Mumbai University > Mechanical Engineering > Sem 4 > Production Process II

Marks: 5M

Year: May 2015

Shaper is commonly used to produce flat surfaces can be horizontal, vertical or inclined by machining with the help of a reciprocating tool. Due to its limited length of its ram stroke, shaper is conveniently adapted to smaller jobs. However it’s a slow machine and is only considered suitable only for unit or batch production rather than mass production. It is even preferred to other quick metal cutting machines with even multiple teeth cutters because it can give all kinds of surface finish on this single machine along with ease of machining varieties of surfaces with minimum change over time since the set up time for a shaper is much less for most of the jobs.

Working Principle:

• On a shaper machine, job is fixed on the work table and the tool cuts while reciprocating over the job.
• The tool is mounted on a reciprocating ram and the table which supports the job is fed normal to the tool motion at each stroke of the ram.
• The tool cuts only in the forward stroke of the ram except for a draw-cut shaper in which the tool cuts in the backward stroke of the ram. The other stroke in both the cases remains idle.
• The job may be indexed in horizontal or vertical direction.
• Shaper is one third quicker in action than a planner.