Thread: Eichman G unit, primitive but excellent...

Back in the day when men were men .

Imagine a shop steward seeing that setup these days .

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

Back in the day when men were men .
Imagine a shop steward seeing that setup these days .

I know many guys using decent iron moulders may have a laugh or frown that it is not safe, but it has done some precise work, and I think that the wooden keeper setup as shown is fine. Actually, the keepers clamp very well, wood to wood, and are easy to customize. The old Eichmann style cutter head/knives (not sure what the more generic name is) seem to have been replaced with designs intended to be safer, but there is a lot of freedom with the old design in how the knife is positioned in the head.

Diverging to more generally interesting things. When shaping those Jarrah dowels I noticed a light, high frequency vibration that was damped (gone) with my finger tips touching the work. Not unusual, but it got me wondering about the natural resonant frequencies of certain shapes, species vs species. Jarrah is very stiff and I wondered if this was why the phenomenon was so noticeable.

You Aussi chaps may spot that hardwood and know it is not Jarrah, it's too brown maybe....if you can identify it I will happily take notes.

Gregg.

I only have respect to the guys using these units. I am sure these units churn out beautiful works. something I can never do.

So I flew back to Indonesia and they had modernised that shaper with a new (old stock) fence, guard, keeper, dust hood unit. Real progress, at least for the safety inspections...
20220923_181321.jpg

Kidding. I got it from an old Bavarian woodworker who was reluctantly selling off a spare. He has a 30mm spindle molder at home for his "hobbies".
NZD110 (AUD97) spent but I could not resist. Actually, probably a bargain.

In the plus column, the fence adjustment is precise and should last. The internal diameter of the guard is easily big enough at 180mm. The mounting post, arm and clamps for the horizontal keeper seems ok. I think I will still be clamping custom made keepers to the fence and table though.

In the minus column. The cast body is aluminum. I wish it was iron. The dust exit port is only about 85mm diameter. The vertical keeper and the arm for it I don't like much. I may be able to use the arm, and make a longer trailing spring keeper on that.

The DE problem can wait until I build the DE system. Probably a 6" pipe will be split so that most of the flow comes from a scoop that semi surrounds the spindle body under the table.

The fences I may extend a little. And make simple guides that clamp to the bench in plane with the fences.

One or two heavy old Wadkin molders have come up recently on Trademe, for scrap iron prices, but shifting one into my workshop would be a real problem.

Gregg.
PS: Does anyone recognize that fence unit. It's a factory made item for something.

Originally Posted by GreggMacPherson

So I flew back to Indonesia and they had modernised that shaper with a new (.

Gregg.
PS: Does anyone recognize that fence unit. It's a factory made item for something.

It looks like its similar to my small Jet moulder that I have at the back of my shop.