There have been a few old, industrial shapers on my local craigsist. The latest piqued my interest. Mind you, I neither need nor have room for a bigger shaper. It's fun to dream big, though.

What I saw was a vintage David and Wells 3 phase shaper. A bit of research shows that it's a 1 1/4" spindle with old school 2 hp motor. Lots of cast iron. That would work. The price is so low that it would be easy to justify a phase converter. Parts seem generally available. The problem is that there isn't a miter slot. No fence either, but that's a different subject.

So, for those of you who are regular shaper users, could you live without a miter slot? My current shaper ( Jet 1.5hp) has one, and I use it for coping cuts. I know there are some sleds which register against the fence. What do you use?

I probably won't act on this particular shaper, but since these seem to come up pretty often, you never know....