new wood fence for it. Unfortunate it didn't come with a nice steel / cast iron fence. That would have been awesome. I also need to figure out the burlap / cloth bag under the spindle that keeps all the dust above the moving parts. That is going to be critical for motor life. Also still need to have a new cable made for the spindle lock, but that is truly at the bottom of the list for me... probably a few hundred dollars. My biggest fear is that I'll have to do some major surgery at some point.. everything on that machine is so heavy that it will truly be a science project.
Speaking of that Griggio... Bob at Woodworking Tools told me he has a 3/4 shaft with that same taper. He would sell it to me for the cost to chrome plate it (seems like ~$250). I'm wondering if I should take it. I was already considering buying an arbor w/ a router collet later in the future after a few more jobs. This would kind of be an in-between... a 9 HP 3/4 arbor! Otherwise, I check the ads from time to time for a decent used 1 1/4 shaper.
I have the adapter for the 700 that lets you use smaller bits. You just have make your own / buy some plates to center the machine vertically on thin stock. Maybe someday I'll have both the 500 and 700. But considering how many toys.... tools I have planned for the future that one seems on the un-important side of things. My experience is that if you squish in the machine from the 'butt' of the tool it stays pretty flat. I imagine the 500 stays flat w/ a lot less effort.
My biggest ongoing effort is to figure out the shop flow. I just received $1700 in sheet goods and lumber. Lumber isn't a big deal to store, but sheet goods ended up on the saw horse table grid I made. That grid was supposed to be used for breaking down sheets. So I made some sacrificial supports for my workhorse workbench that straddle the top such that they can't tip. However, now my workhorse is a dedicated sheet good cutting area (track saw).
This isn't really the workflow I envisioned as I envisioned... Break down on grid -> Table saw / Radial Arm saw -> Assy / etc. Now I'm Storing -> Breaking Down -> TS / Radial Arm Saw not ready yet -> where to assemble? I think I assumed I would stack the sheet goods against the wall, but once the driver and I loaded them onto my sawhorse setup I wasn't particularly inclined to move around 3/4 BB on my lonesome. Not a big deal as once all the sheets are broken down I'll have my workbench back. Just more of that: clean this, convert this to that, move thing from here to there, store this, etc that keeps efficiency low / also ruins your groove.
Sorry in advance for the run on rambling. Feel like a poor man's Jack Kerouac at times.