Thread: Should I get old belt driven jointer with separate electric motor?

Originally Posted by 419

...Am I deluding myself in thinking that I can learn to do better work by sound and feel with old manually fed belt driven machines on Australian hardwoods rather than modern auto feeds?

You could always use a handplane for a real "sound & feel" experience .

There's nothing wrong with well built, old machinery. The biggest problems are:
- you most likely won't be able to get parts;
- you don't know how well the machine was maintained.

Try to get a feel for whether the machine has been thrashed or otherwise mistreated.

Make sure nothing essential is missing, and that anything that is broken can be repaired. Steel can be welded easily, but cast iron needs brasing or specialist welding. Handles can usually be bought or made. Pulleys could be a problem if damaged.

Don't worry about surface rust on cast-iron surfaces, if you can pick up a machine at a reasonable price it's worth doing some rust removal. But beware of rust on steel parts as steel rusts faster and deeper.

Manufacturing, or re-manufacturing parts can be done, but it gets expensive quickly.

For a buzzer that appears complete, it's probably worth replacing the bearings (assuming you get one with ball bearings), and the belts. And make sure the blades aren't something odd that you can't replace if worn out (as Murphy's law says they often are on their last sharpening). Straight blades shouldn't be a problem, but blades with slots can be far more expensive to replace.

HTH.

You are about to begin a slide down a very slippery slope. I'd venture that you have half a dozen old machines in various states of repair, very soon (I have ).

Cheers, Vann.

Electric motors replaced lineshaft drive about 100 years ago.
So unless you have lineshaft in your shed like myself why bother.
Finding a pre or post war quality joiner isn’t hard but finding one that hasn’t been beaten to death is the trick.
Wadkin, Sagar, White, Robinson etc are decent Pom brands to look out for.
The Wadkins had slightly skew knives which help when planing local hardwoods, especially well seasoned recycled stuff.
The two best Oz made of equal quality to the aforementioned Pom machines were both Melbourne produced, Barker or Macson is the first, age related naming.
Wolfenden or Buzzawolf is the other.
There is some decent Yank stuff out there also, I scored a 1920s 24” wide jointer in the late 1980s and the company, Oliver sent me detailed drawings on request.
It was 1920s vintage with an original round cutter block but a local motor retrofitted.
Old Thicknesser with square cutterblocks are very noisy but safe enough and with their massive knives up to our local hard species.
H.

Originally Posted by Vann

You are about to begin a slide down a very slippery slope. I'd venture that you have half a dozen old machines in various states of repair, very soon (I have ).

Alas, time may prove you correct. I realised recently that I may be getting more interested in old and second hand woodworking machinery than the original plan to take up woodworking. Facebook Marketplace is full of daily temptations for an inveterate tinkerer and restorer offered a new field to explore at bargain prices with time on his hands in retirement.

Thank you for your advice on things to look out for on old machines, and especially the potential problems in replacing unusual blades.

EDIT: I've seen a few Tannner machines for sale where I am in Australia. Seems they were a New Zealand manufacturer. Are they worth considering?

Originally Posted by clear out

Electric motors replaced lineshaft drive about 100 years ago.

Not in the shearing industry when I worked in it in the late 1960s.

Thank you for identifying the old brands that are worth considering, especially when there are many other old brands that pop up.

Some old brands that come up reasonably often are Durden, Artisan and Gilbro, which I vaguely remember drooling over in the late 1970s or early 1980s when they were unaffordable to me. Are they worth considering?

My father was a fitter and turner.
He worked for Wolseley Buzacott before and after the war.
The factory was in Sydney but he travelled to the country installing lineshaft gear.
I guess thats why I am stupid enough to have kept the lineshaft and get it operational in my suburban Sydney shed.
The brands you mention are hobby gear, or cheap very basic machines.
In my opinion not worth touching.
I am a patternmaker by trade and served my time using large capacity well made machinery.
As a self employed Woodie doing that trade plus furniture etc I’ve been able to equip a large workshop with the best machinery of its day. Which were sold off when retiring.
I started with basic stuff and watched the auctions and as better and or bigger stuff came up for sale from our declining manufacturing sector I upgraded. The demise of government and or university workshops released amazing stuff as they had the best, often unused.
A slush fund,a flat top ute and proper lifting gear in the shed help.
A large metal lathe, all types of welding kit etc etc are handy.
I have had castings done, old broken bits can be stuck back together, ply,lead or Lino added for machining plus lots of bog and a skilled jobbing Moulder will get it done.
Now a non existent trade, who wants to work in a hot dirty Foundry?
Sit on your bum in front of a computer or get a real job like a real estate agent or financial advisor.
Off to a shut down Foundry today, who knows what’s in the Patternshop.
Welcome to the forum, most are not cranky old Luddites like myself.
H.

