Thread: Wolfenden chisel and chain Mortiser

The bolt holding this clamp to the bed was wrong and was spinning so I drilled a hole through this 5mm plate and welded it in with a bit of weld on the top side as well .

I the third picture that chain bar needed the hole made longer, luckily I had a set of those hardened drill bits that drill glass or hard files because those bars are hard, I drilled it then used a die grinder to clean it up. One of those long bolts was shortened and welded to make a new shorter bolt[ The one next to the long one ] to hold the bar to the machine.

I took out the chip pressure rod with the bronze wood holder and cleaned it all up with the 8"wire wheel in the bench grinder, a nice way to get paint off things.
The bronze was sanded smooth and buffed and some Iron Bark added.

Bottom picture is a few minutes playing on some Oak 400 mm long x 12.5 wide x 70 mm deep mortice in 30 seconds roughly

Rob

Rob,

Great find, I am jealous! Looking at the photos, is it missing an arm, or does it somehow change between chain and chisel with the one arm?

Cheers,

Camo

We sat around on a Thursday night trying to figure that one out Camo .
Matty put up some catalogue pictures on another thread I did on my Wolfenden chisel or chain, this is some of them.
The first machine looks similar but later, it has two arms ,the Last one is a cast body and has one arm.

The picture of my one shows how the lever changes the arm position, swing that lever the other way and the Arm shaft slides out about three inches, someone has fitted a gate latch to hold it. Inside there are two cogs on the shaft they look about seven inches diameter. The cog is engaged on a rack on the left for the chain and the other cog on the right engages for the chisel.

The Green Machine is one I saw on Greys online over in WA, The arrow on the right points at where the shaft comes through the body , same as mine, so this is another one armed machine I think . Two arms and there should be two shafts sticking out.

The other arrow is pointing to the chain sharpener. half of mine is missing so if any one has a better picture of one from a Wolfenden please put it here .
A small diameter belt runs out through the body and spins the wheel , I have all that part , under this it looks to be a rod that is adjustable that a chain can sit on. I will take some better pictures of my machine and put them on.

Rob

Rob it was a great way to spend the day !
The couple that we picked the machine up from were very nice folk, it makes for a pleasant day when you meet good people like that !

With your machine Rob, Wolfenden had been experimenting with metal fabricated bases since the mid 1930's, I had a 12 inch jointer with the same Wolfenden badge and fabricated base as your mortiser that I'm pretty sure it was a late 1930's machine.
Found another catalog cut, this one shows the single lever system and change lever circled below.


Melbourne Matty.