Like any machine there all dumb, the operator has to supply the brains. How you set the vise up for the jaw orientation depends a lot on the job. Yes that fixed jaw is obviously the most solid backing for the part and to help resist the cutting forces. A few industrial level shaper vises were even designed with that fixed jaw at the front for that specific reason. But while there similar, horizontal and vertical milling shouldn't be compared to work holding in a shaper. Because of the deep gear reduction, even a 1/2 hp shaper has way more power than it needs to do some serious machine damage if you make a mistake. For myself I'd much rather set the machine up so if anything were to go wrong, there's a better chance of the part being pushed or thrown out of the vise than ripping that vise off the table, breaking the compound slide etc. Shapers are one of the easier machines to make those mistakes on, forgetting about clearance at the bottom of the ram or compound as the cutting progresses and gets deeper on some part shapes is just one example. Lots of used shapers will show ram or compound strike damage in that exact area. With some shapers and ram stroke settings, you can even hit the vertical column with the back side of the compound if your not real careful with your initial set up. On these smaller shapers, that hand wheel for manually cycling the ram through a full stoke is there for a good reason. I'd suggest that the less experience you have operating a shaper, then the more important it is to set the machine up with at least some fail safe method of hopefully minimizing that damage.
I suspect the original OEM conduit was most likely installed by Atlas before the vertical column was bolted and doweled to the main base. With that column open at both ends, the job would probably be easy. With a fully assembled shaper, it would be a lot of extra work just to separate that base from the column or remove the ram.
Yes all these shapers have a clapper box and it removes almost all the tool pressure on the non cutting back stroke. That's why it's there. The tool will still leave distinctive marks that shows the tool tip touching down and with light drag marks against the part starting just behind the part edge during the back stroke. As Krypto pointed out, those mechanical and in some cases hydraulic tool lifters on both shapers and planers were added to prevent that. What they do is closely related, but those clapper boxes and tool lifters were added for slightly different reasons and they shouldn't be confused as being the same. My memory might be faulty, but I seem to recall seeing at least some late 1800's planers with mechanical tool lifters. If I'm not mistaken, then that would predate the invention of carbide in the very early 1920's. So those tool lifters may not have been originally added because carbide tipped tooling might be an option. No doubt carbide was being used by some, and most probably on hardened metals where it would be an advantage. But overall the shaper information I have makes little mention of even listing cutting speeds for carbide.
I suspect the original OEM conduit was most likely installed by Atlas before the vertical column was bolted and doweled to the main base. With that column open at both ends, the job would probably be easy. With a fully assembled shaper, it would be a lot of extra work just to separate that base from the column or remove the ram.
Yes all these shapers have a clapper box and it removes almost all the tool pressure on the non cutting back stroke. That's why it's there. The tool will still leave distinctive marks that shows the tool tip touching down and with light drag marks against the part starting just behind the part edge during the back stroke. As Krypto pointed out, those mechanical and in some cases hydraulic tool lifters on both shapers and planers were added to prevent that. What they do is closely related, but those clapper boxes and tool lifters were added for slightly different reasons and they shouldn't be confused as being the same. My memory might be faulty, but I seem to recall seeing at least some late 1800's planers with mechanical tool lifters. If I'm not mistaken, then that would predate the invention of carbide in the very early 1920's. So those tool lifters may not have been originally added because carbide tipped tooling might be an option. No doubt carbide was being used by some, and most probably on hardened metals where it would be an advantage. But overall the shaper information I have makes little mention of even listing cutting speeds for carbide.
