Gilbro combination saw and planer dowel attachment.

Hi All,
I recently aquired one of these little beauties with 10 inch saw and 4 inch planer. The dowel attachment is missing and I was wondering If anyone knew where I might be able to get one

Thanks
Tom

The fact they stopped producing them well over 50 years ago, I would suggest you won't be able to get one and will need to fabricate a replacement

I posted this on the off chance that someone may have one lying around in their shed. I do not evn know what it looks like to start fabricating. The table is thre, it is just the chuck and shaft fitting i need

If anyone has one of these attachments, would they mind posting a couple of photos so I can get an idea on how I might make one.

There was a post some time ago about this unit.

What sort of jointer is this

Maybe sent MalB a PM?

Don't have to PM me, I found your thread.

I have a Gilbro set (saw, jointer and dowelling unit) and I have a dowelling spindle for it that someone made for the guy I got the saw from. I even transferred them and almost everything else from storage to my new workshop 6 weeks ago. Then I went to Melb for a month for radiation treatment, and have been poorly most of the time since so have barely been in the workshop since I got back. I know there is a collection of bits related to the set in a small bin that was used for chip collection for the saw, and I suspect that the dowelling spindle is in there, but can't promise so will describe.

My spindle was made from hex bar and is probably six inches long. It is drilled and tapped to screw onto the saw arbor instead of the nut and washer. There is a hex on the threaded end and it uses the same spanner that the arbor nut uses. About half an inch of the hex remains, the rest of the spindle has been turned to about 7/8th from memory. Mine was fabricated to accommodate a half inch drill bit only, so the circular end was drill and reamed to half inch for a depth of about an inch, and two holes for setscrews were drilled and tapped to lock the bit in position. However, for a similar amount of work a spindle could be made that could accommodate a drill chuck if required, though that may not be as accurate as the single size version I have unless you spend big for a high class chuck. Perhaps a better alternative might be to make up a unit to take an ER series nut and collet, that should give good stability and the ability to cope with a range of drill sizes as the collets have a grip range of 1mm or more.

The biggest issue I foresee is the lack of viable centre support for the spindle, and there not being an effective way to provide it. As mentioned above, the spindle screws onto the saw arbor thread in place of the nut, and height above the dowelling table is controlled by the blade height adjuster as the table is fixed in position. Someone with the right gear could probably make a support system for a single height setting, but for variable heights it would need to very accurately follow the arc that the saw arbor prescribes as the blade is raised or lowered, and would thus be much more complicated.

If I get to the workshop tomorrow I will try and find the spindle I have and take some pics for you, won't be able to get any of it mounted on the saw though as the saw is not readily accessible, moved 20 ton of gear into the shop, but nothing is sorted or set up, but I'm not paying out $5,500 a year in storage fees anymore. Couldn't get to things in storage anyway.

Thanks for that. I also used to be an Engineer, of the mechanical variety

Look forward to your photos, but don't stress as time now means nothing to me!!!

Hi Tom, I did manage to get into the shop today to look for the dowelling spindle but it wasn't in the dust box with spare blades, belts and fence like I thought it would be. There are 12 large packing boxes on skids with a wide range of bits in them to hunt through to find it, and at the moment a five minute leave pass to the shop is a luxury for me and a source of trepidation to she who must be obeyed, and currently I lack both my pedestrian forklift and pallet jack to shuffle cases around, so I doubt that I will unearth the spindle this side of autumn.

Would you like me to rough out a sketch for you instead? If you are an ex mech eng, do you have access to enough machinery and tooling to make up a spindle, or acquaintances who have same? The way mine was arranged would require a lathe (turning the body, drilling each end) and basic tooling, a 5/8in tap (thinking RH Whit but not certain) and appropriate drill, a drill bit about 12.5mm to drill the recess for the dowelling bit undersize for reaming, a 1/2in reamer, and two 5/32 or 4 mm set screws plus taps and tapping size drill to suit. You could change to a different preferred dowelling bit size, in which case the undersize drill bit and reamer size would change to match.

Sketch would be fine; and yes I have a lathe, mill/drill and taps and dies. Manufacture is no problem, but a photo or sketch of the originals would be helpful


Tom h