• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Christmas has come early for me!

9fingers

9fingers

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I've been looking for a 4 post thicknesser with an induction motor for best part of two years.

I hate screeching brush motors with a passion both to use and to repair. I also want a thicknesser where the cutting table is fixed and the cutter head goes up and down. This enables me to use my saw table as an outfeed extension.
These two constraints rule out virtually every machine on the UK market. I've been looking at importing from US where retailers are reluctant to deal with UK customers and buying used needs a great deal of help from friends in the US. One way or another each attempt has failed and I'd almost given up.
Recently a UK friend said could I thickness a board for him that was14" wide and my current lunchbox thicknesser is limiter to 12.5" so I started looking again and found this in UK only about 2 hours away, north of London.



Even better for me, it needs some work on the motor which would put most people off but as you know I "do" motors, so will provide a good challenge and a reduced price as a non runner.

I'm due to pick it up on Sunday just in time for Christmas. I wonder if I'll be allowed into the workshop on Christmas day to play with my present to myself?? :lol:

Getting quite excited already!

Bob
 
Yes, saw your enquiry on "the other forum". Quite lucky if I recall correctly as it was a very old add. Enjoy your new toy :) .

Terry.

PS Thinking about it, surely there must be some beaten up, non-working 100 year old pieces of British cast iron out there, I thought that was what we should be buying :lol: ;) .
 
Wizard9999":24c558qt said:
PS Thinking about it, surely there must be some beaten up, non-working 100 year old pieces of British cast iron out there, I thought that was what we should be buying :lol: ;) .
Click to expand...

:lol: But as I said above, I don't believe there ever was a British cast iron four post thicknesser made and this was the specification of what I wanted.
They only seem to be on the American market and I'm an equal fan of US cast iron.
Both you and I have a clone of the classic Rockwell Delta Unisaw - so we appreciate US designs - even if they were copied by the Chinese.

Bob
 
Nice job, Bob....should keep you busy for a while!
 
Ah, one like that would be splendid. I had a quite decent lunch-box thicknesser, but sold it when I bought the combination machine. Wish I'd kept it now, changing over from planer to thicknesser is rather tedious.

Look forward to seeing your posts on getting it up to scratch.
 
New one Bob, I remember Philly getting one, it was walked up the drive by 4 of his mates using lengths of 4*2. The fixed height bed is a very nice feature.
 
Some of you might recall the novel stand that I made some years ago and wrote up in the old haven.


I've found a few photos

The stand has a flip over section with a pair of gas springs to counterbalance the machine weight.
In the closed position it is wheeled under a bench.



When needed it is rolled out and flipped over such that the planer bed is exactly level with the table saw



The green planer is now in Terry's custody and in it's place I currently have a Dewalt DW733.


I estimate that the new machine will have a base foot print of around 500mm square. I will either use the same method to flip over the Delta or plan B will be an elevating platform to raise the machine from storage position to the working position. I will be discarding the outfeed rollers and devising some scheme to make the infeed rollers readily detachable.

First job will be to sort out the motor and then find the weight and overall dimensions to start designing the storage stand.

Bob
 
Is that 3 phase?

The thing I particularly like about it is the roller bed. I am sick to death of the friction on my flat plate thicknesser bed being too much for the rollers, and having to force the work through the machine manually. I've contemplated making a roller bed as an after-market alteration to my machine, but realised I probably couldn't do it accurately enough. I'd be better off just buying a new (old) PT.

I reckon that such a set up would make a sled a viable option, allowing one to flatten a twisted board.
 
Mike G":v20xujfl said:
Is that 3 phase?

The thing I particularly like about it is the roller bed. I am sick to death of the friction on my flat plate thicknesser bed being too much for the rollers, and having to force the work through the machine manually. I've contemplated making a roller bed as an after-market alteration to my machine, but realised I probably couldn't do it accurately enough. I'd be better off just buying a new (old) PT.

I reckon that such a set up would make a sled a viable option, allowing one to flatten a twisted board.
Click to expand...

A little wax on your planer bed might help Mike.

The duff motor is single phase and I hope to coax it back to life. If it is terminal, then I will possibly fit a three phase one and use an inverter to give a) soft start, b) braking c) get the cutter speed up to where it should be. The machine is made for the US market and hence the two pole motor would run at around 3600 rpm whereas in uk is will only run at a bit under 3000 rpm.

Bob
 
Wax? I've tried every different wax I own, also saw dust, talcum powder, silicon spray......I've tried slackening the pressure of the rollers to reduce the friction on the bed, but that reduces the roller friction on the timber. Same result. I've tried increasing the pressure, hoping the grip on the top of the timber would offset the increased friction underneath. Once in a blue moon a piece of timber will travel half way through the machine under its own volition, but the blessed thing really is sent to try me.
 
Mike G":244xbb72 said:
Wax? I've tried every different wax I own, also saw dust, talcum powder, silicon spray......I've tried slackening the pressure of the rollers to reduce the friction on the bed, but that reduces the roller friction on the timber. Same result. I've tried increasing the pressure, hoping the grip on the top of the timber would offset the increased friction underneath. Once in a blue moon a piece of timber will travel half way through the machine under its own volition, but the blessed thing really is sent to try me.
Click to expand...

I have a tin of Simonize hard car wax. I was given it when I had my first car in 1970. 45 years later, I've not wasted much time polishing my cars so I do have a little left now and it is great for table saw, jointer, thicknesser and home made jigs. I've no idea if you can still buy it but there are waxes sold for machine tables - I think Liberon make one.
http://www.liberon.co.uk/accessories/lu ... ImfA%3D%3D
but I've never tried it.

Bob
 
Mike when I get that problem it is usually the rubber rollers (its a DW733 same as Bob's getting rid of) that need cleaning of very fine sawdust.

Mark
 
9fingers":y87ntfi6 said:
Some of you might recall the novel stand that I made some years ago and wrote up in the old haven.
Click to expand...

Ahh, this is what you described to me at the Axminster open day visit and told me about the writeup, but I never did locate it before the old WH vanished. Thanks for posting this.

Cheers

Ian
 
9fingers":2563c8tf said:
...or plan B will be an elevating platform to raise the machine from storage position to the working position...
Click to expand...

I hope you got for this option Bob, that sounds like it would be an enjoyable WIP to follow!

Terry.
 
Wizard9999":2062k93b said:
9fingers":2062k93b said:
...or plan B will be an elevating platform to raise the machine from storage position to the working position...
Click to expand...

I hope you got for this option Bob, that sounds like it would be an enjoyable WIP to follow!

Terry.
Click to expand...


A lot depends on
A) the weight and
B) the height of the machine above the planer bed which will decide if there is enough room to swing it through 180 degrees.
I'm currently using 2 off 1200N gas springs for the DW733 and I'd need quite a bit more force to balance the turning moment of the Delta.

Already I'm starting to think I'll need be taking the plan B approach so your wishes may come true Terry.

Bob
 
Nice looking beast and 15" even better.
Mine will only do 10" and it really annoys having to cut down wider boards to fit.

Rod
 
Bob:

I'm glad you were able to find what you needed. Sorry I was not able to help on your search.

Mike:
If waxing isn't working for you, there could be issues with your drive rollers or the pressure bar. It would likely be worthwhile to give your planer a full tune-up. Have a look here:
http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/Getting Peak Planer Performance.ashx

When I go over my thicknesser, it usually takes an hour or so, assuming I'm not setting the knives.

Kirk
 
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