Thread: Wadkin RK 281 - 24" Panel Planing and Thicknessing Machine

Well done bryce, that's a beautiful thing !
Interesting it has an aluminium cover over the feed works and drive.
Melbourne Matty.

Originally Posted by scholey&sons

G'day fellow Wadkin tragics,

This week I purchased an early Wadkin RK thicknesser from Millicent in South Australia. It is an interesting machine with some slight differences to that of the later models.

It is missing a couple of things that you should find on this particular model, like the knife grinder, square head driver for the cutter block and the optional chip deflector or dust hood. More investigation is needed to determine if this came from the factory like this or the parts have been lost over the years. More to come on that.

Thanks for the view Bryce.
That's a really nice original looking machine. Not over painted as well . That's good . That cover plate for the on off switch . Ive looked through RK pictures and never seen that one before. It must be an early thing ? And The large cover on the side . That is Aluminium ? They must normally be fiberglass are they?
I thought these RK's had an option of having the the knife grinder attachment for some reason. Maybe I read it in the Wadkin RK brochure? I'm not sure atm where . Maybe someone told me. I could be wrong on that of course.
Why do you call it the Knife grinder , square head driver? Is that one or two parts? Or whats the square head?
I saw your instagram post of it starting up . It gets up to speed nice and quick. I thought I had heard others taking more time to get up to speed than that. There is a youtube post of someone in Canada or the US starting one and it takes ages . Something was wrong with that particular one I think.

Here's a picture of an RK you may want to compare to . It sold in the UK . Its close to yours. 17 RK machines later. Same set up on top with the hone. No grinder.


IMG_0961.JPG IMG_0960-rotated270.JPG IMG_0967.JPG IMG_0962-rotated270.JPG IMG_0963.JPG

Rob

Originally Posted by scholey&sons

G'day fellow Wadkin tragics,

This week I purchased an early Wadkin RK thicknesser...

Nice. Test 53791 dates to 1956. Looks like they were still making them as late as 1967 - by which time they were approaching 500 RK machines.

Originally Posted by auscab

...That cover plate for the on off switch . Ive looked through RK pictures and never seen that one before. It must be an early thing ?...

That panel looks very Art Deco (as does the whole machine). For a machine presumably designed in the early 1950s, Wadkin were about 20 years behind in their styling .

Cheers, Vann.

I'm very happy that the machine is original Rob. I have every intention of restoring it one day but for now, I want to give it a good clean and get it working to its full potential. Yes the side panel door is cast aluminium. I has been dropped in the past which has caused it to crack but, I can repair it.

The art deco style switch is very interesting. The buttons look exactly like something you would expect to see on RK switch panel but the plate is something I've never seen before. I'll need to take it off and have a look behind to see if I can see any evidence of where it was manufactured or if it has been tampered with. The isolator switch is an Australia made Federal switch which is nice to see. At this point I'm assuming it came from the factory without a grinding wheel because, it was an optional extra (as stated in the manual) and only came with the jointing stone as standard. Matty has pointed out however that they should have come together as a package deal because the jointing stone essentially blunts the knife edge to make it co planer all the way along the knife in reference to the table, and the grinding wheel would then sharpen the edge back ready for cutting.

What I mean when I say square head driver, there is a handle with a square head drive on it that is used to turn the head when setting knives and sharpening. I will try to get a picture of one but there is a small panel on the left side of the machine that moves out of the way allowing you to insert the tool to rotate the cutter head. That is missing but can be made up.

I thought that too, it reached its speed rather quickly. It is currently only running two belts instead of four and the drive pulley for the gear box is not running on that lower wheel. that being said, it does even show that smaller wheel in the brochure pictures.

Thanks for sending those pictures through. That machine only seems to have the jointing stone and the switch is missing altogether.

Here are some close ups of the drive, RK 281 on the left and RK 381 on the right.

IMG_1694.jpg IMG_1692.jpg

IMG_1693.jpg

I see the Crank your talking about in this picture. Yeah that shouldn't be hard to make one up.

IMG_6587a.jpg

That's interesting seeing two RK's 100 machines apart . I cant see any differences. Except I wonder about the pulley sizes from motor to head drive ? Is there a slight difference there?


Something I really should to do is go to Melbourne with a plank of Oak and visit two friends .
One has a recently fully restored RK Thicknesser with hone and grinder.
The other has a lovely Robinson with a superb Later fitted shear spiral head.
I could get my plank passed through each machine , one for each side, bring it home and take to it with the random orbital sander, just up one end on each side. Then polish both sides of the board to show sanded and machined finish.
If I also did a board from my two blade, Manual jig set, Delta machine, (Or My Robinson, same set up as Delta, if I ever get if finished) and polished that to have three thicknesser finishes to compare I'm sure that would put an end to the amount of pondering about heads and machines that I do . That would be very interesting to see.

The RK with four perfectly set blades after honing and sharpening should really show up the difference when it comes to sanding the wood compared to a two blade manual set machine. Not only does the RK have four blades but just judging by the sound, it seems to be spinning the head a lot faster than other thicknessers Ive heard . Head speed is another thing it would be good to check.

