Any old 'arn fans????

[Gary Sutherland]

Well, I been looking at some big 'ol table saws. I know some of you are fans of these and hopefully will make recommendations.

The three I'm currently looking into are the Northfield #4, the Oliver 88 (no slider), and the Moak Monotrol. In similiar condition (pretty good), they are all in the same ball park price wise. (Barring coming across a 'super' deal, of course).

I know the Northfield would be the easiest to get parts for, since they're still made and evidently the Northfield company is great to deal with.

I've seen an Oliver 88, not under power tho, and not really in peak operating condition. Looks impressive though.

Now, the Moak.... I'd never even heard of the Monotrol until recently, I sure don't know anyone who has one, and so far haven't come across anyone who's even used one. Looks like one HECK of a saw, but of course looks can be deceiving. Plus, parts are probably non-existant. Still....

I'll be using this mostly for ripping solid stock, so don't need a sliding table saw of any kind. Some of you may wonder why I would need one of these beasts; well, I don't. But I want one anyway. Absolutely no logic to it at all.

Anyway, sure would appreciate opinions about these saws from any who've used 'em. Also, what's good or bad about the original Micro-adjustable fences some of these came with?

Gary

[Mike Weaver]

Gary,
There are a couple of guys here that should be able to help you out.
(I don't know nuthin' about old iron).

But, in case they don't see this - you can also have a peek at the fine folks at www.owwm.com (Old WoodWorking Machinery).

There are definitely fans of the old stuff there too.

Here are a couple of SMC threads that may be of interest:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ghlight=oliver
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=23513
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=18836

There was a Northfield listed in the FS section a while back:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ght=northfield

Hope that helps a bit.

Cheers,
-Mike

[lou sansone]

hi gary


YES there are old iron fans here. Here are a couple of photos of a moak 36 " band saw that I own and a RAM drill press as well in my shop.

I am also interested in the exact 3 saws that you have mentioned. I have not made up my mind either. They all seem pretty decent. At the end of sept I will be visiting a dealer who has all three that I can play with and then I will be in a better place to make a choice

best wishes
lou

[Alan Turner]

Lou,
From your photograph, I would think the RAM is a "Mini-RAM" as it sits next to that 14" bandsaw.

[Michael Ballent]

Good Lord that bandsaw is massive! I guess that vibration is not an issue

[Michael Gabbay]

Lou - That's a nice bench top band saw!

[Vaughn McMillan]

Lou - That's a nice bench top band saw!

Yeah, you should see the bench he puts that puppy on! You need a ladder just to tighten the vice.

- Vaughn

[Dev Emch]

Hi Gary...

First of all, all three of the saw you mentioned are excellent. Moak was actually a company run by "the old man" who kept many designs similar to northfield and yates and oliver. The name does not come up as often as others but its no less a player in this field. Another name that comes up is tannewitz.

The northfield saw is built in such a way that the trunions and motor are "hung" from a main casting that attaches between the top and the one piece cast iron base. The ways are machined and robust. Being direct drive, there are only two bearings. The northfield does have one flaw. It does not have a pure DC ability and often has a sheet metal baffle in its base to direct dust to the 6 inch dust port. It does have the ability to segregate the motor and trunions from the saw flask thereby keeping swarf out of the motor. The left side is open to facilitate the installation of new blades. This feature makes the addition of a sliding table a potential issue. If you use a cantelever type table similar to the DeWalt sliding table, then you have no issues. If you try to attach a euro slider with its beams and outriggers, then you may have an issue.

The oliver 88 has a front plate which is about 3 feet by 3 feet and is about 1.5 or so inches thick. This plate is solid steel. The trunions and motor are all hung of this plate cantelever style and this setup is extremely robust. There is no flexure in the 88 saw system. I personally feel that this system is a bit better than the northfield system and makes adjustment of the saw a bit easier. But this is not a major difference. The 88 has had some changes over its life. The first thing you should look at is whether it has an exposed dust collection plenum on its backside. This one is the older design and often has the black and gold namplate. It is more like the northfield. Mine is a newer one from the 1960s. Here, they cast into the body dust baffles that channel swarf down to the bottom of the saw where it falls into a dust collection tube. It looks like a grain hopper. The 88 has a cast iron solid left side. This makes the installation of after market european sliders much easier. You can install all sorts of euro sliders with a bit of imagination on this saw. In fact, oliver made a number of large sliding table machines which were based on the 88 saw. Machines with massive left mount sliding tables. Mine is a rolling top slider also known as a "hardwood slider". Here, the sliding table is rather small taking up the left half of the main table area. It is great for cutting hardwood sections but not so good for large panel goods. It was not designed for panel goods.

The micro fence was the forunner of the new Incra T fence. Now you all have heard the sales dudes pushing the new Incra invention and how good it is. Other makers of new fence systems are also using this. They sing the song of how its central T mounted design cancels out angular error. Well kiddies, this is all true. Everything Incra has said is valid. All but one item..... they did not invent it. This type of fence has been around for many years and is known as a pattern maker's fence. It was found on the heavy duty pattern maker table saws such as the oliver 88, the northfield #4, the Moaks and the Tannewitz among others. Assuming they have not been the victim of abuse, these fences are dead on accurate!

