Thread: Why the lack of Australian made table/cabinet saws?

I have an old Thornleigh which I believe was Aust made. All the bits are there as well.

No photos, she is buried at the moment.

Some of the Wadkin AGS were made here in Sydney by Chas Cousins of Supersaw fame.
Wolfenden of Melbourne made a tilting abor 10" saw.
Hyco made a nice one also, I don't know why Woodfast didn't continue with it as they did with most of Hycos other products after taking them over.
I have a McPhersons catalogue with a Barker advertised but have never seen or heard first hand of one in captivity.
H.

Originally Posted by clear out

Some of the Wadkin AGS were made here in Sydney by Chas Cousins of Supersaw fame.
Wolfenden of Melbourne made a tilting abor 10" saw.
Hyco made a nice one also, I don't know why Woodfast didn't continue with it as they did with most of Hycos other products after taking them over.
I have a McPhersons catalogue with a Barker advertised but have never seen or heard first hand of one in captivity.
H.

Cheers for the info mate, those Wolfenden machines look perfect!

Originally Posted by clear out

Some of the Wadkin AGS were made here in Sydney by Chas Cousins of Supersaw fame.
Wolfenden of Melbourne made a tilting abor 10" saw.
Hyco made a nice one also, I don't know why Woodfast didn't continue with it as they did with most of Hycos other products after taking them over.
I have a McPhersons catalogue with a Barker advertised but have never seen or heard first hand of one in captivity.
H.

Barker in captivity, I'll get you some better pictures if you want but there's one here:
Shifting house

Grabbed some pics of the Barker today. It's not a bad old beast - it's carrying a 475mm/ 19" saw (175mm depth of cut) as pictured but will handle bigger. Well built: good heavy spindle and bearings, heavy duty rack and pinion system for rise and fall, weighs a ton or so at a guess. Nothing fancy about it but its a good honest machine that'll get a job done. It's (so far as I know) pretty much original and feels tight enough to go another 40 years without more then wear part replacement.

This size sawbench is getting pretty scarce I guess... pitless bandsaws pretty much killed them off. It's a handy size machine though - it'll handle a lump of timber easy enough without the footprint or lights flickering power draw and outsize transformer of a number 1 bench. Makes a handy resaw for those of us who value speed over kerf but dont want to drive it all day.

IMG_20160730_141833[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142012[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142739[1].jpgIMG_20160730_141725[1].jpg

IMG_20160730_142603[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142109[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142538[1].jpg

Nice machines but I think the power rating of the Barker may be outside bueller's scope.

Originally Posted by John.G

Grabbed some pics of the Barker today. It's not a bad old beast - it's carrying a 475mm/ 19" saw (175mm depth of cut) as pictured but will handle bigger. Well built: good heavy spindle and bearings, heavy duty rack and pinion system for rise and fall, weighs a ton or so at a guess. Nothing fancy about it but its a good honest machine that'll get a job done. It's (so far as I know) pretty much original and feels tight enough to go another 40 years without more then wear part replacement.

This size sawbench is getting pretty scarce I guess... pitless bandsaws pretty much killed them off. It's a handy size machine though - it'll handle a lump of timber easy enough without the footprint or lights flickering power draw and outsize transformer of a number 1 bench. Makes a handy resaw for those of us who value speed over kerf but dont want to drive it all day.

IMG_20160730_141833[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142012[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142739[1].jpgIMG_20160730_141725[1].jpg

IMG_20160730_142603[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142109[1].jpgIMG_20160730_142538[1].jpg

Cheers for the pics!

The blade on that thing is terrifyingly huge haha

Originally Posted by BobL

Nice machines but I think the power rating of the Barker may be outside bueller's scope.

Mostly, but he wont be needing a bandsaw later either.

Its funny Bob, its actually quite a safe bench to use because its got enough power to chew its way through just about anything, certainly theres not a lot of bogging down in the cut for want of power with the old dear even at full depth. I've often thought about fitting a hob feed and run around system because unlike the number 1 this one will start on regular three phase so long as the wiring will carry 32 amp. Thats the only real drawback with it... its still a two man operation

Originally Posted by bueller

Cheers for the pics!

The blade on that thing is terrifyingly huge haha

Prolly not $20 at the big green shed either. But it is a classic Australian made table saw, just bigger then most.

Originally Posted by John.G

Mostly, but he wont be needing a bandsaw later either.

Depends if i wants/needs to cut a few curves?

Its funny Bob, its actually quite a safe bench to use because its got enough power to chew its way through just about anything, certainly theres not a lot of bogging down in the cut for want of power with the old dear even at full depth.

Hummmm . . . . maybe . . . although the kick back is going to be pretty vicious.

I do like the solid look of them though, just something that's missing even in the high end gear these days.

I suppose the reason why there are no locally manufactured table saws is the same reason why locally manufactured goods are, in general not common. Firstly the size of the local market for table saws cannot be very big. So a local manufacturer would have to export to prosper. In recent years the Australian dollar has been rather high making exporting difficult. Also the competition is fierce. When most of us go looking for a new piece of machinery it is a trade off between what we would like and what we can afford. We are not professionals and we purchase our tools with our after tax dollars. These dollars have many calls on them: useless things like food, clothing and mortgage repayments, so that we are looking very hard at price. The Chinese and the Taiwanese can produce good quality items at very competitive prices. Much as I would like to support a local industry I am not sure how much of a premium on the price I would be prepared or able to pay to support one. Almost all my electrically tools are made in Asia. I don't expect this to change.

