Motor-Manufaktur: Shop: Gack Feinhobler HE 20

Note: I haven't found yet the time to translate my home page. If you want, you can use Google's translation service to look at the rest of my Home Page in English. But be aware that their translation is even worse than mine (would be). Sorry for the inconvenience, I'll fix that.

Intro:

Since some year, I wanted a shaper. But where from and how much is it? Trying to get a shaping head for my Deckel FP1 lead to no success or they were to expensive. So I halfheartedly continued to hope that a shaper will cross my way.

Then, by chance, I found a link in some web-forum to a company selling a Gack HE 20. A Gack! The one I dreamed of! It took me only ten minutes to convince myself that this is the one. I phoned and ordered it, without having a chance to see it. Just 3 bad photos showing a shaper. But the seller an army surplus dealer) claimed it looks like new and has accessories.

It took two weeks for the shaper to reach his final home. Oh, the prize? 490.- EUR.

Screwed onto a pallet came 400kg (somehow, the shipping company has to cheat) cast iron from 1965. Wrapped in a huge bag for long time storage. Unpacking (like christmas, birthday and payday in one) revealed a brand-new, virgin and unused shaper covered with corrosion protective wax!

1 liter of cleaning fluid later she looked like this:

The Pictures:

Attention color-blinds!
What looks like being brown is Army-green. Tweaking the white balance of my digital camera didn't make it green. Seems it has to do with the IR-properties of the paint.

Looking from the side at the automatic feed with its excenter, hand-wheel (the black disk) for moving the ram (for adjusting stroke and position of the ram). You see the scraped ways shining like a toaster. Unused!
The "fender" perpendicular to the ram is mounted the wrong way (it came that way). His ends have to point downwards and not look like a spoiler.

Again: What looks brown is green!

Drive side with motor and the nice GACK-logo (later, I filed over it to make it look even nicer).

The vise and the shaper head. The vise was included.

The feed mechanism at a closer look. By loosening the big knurled nut and moving the screw in the T-slot, the feed can be set in 6 steps. Smallest is 0.06mm. By either moving it left or right of the center, the feed takes place at the outer or inner end of the stroke. More on that later.

The ratchet of the traversal feed. The mechanism can be pulled off and fitted on the lower axis to get an automatic feed in the vertical direction. The little lever with the ball selects the direction of the feed.

Closeup of the clapper box and the vise. The vise can be swiveled by 90 degrees in one direction, the clapper box by 45° in both directions.

The accessories the shaper came with:

Left is the backwards clapper box (for a pulling cut. Handy if working with scribing lines: free look, burr on the backside, chips not landing in your face)
4 big tools
The "economic holder"
4 "economic" tools

Those "economic" tool bits have the advantage of being easier to be reground and that stock straight HSS bits can be used.

Several keys that came with.

Pictures from the Brochure

I have two scans / copies of H 20 brochures. One has 8 pages and was from about 1953, the other one has 4 pages and printed with 2 colors (some yellow added). From the look, it is a few years behind the 8-paged brochure.

Both show the H 20 and the HE 20. Many of the accessories fit both models, some of the accessories are useless or already included in the other model. Clicking on a thumbnail shows a bigger picture. But be aware, the print wasn't the very best.

Don't worry, I do have only what is shown in the photos above. Should anyone come across them and want to give them to me, feel free!

H20 (with the cubical table). Table is tilted by a scale. Workpiece clamped on table.
There is also an interesting detail: The photo was taken from a H 20 that has the fillet-shaper mechanism attached, but the standard shaper head on the ram. If you look at the next photo, you'll see that the box next to the ram is missing.

The buit-in vise of the H 20 in working position.
The table can be rotated and has some indexing holes. There is also a graduation for arbitary angles.

H 20 finishing shaping (pulling cut) on all sides with a single clamping (using the dividing head). I discovered a minute detail to my HE 20. On the picture they had greaser cups, mine has nipples. Also the working lamp socket is on the other side and not cast.

H 20 conical shaping (reverse shaping) with the tiltable table. That table goes where the swivelable vise of the H 20 goes. The table doesn't fit on the HE 20.

