Thread: Wadkin MF

Hi there. Another lovely resto. I remember the photos after it fell off. Is the little white wheel off to the side for sharpening the chain?

Lovely machine, I have just been cutting mortise's on my Taiwanese machine, one day I will find one,
Mountain Ash yes it is a grinder for the chain.

Very nice! There is one for sale in Sydney at the moment. Many thanks for posting on here.

How many hours in total did it take and was it a difficult restore?

Beautiful machine!

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A very nice job, you may be interested in Brian Holcombe's resto on another Wadkin mortiser and a few problems he found on his machine

https://brianholcombewoodworker.com/...inet-maker-ii/

Very nice . Back from the brink with that one Mark . Rare that it has both the stop bars . Plenty I see are missing the front one . They would have been extra options wouldn't they? Not something you would loose being bolted on . The long one that fits to the bed though , a rare sight. Still would have been an option but I bet plenty got lost too. I was lucky and got both with mine . Ive used the small one at the front a few times . Never needed the big one though . Handy if I was doing a house full of big doors .

What a nice SOLID machine these are to use . The thing I noticed first compared to other mortisers I have is the depth stops . They lock and Clunk ! Nothing goes past that until its reset .

Going from chain to chisel is great and speeds things right up . The best set up I like is a 1/2" chain and a 5/8" chisel together . That's fastest for 5/8" work or 1/2" inch work . If Im doing 5/8" mortises then the 1/2 inch chain removes the meat and the 5/8" chisel cleans it up easy being a 1/16th skim each side.
If I want to drop to 1/2 inch and use chain and chisel then its just a chisel change . That's easy because the 1/2" chisel like the 5/8 is already centered to the chain .

If Im doing 3/8 then its smaller work and chain is not really needed as much so I do it on a different machine set up with 3/8 chisel .

The more time consuming thing to have to do is changing chains on the MF . This requires new chain to be centered to new chisel size . So not just bolting up a new chain size and chisel size but adjusting chain over to center on new chisel size .

A little more of a fiddle about .

Rob

Hi Wallace Did you keep a record of the Test Number for this MF, it looks the same casting as the one I've just bought, also steel hand wheels not aluminium, but mine is missing the Tags no not able to date it