Machining Metal

The only thing that comes to mind is an internal keyway.

Good thinking! That's one more purpose than I came up with. ;-)

I put an internal keyway though an ally pulley the other day with a broach and I think that was much smaller (lighter and cheaper) than a shaper. ;-)

That said, I do like watching shapers doing their thing. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

A big advantage is the the cutting tool is much cheaper and can easily be sharpened. Much faster than an end mill if an area is needed to be machined flat. Tools are much more robust and will take off bigger cuts.

They can throw huge hot metal chips quite a distance ;-)

That's a great point, too. I can always cut an internal keyway using my lathe. It's a bit of a cumbersome process, but certainly do-able...

I think it's easier if you can release the toolpost and slide it as with a shaper but you can't on my ML10 so it looked like it was going to be a slow process (as you say). So being as might need to cut at least two keyways, I bought the broach (for abut 25 quid) and used it on my hydraulic press. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

There is probably a wiki that tells you how to convert it to a sex machine.

I used to love shapers for the amount of metal they could chuck off. Brilliant brutes of machines. Much like ripper tynes on a bulldozer - another no-nonesense device.