Thread: E. G. Lacey and his Woodworking Machines

This is an Argus article that talks about EG Lacey being at Sackville st Collingwood and employing 20 men and having been in business for 25 Years, I think that Argus was 1929 . Its a bit hard to read the date up the top. So he roughly started in 1904. I didn't save that article to well and missed some of it. And now I cant find it again. If it turns up Ill post it all.
E.G. Lacey was an inventor and producer of woodworking machinery.

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His technical drawings are great! This as a stroke sander from a 1924 Patent application.

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There are 14 PDF files from the Australian Patent office records containing drawings like above that I was shown last week. I will try to load them here later.

Rob

An advertisement from a 1937 Argus. Stating 106 to 112 Sackville st Collingwood Melbourne as his location.

The Argus Tuesday 16 March 1937.png

The Horizontal Belt sander . These are still used. Here's a link to one on the forum. Old oscillating belt sander

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stevo81's machine .

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Rob

Last night I was trying to load the three posts above as one and the forum was rejecting it for being to large .
I hope I wasn't dimming the lights at forum headquarters!

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I was quite a bit over the limit and couldn't figure out what it was that was doing it.
It may have been the link to the Australian Patent Office records with the 14PDF files in it?

Ill try loading the link again here.

Its not opening for me now.

Here is a link to where it is.
How To Search Existing Patents | IP Australia

The PDF file on scroll cutting machine one of three from the above website.
document 2 1913 Scroll Cutting.pdf

The stroke sander.
document 7 1924 Belt sander (Stroke).pdf

Horizontal belt sander.
document 9 1928 Belt Sander (Horizontal).pdf

Documents 2. 7. and 9. From 14

Rob

That above is three of the 14 files from the patent office. They are some of the interesting ones. Some are empty and some not so interesting possibly.
I'm not sure about adding all the 14 here. It may be to much?
Here is a picture of them and if anyone wants to see more and doesn't do it through the patent office link which is tricky.
I can add them here. Just ask.
Or let me know if you want all 14 added and Ill try it. It may take a few posts I think.

The 14 PDF Files.png

Rob

Here is one of the incredible edge jointing machines E. G. Lacey made.
I don't know if anything similar to this was made anywhere else in the world or if Melbourne was the home to one way out there Inventor called E.G Lacey ?
Very thin bed with feed rollers. The patent drawings also show a top head cutter that I cant see on this machine. See if you can work it out. Power feeding and edge jointing like that would be a handy tool to have. Id love to know how well they worked.

The view from the top looking down at the narrow bed and the fence on the right.
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And here is the PDF to the patent office for that machine with all the details.

document 10 1928 WW Machines ( Edge Jointing).pdf


Rob.

Hi Rob,

Great thread. Looking forward to seeing your machine restore journey.
I don't have any Lacey gear but i really enjoy seeing the slice of local history through the story of machines and their makers.
I found it interesting from one of the advertisements you posted that as well as designing and making veneering machines they also offered veneered panels.
So I had a look through Trove for info on Lacey Veneer to see what showed up.
Looks like the veneered panel business lasted longer than the machinery business.
Here is a sample of what came up, I've put the date and publication in the image name:

There's also an advertorial article on veneering with attached Lacey advertisement here:

16 Mar 1937 - What Do You Know About Your Chair? - Trove

Originally Posted by hiroller

Hi Rob,

Great thread. Looking forward to seeing your machine restore journey.
I don't have any Lacey gear but i really enjoy seeing the slice of local history through the story of machines and their makers.
I found it interesting from one of the advertisements you posted that as well as designing and making veneering machines they also offered veneered panels.
So I had a look through Trove for info on Lacey Veneer to see what showed up.
Looks like the veneered panel business lasted longer than the machinery business.
Here is a sample of what came up, I've put the date and publication in the image name:

Nice thanks Gavin . The Doors and Paneling add shows they were still going in the 1950s. Maybe they kept going with that through the 60s 70s and 80s? I wonder when the Machinery production stopped? That east side of the 112 Sackville st building is nice.
The building has now been converted to units so we can look inside. Pretty boring though.
https://www.realestate.com.au/proper...wood-vic-3066/

Rob

Here again is the Lacey belt sander drawings and below them the only pictures I have found so far of cast body sanders.

E G Lacey.jpg

EG Lacey Belt sander.png
The first red one is a Sackville st collingwood machine. The second two pics what must be an earlier 229 punt rd Richmond machine judging by the Richmond in the casting. Matty's Machine . Maybe some better pics of that will come our way.
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This below is for sale in Tasmania ATM.
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This type of sander ran the sandpaper to the wheel . The grit ran on the wheels. And I read somewhere no rubber was on these wheels for them to work that way. I wonder if the wheels were crowned for tracking when built that way? They don't look to be that way in the pictures.

Rob

Ran a google search on the address and this is the result.

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"... Warehouse living true to its industrial heritage ..."


No sign of real machinery. Stainless steel sink, wood heater and wine cellar would be nice in the workshop. Not so sure about the clear top work bench with conical legs ...

A couple of weeks ago I brought my Lacey sander inside form the old leaky Hay shed.

This machine has been in our family since around 1982. My Father bought a building and this was in a room under the building entered from a side lane way.
Up until that point us cabinetmakers working for him on antique restoration only had a medium sized band saw, a table saw with a 6 inch buzzer and a 12 inch thicknesser to work with . This acquisition was a big one for us who either hand scraped with cabinet scraper or had been sanding everything with old electric orbital sanders that left small circles in everything. That had to later be removed by hand sanding straight with the grain.
Once we had this belt sander the antique trade also found out about it and we did outside work sometimes with them bringing table tops to be sanded to us. We moved from that building and closed that part of the business down and the sander had to leave with us or else throw it away. So I grabbed it.


