Non-wood materials and Shaper

Space Teams Shaper Origin
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Hi everyone. I’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of the Shaper this year. I love that members who can’t take the traditional CNC router class for scheduling or cost reasons have the Shaper as an alternative option for making with CNC.

I’m interested in learning how to use the metal shop tools and the Tormach, but until I’m able to get a spot in the requisite classes I’d like to make the most of the tools I already know. Shaper approves the use of Origin for soft metals such as aluminum, and I have a small aluminum project that would greatly benefit from CNC.

How do stewards and members feel about using Origin for non-wood materials? If others are interested in exploring this, I would be happy to collaborate on experimenting and developing a curriculum for a class like “Shaper Origin Metalworking”, and on developing protocols for how to safely use Origin on soft metals in the appropriate area of the shop.

Anyone interested in exploring this further?

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This weeks Shaper Sessions is all about engraving/cutting soft metals…primarily bronze:

Their recommendations seem to be non-ferrous metals are ok and avoid ferrous ones.

They don’t really talk about other more “milling” like applications like you would do with a desktop cnc or full size like Tormach.

But they’ll have a booth at the woodworking festival this weekend so it’d be a good time to ask them for more info :hammer_and_pick:

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I assume that Shaper has some recommended tools brass and al? The steward slack channel is discussing providing your own bits. I think it is a good rule to provide my own bits for my projects. It lets me control my surface finish.

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Couple of thoughts on using the Shaper Origin on non-ferrous metals - the engrave and cut they guys did turned out very well and they were very specific regarding bit selection and metal types. One thing I found very successful in making the chair was to use my own set of bits. The bits in the Shaper case are used in the class and may have been over-used. Tommy and I tried an experiment while making chair and you could clearly see the quality difference between the class bit and my bit. This is more important if we start cutting metal as you may end up with cross-contamination with metal chips.

When I demoed and sold Shaper Origins I would engrave brass nameplates for customers along with some other small wood items to show the versatility of the tool. Very happy to see the use of the Shaper Origin rising at Asmbly.

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Thanks, everyone. I’ve switched from our shared bits to one of my own bits for cutting wood, as well, and like David reported it has been an improvement.

Shaper recommends a 1/8 inch single flute O-flute bit for cutting non-ferrous metals, at low speed and only up to .04” depth per pass: https://support.shapertools.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016398434-Materials-Recommendations

My main concerns with using Origin on non-ferrous metals at Asmbly are:

  1. Ensuring folks understand that the shared cutters are to be used only on wood
  2. Polluting the wood shop with metal chips
  3. Ensuring people don’t use lubricant on metal cuts
  4. Ensuring slow and small cuts
  5. Adequate cleanup of the tool after cutting metal

1 could be taken care of with a “wood only” label on or near the shared bit storage.

2 through 5 could be addressed with education.

Are there any concerns with using the portable dust collectors to trap metal chips?

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All good points. It’s worth a warning sign inside the Shaper systainer lid.
No issue using the portable dust collectors.

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I don’t think metal chips in the woodshop are necessarily a problem. They can be vacuumed up with either the appropriate metal shop vacuum or with a woodshop vacuum. The metal shop contaminants that we want to keep out of the woodshop are primarily the oils and lubricants.

Also, nothing prevents you from putting it on a rolling table and moving it near the metal shop. The metal shop will have more worktables at some point too, some of which will roll.

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I can see doing some high-density polyethylene (HDPE ) on the Shaper. I use heavy wood for prototyping mechanisms and stuff.

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The grain pattern is the inherently weak point.
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I figured out how to anchor a cable without the use of glue or fasteners.

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Thanks for all of your thoughts. I ordered a bit Shaper recommends for aluminum. Planning to try it out this weekend, will report back on the experience!