Alba 4S Shaper Clean Up

[Xyphota]

This is the shaper I got off kijiji a few months ago. It has sat since it landed in my garage as I wanted to finish my bicycle frame before starting on this shaper clean up. Note the top-slide assembly and clapper are not installed in this photo.

I wanted to completely disassemble it to give it a once over and clean off the ancient grease. I've completely disassembled the table and knee assembly, and about half way through tearing apart the gearbox and scotch-yoke assembly. All the minor projects will be listed below, but the only worrying things I've found so far is there is a pretty good gouge taken out of the ram's dovetail on the frame side, and a pair of gears that deliver power to the main bull gear in the scotch yoke assembly have some pretty significant striations on the one pair of contact faces (fortunately the contact faces that interface to the main bull gear is the less damaged faces, and the bull gear teeth themselves look like they are in good shape).

Also, while there all oil delivery pathways cut in for the ram, there are no oil pathways cut in for either the knee/vertical dovetail, or the left/right traversal box ways?? This seems very odd to me. I think I want to add some to at-least the box ways. There are oil ports for every rotating surface, but none for the ways??

Gouge in the dovetails for the ram, on the frame side:

Gear Teeth faces with significant striations:

Other side of Gear Teeth:

Overall List of things I would like to do to the shaper:
1. General teardown & degrease, and stone/deburr all the ways
2. The auto down-feed mechanism has some missing and some damaged components. I would like to make that work.
3. Lots of the oil ports are literally just open tubes that lead to where the oil needs to go. I would like to add zerk-type fittings so oil can atleast be forced in, and to also keep chips out.
4. Repair the t-slot in the table
5. One of the ram wipers is missing. Replace all remaining wiper felts
6. The knee (vertical) dovetails do not have any wipers installed from the factory. I would like to add some.
7. The >1" shaft that sticks out of the knee to move it up and down looks like it was run into with a fork lift, and is bent.
8. The clutch has some damaged and seized components that should be relatively easy to fix.
9. Possibly fill in the deep gouge in the ram ways??
10. Possibly clean up the gear faces?? lol

 

[Former Member]

1. Scrape ways if anything, don't stone. If they're not binding or making noise leave well enough alone.
3. Use oil fittings and an oiler. Grease is too thick.
4. Drill in a couple of set screws then weld and recut (see R8 thread re welding cast).
6. Not sure this is a good idea, trap for particles better to just oil lots.
7. Possible heat straightening.
9. Looks like original casting, however, see R8's thread on welding cast. Personally other than look I don't think its an issue. See 1.
10. This is a though call, if it doesn't grind or bind I'd likely leave well enough alone. Otherwise new gears is the correct solution.

 

[trlvn]

4. Repair the t-slot in the [cast iron] table

I would leave well-enough alone! Cast iron hates local heating and trying to repair a big box like that could lead to disaster. For example, see the Cutting Edge Engineering video below:

As Curtis says at the beginning of the video, they have one guy in the region that is the acknowledged expert on cast iron repair. But he is booked out for months because of that. Even though Curtis takes a bunch of precautions, the piece is completely ruined by the end (multiple large cracks).

FWIW,

Craig

 

[Bandit]

If the gouge in the ram ways was "brothering" me, I think filling it with a two part filler would be the easy no "heat" way to do it. Take a look at the mating surface for damage too. I wouldn't get welding/brazing heat anywhere near it. While the t-slot in the table looks bad, myself would leave it also alone, other then check for any other cracks in the area, round a few sharp corners off, etc.
Cast iron welding/brazing repairs can be a very " fickle" thing. Expansion and contraction of material with heat and cooling, size of piece, webs, spokes, holes, etc., can turn a good day into at terrible one. Cast iron is a very rigid material compared to most other metals that are now in common use. I am in no way near to an expert on cast iron!
I have read an account of a foundery making spoked wheel about 20 ft in diameter, the spokes either pulled out of the rim or the hub, or the rim would pull apart, after a number of tries, an old backwoods "sand crab" was sent for. After a bit of what young people learned these day, and who taught them what, he took two "helpers" and went to work. After a couple of days there was a 20 ft spoked wheel. It was somewhat different then the orgridgenal and weighed more, however, it was in one piece! The cooling of the piece was a very carefully controlled operation too!
Those gears look like some grit has gone into them, possible lack of lube, grease and maybe a change in tooth engagement, do both gear tooth sets have the same wear? A worn bushing/bearing maybe.
Anyway, the amount of use/work load the machine may see, verses repair difficulty/cost is an ever changing formula.