Just noticed you are from Melboring.
There are quite a few old arn nutters down there.
Melbourne Matty is full on, He has a steel cupboard full of dirty paper, machinery catalogues from all, over some the century before last.
Unfortunately he doesn’t post here much anymore.
The ‘Lost Trades Fair’ would probably of interest to you, up country, but Victoria is such a small guaint state what’s a few kilometres.

Worth your while to check out the older posts on the forum.
Just search Wadkin and stuff will come up.
At the bottom below the post you are reading there will be references to other similar posts.
A good way to waste a few hours and maybe learn something.
H.

Originally Posted by clear out

...Wadkin, Sagar, White, Robinson etc are decent Pom brands to look out for....

I would like to add Wilson, Dominion and Bursgreen to the list, although the latter two are just slightly below the others IMHO.

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by 419

...I've seen a few Tannner machines for sale where I am in Australia. Seems they were a New Zealand manufacturer. Are they worth considering?

Tanner made robust machines, but they are not up there with the big boys. For example, they made buzzers in 4", 6" and 12", whereas Wadkin made buzzers in 6", 9", 12", 16" and 22". The Tanner 4" and 6" buzzers are not really industrial machines, though the 12" is a very nice heavy duty machine.

Tanner are worth considering at the right price, especially if you are tight for space.

Cheers, Vann.

If you canna hand a man a grander spanner, get a Tanner

Originally Posted by Vann

You are about to begin a slide down a very slippery slope. I'd venture that you have half a dozen old machines in various states of repair, very soon (I have ).

Cheers, Vann.

Congratulations on your uncanny, and disturbing, ability to predict my sad future. Recently I had one machine completely disassembled to find its simple but fatal problem. It is now largely reassembled, with parts photographed and held in magnetic trays in the certain knowledge that I have already forgotten exactly what goes where. I am not too perturbed about this as past experience with things like removing and replacing clutches, air conditioners and dashboards in cars and rebuilding outboard motors demonstrates that invariably they are over-engineered as they still work perfectly well with a couple of nuts and bolts and washers left over.

It seems there is little prospect of finding the fairly simple part needed to return my machine to service. It is a modern machine, currently sold under various labels by some major retailers, but curiously they seem rather more interested in getting the whole machine out of the door rather than providing the parts which the Australian Consumer Law requires them to hold for a reasonable time after sale. I think it's environmentally undesirable for them to waste trees on paper user manuals with exploded parts diagrams carefully listing all the parts, none of which are actually available.

I have my eye on an old jointer (alas, not of the Wadkin level but a Gilbro probably about right for my light occasional novice use and, as a bonus to delay actually using it to make anything, a restoration) but am wary of getting what might prove to be another boat mooring anchor if it needs parts that undoubtedly are no longer available off the shelf, nor probably anywhere else. I haven't had a boat for a few years and never had a moored one, so it's best if I don't end up with two mooring anchors.

So I started a thread on seeking a tool maker / machinist in Melbourne to make parts. Link not yet available.

I'm almost certainly not the first to suggest that there's a profitable market for a tool maker and a 3D printer expert to meet the need for these one-off parts across a vast range of hobby activities from woodwork to car restoration and everything in between.

We have a toolmaker doing just that at Motorretro up here in Sydney.
The boys are building custom Vincent bikes for street riding.
Footpeg and triple clamps are 3D printed to check fit and function before being fabricated in steel or Aluminium.
I can’t see anyone except possibly Richard, who posts on here as RG62 being up for this.
It isn’t cheap, the hourly rate for any highly skilled worker is now ‘interesting’ so unless you have a skill they need and can barter a deal, good luck.
Other modern fabrication techniques can help with restorations.
I recently had some water jet cutting done at a Uni I once worked at. (Cost me a slab.)
To oxy cut and cleaned up the part would have been a nightmare. It was originally cast iron but 1”” steel plate works ok.
You should get onto the metalforum, there’s lots of helpful bods on there, you may be able to get your missing part made locally no probs.
Better get off this time waster now, I have to get my 1.5 ton chainblock back on the I beam so I can lift off the machinery I’m picking up from the redundant Patternshop today
Better get the acro props out also to keep the roof up whilst lifting.
H.

Originally Posted by 419

I have my eye on an old jointer (alas, not of the Wadkin level but a Gilbro probably about right for my light occasional novice use and, as a bonus to delay actually using it to make anything, a restoration) but am wary of getting what might prove to be another boat mooring anchor if it needs parts that undoubtedly are no longer available off the shelf, nor probably anywhere else.

