L.S.Barker Thicknesser.

**L.S.Barker1970** · 1st March 2015, 09:10 PM

A friend of a friend put me on to this one a while back, I hadn't had much time to chase it up last year but it ended up on the list of things to do early this year.
The guy who had it for sale was a gentleman, one of those guys you could easily have a good chat with for hours, he knew his stuff.
His brother was a cabinetmaker/Joiner up north and had recommended that Barker was a good brand of machine and when one came up for sale to go for it.
The poor guy had a few health problems recently and seemed to be winding things back a bit hence the reason for the sale, I was very grateful, these don't come up often.
It had spent some time on the back of his truck for some reason, a little rusty but every thing was there and in complete working order.
I fell in love and wanted to save the old beast straight away. the PO was very reasonable as I think he saw that it was going to be restored and looked after.
Got my work ahead of me now, just finished the bandsaw now on to this beautiful machine.
It is a 600 mm wide machine with 220 mm deep, square splayed cutter block with 2 blades, a bit blunt but nothing a sharpen won't fix.
A 7.5 hp motor on the drive and a separate 1 hp C&H variable speed drive unit on the feed.
What I'm having difficulty finding is a catalog pic of this machine to try and determine a build date ?
I think 1955 as the next McPhersons catalogs I have (1960 and 1966) look very different.
Any one got any clues ?

Melbourne Matty.

**jgforsberg** · 2nd March 2015, 02:39 AM

Originally Posted by L.S.Barker1970

Jack, if you like the Band saw, wait until I pick up the Barker 600 mm thicknesser ...

Melbourne Matty.

**clear out** · 2nd March 2015, 08:51 AM

Hi Matty,
I have a gap in my McPherson cats in the 50s so can't help.
Maybe chase up the relevant cat from the McPherson covers thread on here.
I've posted a pick of a similar vintage machine that was in a shed at Mogo.
It was 12inch from memory and very heavy.
H.

Sorry about the combo, pics too small sometimes.

**anglesmith** · 2nd March 2015, 09:00 AM

No Barker Thicknessers in either 1951 or 1955 McPherson catalogues
Graeme

**jcge** · 2nd March 2015, 09:04 AM

Very hefty piece of kit Matty - plenty of iron in that one.

That looks like it will clean up beautifully

Regards,
John

**camoz** · 2nd March 2015, 09:18 AM

Matty,

Great find, a beautiful machine, it should get along nicely with the bandsaw. As Graeme said, the 1951 & 55 catalogues have Sagar and from memory a Bursgreen Thicknessers, there are still Barker machines, just not Barker thicknessers.

Cheers,

Camo

**L.S.Barker1970** · 3rd March 2015, 09:32 AM

Thanks Henry, Graeme, John and Cam.
This Thicknesser basically makes the Barker collection fairly complete for now.
I'm assuming that the Thicknesser is late 1950's as it has a North Melbourne address and L.S.Barker were in Heidelberg by 1960.
This is the tally so far ...

1942 Barker 36 inch Bandsaw.
1946 Barker 20 inch Rip saw.
1955 Barker 12 inch Jointer.
1962 Barker SSH Spindle Moulder.
1958 Barker 600mm Thicknesser.

I'm a happy little vegemite with all these..

(Dates are estimates only, very tricky to pin point the exact build date.)

I will post more progress shots as I clean the old girl up !

Melbourne Matty.

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