New Toy! Porter Cable 7" shaper

[Bill Pace]

Have just about wrapped up a complete tear down & rework on my latest lapse into my tool addiction ... a Porter Cable (rebadged Logan) 7" shaper. Found on flea-bay with the description of "refurbished" Porter Cable shaper, etc -- Heh!, refurbished turned out to be an ebay paint job! - not a very good one either... Oh well, he at least done a pretty good job of cleaning all the goop, grease, dirt, etc off it. Had to drive from N La to Indiana to get it, but I got a young-un in Mich with gkids, so that gave an excuse to go on up there. Only had the 2 of us to load, so took it down into 3 main pieces,---the stand is a bear!-- would've been top heavy anyway.

The little guy had a pretty busy life at one time, had some serious wear at all the rotating parts -- (the ram is in quite good condition.) Had conventional oilite bushings and they were beat pretty badly, but were easy enough to replace, along with a new shaft, the bronze slide block for the crank pin was the most beat up of all, but a few minutes on the lathe with a nice piece of cast bronze out of the scrap box and had a new one ready. New sprockets & chain (yeah, this and the Logan were chain drive --and, variable speed!) and new V belts, for only about $50 outlay on it.

Did not have the upper and lower belt covers ... the upper is a cast item and I have found a sketch & dims on it and am gonna attempt to cast one in aluminum!! (There was mention the sketch/dims were attributed to a Mr Rouche ... would that be our JRouche?)

OK, I really dont need any catty remarks on the paint color!! -- that is a very close match to the original color ... thank you!! (not my first choice either-- although its better than the black!)

Got it set up in temporary mode today to give it a check-out and I'm really tickled with it ... quiet & smooooth! Will get the last few little things finished and get him set in a new spot (yet to be determined) and see if I cant find something for the little guy to strut his stuff on.

So ..... this begs the question, do any of y'all have one, or know of one, or know of source of info, etc. Have joined up over at yahoos shaper site and found some pretty good stuff already and Kays site... what I'd really like to know is what was the years of production on these? Figure it wasnt very long, and probably around the 50's/60's??

The way it was presented in the flea bay ad...



Just unloaded off my truck, ready for some 'destruction'



Gads, will I EVER get all this back together!



And the way it looked today....

[Mcgyver]

didn't know Porter Cable made such things, good looking machine....as i try and figure out what to do with mine (sans base casting and stand) I'm green with envy (maybe not that shade) at how substantial and well thought out the base/stand is

[lane]

Did you loose the chip pan on the way back. must have flew out of truck are did you leave it up their. Love the green and red looks good.

[tiptop]

Nice looking little shaper Bill. I like the substantial base also. That should help dampen things down when making cuts. Be sure and post a couple of pictures when he gets his teeth into something. Jay

[Bill Pace]

Did you loose the chip pan on the way back. must have flew out of truck are did you leave it up their. Love the green and red looks good.

Did indeed leave it up there... didnt notice it until I got home and unloaded. Called the guy and he looked around and found it, supposed to be sending it...

Have another question --- I wanted to "highlight" the raised letters in the castings with a contrasting color - red - and enlisted my bride to accomplish this task, well... it turned out to be quite tricky, and she was most upset about the way it turned out (good thing I didnt try it!) We tried Q tips and several types of little brushes, brush doing the best, but still would wanna run down the hill of the raised letter. So, any body got a secret method to do this??

[Patch]

Have another question --- I wanted to "highlight" the raised letters in the castings with a contrasting color - red - and enlisted my bride to accomplish this task, well... it turned out to be quite tricky, and she was most upset about the way it turned out (good thing I didnt try it!) We tried Q tips and several types of little brushes, brush doing the best, but still would wanna run down the hill of the raised letter.


So, any body got a secret method to do this??

Nice little shaper Bill.
Perhaps by using a piece of art grade heavy construction paper.
Using a rubber dead-blow hammer to tap paper over the lettering or by spooning the letters. It will leave a pattern on paper. Then cutting out the letters with an x-acto fine tipped knife.
Then spray paint the paper while over the machine lettering.

Patch

[davidwdyer]

A hard rubber roller like they use to ink stuff might work just to roll paint over the tops of the letters.

[ulav8r]

Many months back there was a thread on PM under the South Bend heading about painting. Mention was made of a type of sponge that is used for applying cosmetics that works well for painting the raised letters. It is stiff enough to paint just the tops and holds paint as well as it holds cosmetics.

[Luke55]

I own exactly the same shaper mine is made by Logan

[wierdscience]

OK, I really dont need any catty remarks on the paint color!! -- that is a very close match to the original color ... thank you!! (not my first choice either-- although its better than the black!)


And the way it looked today....

Alistair will tell you it's the perfect color

Nice find and a nice job on the re-work!