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New to me Ammco 6" Metal shaper

Truer words have never been spoken....... That being said, when time is on your side it's time well spent. And with a sharp shear tool and a light cut you would almost think it had been ground....
Exactly! You can do with REALLY cheap tooling, what would cost you a great deal more, if you wanted to use a Mill or other tools.

If you want to go fast, use another tool. If you are okay with slow speed, you can get it done, eventually, for pennies!
 
If you start to understand the so-called 'optimum' speeds and feeds, take a note that they are designed for a commercial shop to strike the balance between money spent, and money earned, not about making the best possible finishes, or the least risky set-ups.

Shapers in a Hobby environment, have no need to be run balls-to-the-wall, and in truth, trying to push the speeds and feed up to what is considered commercially viable, has long since proven to be a money-loser for most commercial shops. Which is to say, there is a reason they claim that you can make anything with a Shaper, except a living!

Slower cuts put less wear on the machinery and tooling (as cheap as it is, it's kinda nice to preserve it for use again later).

And, you don't have to ensure it is all bolted down to the Continental Shield in order to be sure it will still be sitting in the same corner of the shop when done...

If ya gots a Missus, ask her if slow, comfortable and smooth is alright, vs. trying to ride a jackhammer every time! :)

Seriously, slow is OK. I pretty much guarantee that you will spend more time obsessing over the set-up and planning, of the cut, than you will actually cutting. As much as I am a fan of time efficiency, this is not a place to rush things. Nor is it the tool that you would pick, if time, truly, was of the essence.

I don't disagree with any of this. I think what I was trying to say was that many people are under the impression that a shaper is necessarily slow and incapable of running ...um..briskly, which ain't quite the case. Whether it's always appropriate or a good idea is another question.
 
One of the problems with running faster is upon the return stroke the tool hits the edge of the work and bounces leaving a mark about a inch or so from the edge.
 
One of the problems with running faster is upon the return stroke the tool hits the edge of the work and bounces leaving a mark about a inch or so from the edge.
I thought you set the cutter so that would happen to the work piece where the next stroke would go so as to not mar the surface finish.
 
I have the DoAll bandsaw but not a horizontal saw. As such I am not familiar with how fast or slow they are. I bought a power hacksaw a month back and I don't really know if it's fast or slow either. I load it and go and do something else, it beats me every time. Lovin it.
I used to freak out the other guys in my shop, because I would weld up a, essentially, wood bandsaw blade, and then proceed to go to town on thick aluminum plate with it. Usually 3000-5000 Feet per second speeds, like, right at the top speeds the saw could handle! I would use the same 3-4 TPI blades for cutting thin sheet (use a layer of plywood under, to support the material. Learn to not gronk the material into the teeth, and you get a pretty good surface finish!

My record, for a "stupid-strike" was while I was returning the coil of blade material to it's storage (less than three steps away!), one of the idiots in my shop decided he needed to cut a piece of crappy angle iron, so he did that with the brand new blade I had just made... Double stupid, since we actually HAD an Ironworker, in the shop! <spit>
 
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