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Just before I moved the machine 8 years ago to our new location I found this stenciled Name up top that had been covered up with timber belt guarding for many years. To my surprise it was a Lacey sander! I had seen some of his machinery around but never realized this was one of them.
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I could make out the first and last names of Lacey and Richmond but couldn't work out whet the center section said.
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Reading the Patent document from 1924 I found the Richmond address and I can just make out what I think it says now.
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If you've ever driven down Punt rd heading south towards the Yarra river like me many many hundreds of times, you pass by the old E.G.Lacey factory on the left. Its wonderful what the real estate photographers can do with an image when listing a property for sale isnt it ? And the paint removers too.
229 Punt rd Richmond a.jpg 229 Punt rd Richmond.jpg

After a scrub down and wash with Linseed oil and turps the sander was placed in its new workshop location and as of now Ive got it up to this stage below. With a bit more to go. Some guarding and dust extraction. Ill post some more pictures of what I did along the way later.
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Its not a cast body sander like what must have been the E.G.Lacey later design from 1924.
Its fabricated from angle iron and rivets with Gusset plates. Its two main wheels are also fabricated and welded together. Later ones are cast. The only welding on what I think was its original state from new. Possibly supplied by another wheel building engineering firm?
I think it would have been a bad design originally and most of these made this way were possibly scrapped once they loosened up in the frame. This one survived because someone welded the gusset plates to the frame at a later stage and added angle iron braces at every bend in the front and rear frames turning it into a very rigid design. A believe the electric motor was also added and It may have been line shaft before and it also originally had four wheels not three. You can see the holes in the frame where the bearings were bolted to take the other wheels. The center wood wheel that is on it now was part of the later welding repairs same as the angle iron and the electric motor mount plate.

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Rob.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Ran a google search on the address and this is the result.

No sign of real machinery.

Nice . It looks better than the inside of 112 Sackville st.
The link I posted in post 9.

Some interesting articles searching Trove. Lacey Woodworking Machinery.

30 Oct 1924. Mention that he was a Cabinet Maker before taking up Engineering .
30 Oct 1924 - ALL-AUSTRALIAN EXHIBITION. - Trove

Argus Thu 30 Oct 1924.jpg Argus Thu 30 Oct 1924 a.jpg




6 July 1927 . The Advertiser Adelaide. Talk of his Machinery.
06 Jul 1927 - AUSTRALIAN WOOD-WORKING MACHINES. - Trove
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6 July 1927. News Adelaide. Talk of his Machinery.
06 Jul 1927 - WOODWORK MACHINES - Trove

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8 Oct 1929. The Argus Melbourne . Mentions 20 Men working for Mr Lacey.
08 Oct 1929 - AUSTRALIAN EXHIBITION. - Trove
The Argus Tue 8 Oct 1929.jpg The Argus Tue 8 Oct 1929 a.jpg




4th March 1930. Factory Ablaze at Collingwood. That's worth reading the whole article in the Link. Sounds pretty crazy!
04 Mar 1930 - FACTORY ABLAZE AT COLLINGWOOD. - Trove
The Age Tue 4 March 1930 Sackville st Fire.jpg The Age Tue 4 March 1930 Sackville st Fire a.jpg

Rob

Some pictures of fixing the sander up.

The bearings in the drive shaft were dry and the grease around was all hard. I couldnt believe they still worked for being treated so bad for so long. Cleaned and re packed with High Temp Grease.

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The wooden roller up top was a bit warped. I fitted that to the RS lathe and skimmed it right then gave it a few coats of shellac.
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I had to raise the machine and separate the bases to a set distance so the table rolled on the tracks correctly.
Casting two concrete bases with steel 50 x 50 sticking out so I could weld it all together once adjusted was the solution.
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It started by resting the two Oregon pieces under the machine to locate the holes in the cast iron onto the timber.
I screwed the 20mm threads through the holes then welded and built two Formply boxes around all that.
Set them up outside . Leveled them up and filled them with concrete
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Left them for two days and they came oy nice.
Once they were screwed under the machine I moved the frame apart then welded in two measured 50 x 50 rails to hold it at the right distance .
This raised the machine by 180 mm and set the sanding height for a 19mm board at about 950 high.
Plus two rubber mats about 16mm thick are now sitting under the concrete bases as well which I will glue to the bases.
This base set up allows for the whole sander to be picked up and moved with my pallet jack as well.
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The tracking and wheels were out . This had been giving us trouble for years at the old location.
first I tried sanding the rubberized wheels with my Hitachi belt sander and 80 grit . That didn't work. So I wound Black duct tape around them to get a new crown. That worked. I then leveled the three shafts. One shaft needed raising by 10mm at one end.
It now runs the best it ever has since we've had it.
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The machine had two of these hand wheels sitting on the floor under it for years at the old shop. To raise and lower the table. They had never been fitted back on the machine. The threads and fittings had been lost. There was just the hand wheels and a hole at each end. I had this square thread sitting around for another project and used that. So the table can be raised and lowered . No more doing it with a lever and placing packers under the frames.
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Here is an instagram link of the Sander running.
I can open and watch this on my phone but it doesn't run on my computer for some reason.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzTEG-Xr_fe/


Rob