And then what would a shear cut head polished finish be like? Better again or less?

It'd all show in the sanding time required. Or how fine a grit could be used.
Its always nice to be able to reduce sanding time.

Love, love, love! How did you get this monster off your trailer?

It's great that your Wadkin comes with some history and it looks to be in quite good condition, you seem to have the mechanism to traverse the grinder across the blade for sharpening, so maybe the grinder got removed at some point.

In the attached pic, I have marked in yellow how I think the belt should run.

InkedWadkin RK 281.jpg

There are only a few slight differences that I will outline when the machine gets home. I'll take some close up pictures and compare for you.

I'd love to see the results from that test mate. I know Giles has almost finished his RK. I visited the other day and had a look. few issues with bearings that he's trying to resolve but, but what a great job he's done on it.

I have still not ruled our putting a spiral/helical head in both my planer and thicknesser. I just really like keeping them original and working as intended because I love the history.

The manual states the the cutter block turns at 4500rpm and th head is 5" in diameter.

Look forward to seeing some more photos of your Robinson, thats a beaut machine.

Originally Posted by Camelot

It's great that your Wadkin comes with some history and it looks to be in quite good condition, you seem to have the mechanism to traverse the grinder across the blade for sharpening, so maybe the grinder got removed at some point.

In the attached pic, I have marked in yellow how I think the belt should run.

InkedWadkin RK 281.jpg

Having such a great story really adds to the appeal of the machine for me and yes, it's in pretty good condition with original paint so, I would really like to get it cleaned up and moving freely so I can put it to use. I will restore one day but for now, I just want to run timber through it.

Thanks for sending through that picture. You are exactly right mate, thats where it needs to go. I also need another two belts on the drive.

After a bit of reading and talking to Giles, an RK owner I think I now understand The grinder / no grinder issue I had on the The RK .

All the info is in the user manual.

When looking at Wadkin thicknessers you see plenty of machines / other models as well with the cutter setting/jointing device and no grinder. They came two ways, with a grinder or with no grinder. So nothing is missing if a machine has no grinder. As long as it has the setting/jointing device.

I photographed this owner manual when visiting a workshop where a yellow RK lived. Since then that machine was sold to another woodworker and he probably now owns the manual as well. And the machine is back to a Wadkin grey colour.


Basically the The Motorised grinder and head jointing attachment was an option.
If you have a machine without the grinder you had whats called the Setting and Jointing device fitted. Like Bryce's machine. This is the Hone and should also be a roller bearing for setting the blades.

When newly ground blades were fitted and set using the rotating bearing and if you wanted the finest performance from the machine you could Joint the blades by running the machine and taking a fine edge off the new blades. As long as you didn't create more than a .8mm heel. This could be done 2 or three times until you got to that .8mm heel. Once you get to that .8 mm its time to take the blades out and get them re ground . Then fit and set again and joint again only if you want to or if they get used a bit and joint a few times later.

So if you also have the Motorised grinder you could, after jointing down to the .8mm heel a few times, re grind the blades in the machine. Start using again and go through the two or three jointing steps.

Jointing gives a perfectly distanced set of four cutting knives.

Here's manual pics describing this. It'll probably make more sense than what I just wrote out
I circled a couple of things in red.

IMG_6574.jpg IMG_6583.jpg IMG_6584.jpg IMG_6585.jpg

IMG_6586.jpg IMG_6586a.jpg IMG_6587.jpg IMG_6588.jpg

On your machine Bryce, your Jointer / setting device . It has a stone on it but does it have the setting roller or a fitting where that was?

Any good pics from both sides when you have time?

Just read your posts you did while I was typing. You are still waiting to get the machine home.

Rob.

Hi Rob,

Is there a pic of the grinder, does it have it's own motor?

I have attached a pic of my SCM with built in grinder, the grinder has it's own motor and you can lock the block in place before you start to grind.

S50 Block Clean.jpg

Cheers

Nigel

Originally Posted by Camelot

Hi Rob,

Is there a pic of the grinder, does it have it's own motor?

I have attached a pic of my SCM with built in grinder, the grinder has it's own motor and you can lock the block in place before you start to grind.

S50 Block Clean.jpg

Cheers

Nigel

That's a flash looking unit Nigel. Do you ever have to remove the blades from a thing like that?

There are picture of the grinder in the post I did above . Did you see them ?

Hi Rob,

You can sharpen the blades a few times on the SCM before having to take them out for a full sharpen or replace.

I had a better look at the RK operating manual that you posted and now see the grinder, so please correct my assumptions if I get this wrong, FIG. 11 shows the setting gauge which traverses along the mechanism, but the same mechanism also supports the special order grinder shown in FIG. 15, this grinder also seems to have a setting wheel built in to it, thus if you order the grinder you don't need the setting gauge shown in FIG. 11. The last thing I noticed is the electric lead for the grinder motor is shown only in FIG. 16, so it must be of a plugin type and only plugged into the grinder when sharpening the blades, when not sharpening but just setting the electric lead is removed from the motor as per FIG. 15, maybe because the electric lead could drop onto the blades while setting them in place.

Cheers

Nigel