 

[Xyphota]

@Degen Why not stone the ways? They have quite a few high spots from trapped debris raising burrs and what not, surely getting rid of the burrs would be beneficial? I know scraping would improve fitment, squareness, etc. but I sort of see that as a separate problem.

Also thanks for pointing out that the gouge might just be original casting, that didn’t even occur to me. That seems much more likely lol.

I wasn’t going to fix the table with welding/brazing, I was going to throw it in the mill and machine out the rectangle that the hole occupies and then screw in a new section with some counter sink screws. I don’t have the original chunk from the table anyways

 

[Former Member]

I would only start stoning after checking movement, if there's binding stone (or scrap away). Second I would check if movement is true.

If all is good, leave well enough alone as you may cause more issues for yourself.

Your idea of machining out and bolting in, I wouldn't simple because scrappers impart lots of force on everything you could cause yourself other potential headaches.

 

[PeterT]

I would suggest getting familiar with precision ground stones. There is much less risk of inadvertently taking down a surface making it worse than what it was. Precision ground level the hilltops if its an issue & basically stop there (within limits). Any negative dent is typically surrounded by a peripheral positive rise in material, kind of like a volcano cone. But regular stones don't behave like this & it is possible to just basically remove material like sanding away at a board. This doesn't correct fundamental geometry, but I don't think that's what you were looking to do. Anyways, I'm no expert on this but when I got a set of stones from a friend, they really are quite magical. They cut until they don't & that's that.

 

[Xyphota]

Been a few weeks since I could get back into the shop. I've made a bit of progress on the shaper. I've cleaned most of the grease off of it. It looks like it was painted while assembled so there was a fair bit of paint to scrape off of the table. I was *just* able to fit the table on my bridgeport and mill out the broken t-slot section and drill the pilot holes for the screws that will hold on the new section of table. Had to finish drilling and tapping by hand as I did not have any short shank drill bits.

The clutch halves were seized together on disassembly and I was able to tap them apart without too much trouble. I was surprised to see that there were no clutch shoes or anything of the sort. Its just two conical sheaves of metal that get wedged together. What oil or grease should I be using on these during operation??

 

[RobinHood]

What oil or grease should I be using on these during operation??

Maybe it is meant to be run dry?

 

[Dabbler]

A few more thoughts.

No problem stoning *those* ways. Normally a precision stone can be used to knock down any raised burrs on any surface, scraped or not. Remember, the last step to scraping on every iteration is to stone the work.

*those* ways are in very bad shape. It was run dry with chips and got badly scored. Much of the damage can be scraped out, but for the 'first run' get a thick way oil, or even gear oil and get the basic movement going. It will need the geometry checked, as where the majority of the scoring is, the ram will drop, making the cut nonplanar. Measuring the geometry of the machine will be important to deciding next moves.

 

[Xyphota]

Maybe it is meant to be run dry?

I just looked through the manual and it points out quite a few lubrication points, and the clutch is *not* among them, so this could be right!

The parts list in the manual shows that the Elliott branded machines (i.e. newer machines) had clutches with shoes, but not the Alba machines.

 

[Mcgyver]

That is a really nice looking machine, congrats. AT first I thought it said Atlas, and I'm thinking I am really out of the loop!

The only way to fix those ways is scraping or grinding. Stoning is just to remove burrs, like there can be after scraping or around a small ding/dent. I'm not sure how you'd get burr just from wear. It won't hurt running a stone or scraping over it, but Imo won't really help anything either. If you start going at, real material removal, you will make it worse because you are indiscriminately removing material. Its not restoring the geometry, flatness, fit etc. My advice is do it properly via scraping or use it as is.

I prefer a burr file to stones, it skates over the surface but catches burrs. Standard reconditioning tool, its used after each scraping iteration. When the job is all done I give a rub with a hard Arkansas stone and some WD40. Flatness doesn't matter (with the hard Arkansas stone) as the stone is so hard you could go at for a weekend and you still only would have polished the high points. Flatness is created by the scraping work, not the deburring stone or file.

The burr file is just an section of file stoned down like this.