Bought the Gilbro jointer today. 6 inch three blade cutter head with two sets of new spare blades wrapped in frayed but probably original oiled paper; 4 foot table; and 1 HP electric motor on a metal stand welded by someone who wanted it to survive nuclear Armageddon. Bearings are tight and move freely with and without power, and tables are co-planed. (If you'd asked me what co-planed meant a few months ago, I would have guessed it had something to do with two aeroplanes, but I'm learning.) Much better condition than it looked in the listing pictures, so no restoration required unless I want to be silly about prettying it up, which I don't for a working machine. Paid $200, marked down from $350 a few weeks ago. Seller was a trained carpenter and joiner starting work as an apprentice in the 1950s. He is a nice, helpful and very knowledgeable bloke who bought it new 50 or so years ago from McPhersons in Melbourne and has maintained it well.

The machine and blades will outlast me, probably without any work apart from an occasional bit of grease into the bearing grease nipples and sharpening the blades, and probably not even sharpening if I just use the new blades that came with it.

It is impressively heavy, so if it fails me it is definitely a top mooring anchor.

Originally Posted by 419

Recently I had one machine completely disassembled to find its simple but fatal problem.

.....

It seems there is little prospect of finding the fairly simple part needed to return my machine to service.

Yep, part not available anywhere in Oz that I can find, new or used. Could probably buy it for about half the current second hand price of my machine and add exactly $0.00 to the machine's value, and wait three or four months for it to arrive in Oz, and then maybe it's not the correct part as there is some doubt about compatability of parts in later versions of older machines.

Or I could work with what I have for a different approach.

The single powered feed rate on current thicknessers like mine under about $1,200 - $1,400 isn't always suitable for hardwoods with varying densities and grains which could work better with a feed rate that can be varied to meet the changes in the timber. A manual feed could go a fair way to meeting that need.

The problem with my powered feed rollers is that the springs which hold the rollers onto the workpiece are too strong to allow manual feeding as I can't get the workpiece under the first roller as it's designed to grab the workpiece on its circumference well above the bottom of the roller. I could feed the workpiece under the front roller if I tapered the front edge, but this still requires a fair bit of force to keep pushing it through the front roller and even more so when it comes under the rear roller. This detracts from the ability to feed the timber by feeling how the cutter is responding and adds another couple of steps in making and later removing the taper, plus wasting timber.

Solution: Buy softer springs and experiment with cutting the coils (much easier with a Dremel on little springs than the entirely unengineered random chopping of the suspension springs with a hacksaw on an old Holden to lower it in my youth) until the rollers allow the workpiece to raise the rollers while still keeping some pressure on the workpiece.

Seems to work pretty well, as long as I keep downward pressure on the outfeed table to stop snipe.

Probably wouldn't use it for anything that's important for a confident nice finish, but works fine for dealing with rough finished timber before putting it through my 'good' thicknesser at some stage.

Hi Vann,

Pictures as requested.

Now that I've had a bit of time to look at it more closely:
1. The metal stand and motor base is 2 inch angle 1/4 inch thick, which not surprisingly has managed to bear the weight of the jointer and motor without any deformation and no doubt will do so for another few centuries.
2. The motor and cutter head pulleys are aligned more or less vertically but the pulley faces are slightly out of alignment. This can't be corrected with the limited ranges of movement of the jointer and motor in the holes drilled in the metal stand and motor base, so they've never been properly aligned. It's probably not a major issue as it's worked fine for years, but I don't like angled drive on bearings that are supposed to have square drives. I can probably correct this with some shims under the various bolt holes on the jointer and motor, but if not I can remove the motor and get a die grinder onto the motor base to enlarge the bolt holes to get correct alignment.

Ignore the misaligned photo of the fence. I just put it on for the photo without paying attention to correct fitting.

I can see how everything works and what it does except for the sliding tab on the outfeed side of the fence as shown in the last photo. Is this to stop thin work sliding under the fence or for something else?

IMG_1453.jpgIMG_1455.jpgIMG_1456.jpgIMG_1457.jpgIMG_1458.jpgIMG_1459.jpgIMG_1460.jpgIMG_1461.jpg

419

I have the same model jointer as you. I too bought my machine second hand. However, it had a 1HP 3Ph motor. I swapped that out for a 1.5HP 1Ph motor and it has never missed a beat. The only shortcoming is the 150mm width. 200mm would be more useful. I do have a larger machine, but it has to be set up for 3Ph so this is the stop gap solution.

Gilbro Jointer 1.jpgGilbro Jointer 6.jpg

The tab you mention is completely missing on my machine and like you, I don't know what it is for. In fact until I saw your pix I did not even know what was missing.


Gilbro Jointer 2.jpg

I have a dust collection pipe available that you can see behind the jointer but I have never set it up because I need a transition piece to go from rectangular to round. Fortunately, the jointer makes shavings rather than dust and I just clear them up off the floor when I think of it. I have not done it for a while. Also my jointer was missing the blade guard and I have fabricated something from timber. I still have to work out a return spring mechanism. (Any suggestions from Forum members would be welcome.)

As the blades closet to the fence tend to wear most I have sometimes used a timber spacer to bring the rest of the blade into play for narrower timber. I think your machine should work very well as it is a very solid unit.

Regards
Paul