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Shaper as a first shop tool to buy?

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shaper
5K views 13 replies 13 participants last post by  kizerpea 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
It seems a bit silly to consider a shaper as the first real piece of shop equipment, but this looks like it might be a deal. http://gainesville.craigslist.org/tls/3820652653.html

The seller claims it needs to have $150 in parts to put it to rights, so there's that, but a 3HP shaper for $150 (plus any needed parts) seems like it should be grabbed up.

Funny thing, I live about 2 hours away from this, but I have a job in Gainesville which will require my presence within a few more days.

I'm unfamiliar with the brand (Transpower), and have little enough experience with shapers to get taken by a smooth talker. Any thoughts? Jump on it? Run away?
 
#2 ·
I read it as saying it would cost you $150 in parts, and he's asking $150 for what's there. So that's $300 - if he's telling the truth about parts being available and their pricing. Transpower isn't in business aymore. If you don't have any other tools, a shaper is pretty worthless. And even if you do have other tools, a decent router can do most of what a shaper does at a lower cost. If it was me, I'd pass.
 
#7 ·
I wouldn't buy the shaper either. I bought a jet shaper several years ago and I m going to build a router table and sell the shaper. If I was just starting out and wanted to start collecting tools I would get a table saw, jointer and planer, router and router table in that order.
Mike
 
#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
I'm glad I asked, the only thing I would ever use this for would have been cabinet doors, and I really only need a few of those.

I do have quite a few tools, but all are intended for field usage, including the worlds crappiest ryobi table saw. It was a gift… And I paid too much. ( really not so terrible but there are little nylon pads which seem to have worn, and the blade moves side to side… Defeats the whole purpose)

Thanks for the responses… I am all kinds of excited to find some great tools for the shop, but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. A Shaper wasn't really on my radar, but I have seen what a decent 3hp cabinet saw goes for. I thought it might be too good a deal to pass. A nice (or reasonably nice) Table Saw is really first on my list.

I sound like my wife… Lol… It was on sale! I saved $xxxx!
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
Going against the stream here; I used to have a router table, with a PC 7518 router in it, and moved to a 1.5 horse Grizzly shaper that I found on CL. Then ran into an extremely good deal on a Jet 2 h.p. shaper (one of the old blue generation), and haven't looked back. You can use router bits in a shaper (which I do), and it has the advantage with shaper cutters-or some of the router bits with removable/reversible cutters-that you can flip the cutter over and reverse direction. This is nice when you are running into reverse grain issues, such as shaping the edges of a disk or oval. And the induction motor never bogs down, which the router used to do with a heavy cut.

Just another angle.
 
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