The HE 20 with the simple table.

The HE 20's vise. On the H 20 it is part of the table (the lower part of the vise). Gack sold the vises seperatly, they had a leaflet of it's own for them.

The enlarging table (310 * 310 mm) fitted both models. The jaws could be bought seperatly.

The tiltable table that fitted only the H 20.

The dividing head (Gack called it dividing and round-shaping head)

The "line glass". In the K 150 brochure, they named it 'radius alignment device' (that being a better name).

A look trough the alignment device.

A whatsitcalled. Nothing specific about it, they just sold it for their shapers.

This is a dial indicator clamp that was clamped onto the vertical gib for precise measurement. The vertical spindle has no scale, so it is quite handy.
This accessory only appeared in the 4 page brochure.
I made a clone of that.

A centering tool for the coordinate chuck

The coordinate chuck. It was also sold for the K 150. For the K 150, they also offered an excentric chuck (no pictures in any brochure).

This is the collet head on the coordinate chuck. It was also sold for the K 150.

This is the most fanciest device ever for any conventional shaper. It is a fillet shaping attachment. At the end of the stroke, the tool swung upwards. With that device, you got the functionality of the Gack K 150. I think it fitted both the H 20 and the HE 20.

This is the reverse clapper box and the standard one. When ordering, you had to decide wich one you want (or order the other one extra).

The tool bit holder for the "economic" tools bits.

Their set of shaper tools

The tools for the fillet-shaping attachment. Only difference I see is the cross section of the bits.

Some working samples. Note the fillets on the punche's bases. You needed a fillet-shaping head for that.

Working samples …

Working samples …
Troughout their brochures they stress that all work was made with single clamping. Either between centers and the dividing head or on the dividing head with the collet head on it (the work in the upper row right is obviously made in the collet).
Imagine making the wavy part in the lower row with just a vise. It was made between centers. I guess with extra light cuts. As they didn't use a driving dog, they had a 3-faced center. And they sold an extra center punch (also 3-faced) for the K 150.

Technical Data:

The Gack HE 20 is the economic ("E" for "einfach" = simple) model of the Gack H 20. The H 20 has a more versatile table that is a bit smaller, the rest is identical.

Type Horizontal shaper

Model HE 20

Weight 315 kg

Motor 3 phase star/delta 0,55 / 0,8 kW

Stroke 0 … 200 mm

horizontal travel 275 mm

horizontal spindle pitch / graduation 3 mm / 0,05 mm

strokes 60 and 120 strokes / min.

range of shaper head 350 mm

feed horizontal 0.06 mm … 0,36 mm (6 steps)

feed vertical 0,2 … 0,12 mm (6 steps)

vertical travel table 90 mm

vertical spindle pitch 1 mm (no scale)

travel of shaper head 80 mm

Shaper head spindle pitch / graduation 2 mm / 0,05 mm

swiveling range of head +/- 45° (falling out at 90°)

table dimensions (W * D) 200 * 250 mm

Biggest distance head / table 180 mm

vice (cap. * width) 160 * 115 mm

dimensions (W / D / H) 900 * 1100 * 1600 mm

Experiences:

Not that many yet. Just finding out how to grind tools and already made some parts. I'll update that.

The Base:

A shaper needs to be fixed to the ground. As the floor in my cellar was just a few cm of concrete, I had to cast a base for it. I dug 4 holes 40cm deep in the gravel under the floor in each a screw (long with some kind of anchor). The base is made up of 100kg of concrete, but still the floor is vibrating a bit at heavy cuts.

The End:

Yes, I made the pictures in the garden. Could you resist letting it run on a sunny sunday and playing around with it? Also, at that time, my shop wasn't prepared for here. I had to tear down a wall, build a crane, …

Links:

I think, I'll put a digital readout on the shaper …
Here is a Gack H 20 (disassembled and restored)
Here is a Gack K 150 that is such an terrific shaper! (I mentioned that link on the radius alignment device

From the Shop: Shaper "Gack Feinhobler HE 20"

Ludwig Gack, Mühlacker • Feinhobelmaschine HE 20

"You're in the army now!"