Originally Posted by BobL

Hummmm . . . . maybe . . . although the kick back is going to be pretty vicious.

It's really hard to give a written explanation of why kick back is far less a worry then the average tablesaw without going into a technical explanation thats quite complex. If anyone wants the long one I'm happy to bore you all to tears but heres the short course. (I can talk saws like Bob talks dust extraction)


Kickback occurs at low rim speeds, rim speed being the speed that the tips of the teeth are travelling. usually expressed as surface foot per minute or SPM.

The major factor determining the propensity of a saw to kickback is how much power and torque are available: If you've got plenty of power the saw cuts through knots, if youve got less power it struggles and if feed speed doesnt change then the rim speed drops, the saw teeth bite and she kicks back.

So if you've got two tablesaws with identical blades and the same stack of timber but ones a 3HP home model and the other is a 5HP professional grade saw, the smaller motor bogs down first. Pretty obvious really right?

Theres a rule of thumb with circular sawmills that says you need around 3 HP for every inch of saw in the cut to cut efficiently and safely. (In eucalypt type timbers I'd prefer 5). So to cut a piece of timber 250mm/ 10"thick you want 30 HP, to cut a piece of timber 500mm/20" thick you want 60 HP.At that power level you can maintain a reasonable feed speed with enough power in reserve to handle a hard spot in the wood without the rim speed dropping down that fast that you cant decrease feed speed in time. If you don't drop feed speed, and you dont have enough reserve power to cut through the density change, then the saw bogs down, rim speed decreases, and kickback occurs. Kickback at that scale is a scary scary thing that kills people and/or breaks gear.

Any amount of power beyond that minimum 3 or 5 HP level is just reserve power, or means you can increase feed speed if the sawblade design allows it.... any less means you're cutting far slower then necessary most of the time to cover the "what if" situation or you're risking breaking something if it goes sour. Obviously these numbers dont translate to tablesaws, because tablesaws usually come with 3-5 HP and can cut usually around 75mm right?

Or do they? I strongly suspect that the motors available on tablesaws are determined less by the optimal efficiency of the saw and more by standard electrical grid power availability. If you took that "3 HP per inch of saw in the cut" rule of thumb that means that the home tablesaw is working comfortably in wood 25mm thick and after that the speed at which you feed timber in decreases. The 5 HP professional level saw will handle 38mm timber before you need to feed it slower... and those numbers aren't that far off the mark when you think about it are they? You feed boards in at pretty much the same speed if they're 12 or 25 mm thick, and its not until you get thicker stock that you start to slow the feed rate down. By the time you're feeding in 75mm stock you're down to a crawl, the saw is working, and anytime you increase feed speed or it hits a knot you can feel it come under load immediately. It doesn't take much at that point to get a kickback event, (or the other great cause of kickback is suddenly feeding in a big piece too fast for the saw to catch up)

Anywayyyyyyyyyy... that old Barker has a depth of cut of 180mm and a 20 HP motor... so even at maximum depth its still got close on 3 HP per inch of saw in the wood. The large amount of power available equates to it being far less likely to kick back, that power level is actually a safety feature working for you rather then the initial "more power = more risk" assumption we tend to make. It's lack of power that makes then dangerous, regardless of the size saw we're turning.

I just found that picture of the Barker tilting arbor cabinetmakers sawbench I mentioned in reply to the original query by Bueller.
HAS ANYONE EVER SEEN ONE OF THESE IN THE FLESH?
Thanks for the interesting story on your breakdown/rip bench John but the question was why weren't cabinet saws made here in Oz.
The timeline is important also, being when we did produce quality machinery in quantity eg Woodfast lathes and bandsaws.
I guess the school market supported these to a large extent whereas a circ saw was deemed to dangerous for student use, especially as Wood/Metal was only for the dummies who left after the intermediate certificate and got a trade.
Sorry for the inclusion of the early Martin, I'm having major dramas with our new scanner.
The pic is from the 1966 McPhersons cattledog.
H.

Originally Posted by clear out

I just found that picture of the Barker tilting arbor cabinetmakers sawbench I mentioned in reply to the original query by Bueller.
HAS ANYONE EVER SEEN ONE OF THESE IN THE FLESH?
Thanks for the interesting story on your breakdown/rip bench John but the question was why weren't cabinet saws made here in Oz.
The timeline is important also, being when we did produce quality machinery in quantity eg Woodfast lathes and bandsaws.
I guess the school market supported these to a large extent whereas a circ saw was deemed to dangerous for student use, especially as Wood/Metal was only for the dummies who left after the intermediate certificate and got a trade.
Sorry for the inclusion of the early Martin, I'm having major dramas with our new scanner.
The pic is from the 1966 McPhersons cattledog.
H.

Swoon! That LS Barker in the photo you pictured looks awesome, I'll have to keep an eye out on the off chance one comes up. Appreciate you digging it up [emoji2]