The shaper is a greatly underrated tool - and was largely displaced for many years by a flood of cheap vertical millers.  However, the machine is staging something of a renaissance - and the many knowledgeable enthusiasts who baulk at spending large sums of money on easily-damaged tooling for their miller know that quite often much the same effect can be obtained with a shaper and a cutting tool worth a few pence. In addition, you don't need an expensive, difficult-to-operate Tool & Cutter grinder to sharpen the tools - just an ordinary "double-ended" grinder. As a bonus, whilst the machine is working, there is something inherently entertaining and satisfying in its regular mechanical motion - and an almost Victorian atmosphere surrounding the way in which it does its job. There now, we are becoming quite overwhelmed with the poetry of its motion, and must stop….