Thread: Wadkin RD 16" Planer

Originally Posted by clear out

...The Surty guard is an American design of self adjusting guard.
These were made here in Oz by J T Peat...

Hi Henry.

Is the Surty guard the same as JT Peat's "Ideal" guard, or are there differences?

I'm familiar with the "Ideal" guard as New Zealand Railways had them fitted to all their buzzers and planer/thicknessers - and I have one on my little ex-railway Wadkin RB.

The "Ideal" guard fitted to my RB looks the same as in the diagram - but without the locking handle.

Cheers, Vann.

You can see for yourself the two pics of the Surty I took in the Cochrane AB stash, it has a cast Al blade cover.
The J T Peat is on a Melbourne forum member’s machine in Camoz’s Oz machinery post, they all had fabricated steel blade covers.
Mine has the yellow arms and fabricated Al blade cover.
The design sure looks the same to me, the method and detail of manufacture may differ.
They are easy enought to make, Ive done about 3 to date.
Copied the one on the 12” Barker at Civil Eng at USYD.
Bit fussy re jointer guards since 1997 for some reason.
H.image.jpg

Originally Posted by clear out

...The design sure looks the same to me, the method and detail of manufacture may differ...

Yeah sorry, I meant the design. I wasn't sure if the "Ideal" had more springs than the "Surty" and other minor design differences. I guess not.

If they're both the same design I wonder if JT Peat had the Australasian rights to manufacture the "Surty" - or if it was a wartime copy (I know NZ Railways had a full set of patterns for Westinghouse steam locomotive air pumps - which I believe were manufactured during WW2 - and I doubt they had permission from the Westinghouse Brake Co.). As they named it "Ideal" and not "Surty" I suspect they didn't have the rights.

Cheers, Vann.