They all work the same way. There is a series of holes drilled in the top of the table a fixed distance apart. You place the fence over the nearest useful pair of holes and secure with a couple of fence pins. The face of the fence can move a few inches to make up the exact difference of where the fence body is and where you need to be. The actual micro adjust feature was often sold as an option. Here, there is a fine leadscrew attached to the fence face and the ability to turn this with a knob. On the oliver fences, this knob is on the back of the fence. Here you can use this knob to fine tune the fence position to within thousandths of an inch. I think the olivers always had this. On my old northfield which I sold, this was an extra option.

Now there were different pattern maker fences used on various saws. For example, in the oliver line up, you had the E fence and F fence. These were found on 88 saws. Both allowed you to skew the fence angle as needed by using a curved slot to mount the fence. This allowed you to cut tapers. Kinda like a taper jig. The fence found on the 232 and 270 did not allow you to do this. Also, the E fence has a fixed face. The F fence was exactly like the E fence except that you could tilt the face angle. This allows you to cut tapers on the edge of the board for example. Oliver had a number of fences and often, these could be used interchangeabily on various saws. For example, many of the various features used on large oliver saws were interchangeable. The 88 and the 260 shared many parts even though these are very different saws. The fence found on the northfield is most often a fixed face fence but I do recall that it could be mounted at an angle to cut tapers.

What you did not discuss was the quadrant gage. Most of these large machines also had a quadrant gage which was used to help cut various angles. But quadrant gages were used on sliding table varients so this would not apply to you directly.

I have not had much experience with the Moak Monotrol. My area of experience is limited to northfield, oliver and martin table saws. I will tell you that by attaching a power feeder to your saw, you can turn it into a real rippin machine. I love power feeders and they can be of great use on all sorts of machines. You dont need a fancy expensive one. Just a heavy duty one. Right now, I am using a heavy duty, three roller Delta. Not my first choice but I got in a machine deal a few years back, put it work and its worked fine ever since. Its often hard to change something once it works as you have so many other things to work on.

In searching for a saw, also bear in mind that the stock HP for these was often 5 HP. Many had optional 7.5 and 10 hp motors added as an extra when ordered. My oliver 88 has a louis allis 7.5 hp motor so its going to be hard to justify selling off this saw. Also note that many olivers in the wild have been in need of a manicure and hair cut for many years. They look like wild mountain men. Dont let that fool you. You need to check out how they work and if anything is really broken. You can always clean them up and repaint them.

In terms of parts. Well, if you buy new parts from tannewitz or northfield, be prepared to pay through the teeth. The good news is that the parts problem is not that bad. The killer is large, strategic castings with cracks in them. Smaller castings can be redone by local machine shops. I actually make my own oliver parts as I need to. Having to recast a 900 pound table and remachine it is always going to be challenge. Bearings are often stock items that can be found in your local bearing house. The motors can be rewound at the local motor shop. Again, I rewind most of my motors as time permits and my skill level in this area improves. Electrics can be bought through your local Allan Bradley or Square D dealer which often is the local electric supplier for the electricians in your area. This is for starter switches, motor contactors, heaters, etc. None of these companies used their own switches. In fact, the switches on an oliver table saw look exactly like those used to lift the draw bridges or those in fancy car washes...... that is because they are all schedule 800 allen bradley, 35 mm push bottom switches.

In general, folks either like large format saws or they dont. They are bigger than your unisaw and they have a different mitre slot layout than does the unisaw. Arbor diameters are all over the board. The nomimal or normal size is 1 inch. Some are 1 1/8 inch and some are 1 1/4 inch. The blades are all sizes. Most of these saws can take upwards of an 18 inch or so blade. The largest blade I use is 14 inches. My dado blades are 10 inches and my ply plade is a 12 inch. I also use a 12 inch woodworker two. In using all these blades, you often keep only enough for your use above the table. I mention this as some folks have told me outright that the large saws intimidate them. Truth is, they are safer to use than a unisaw.

On large saws with no sliding tables, you often have very large throat plates. On an older northfield from the 1950s, we actually made a replacement throat plate that contained a router mount. This allowed us to remove the saw blade, drop the arbor downwards and mount a PC 7518 router into the saw. We now had a massive router table with the use of the patternmaker fence. This was pretty cool until we all moved into using industrial shapers.

Hope this info helps you out and best of luck in your quest...

[Bart Leetch]

Doggone Lou my old Delta Unisaw looks almost that big but its in the perspective of a very small shop.

[Alan Turner]

Hey Dev -- I figured you would weigh in when the subject of old iron was on the table. I have for some time lusted after an Oliver 260, which is a two arbor, two motor saw, with an interlock. One is a rip; the other a corsscut. Forget about changing blades. The story I heard was that Wendel Castle was buying a big bandsaw from my usual dealer, who had an Oliver 260, and Castle bought it on the spot.

Would you care to comment on the 260?

[Bill Simmeth]

Would you care to comment on the 260?

Hi Alan...
I'm not Dev, but I do have a 260. I am very pleased with it (maybe an understatement). You mentioned loading a rip blade and a crosscut blade on the two arbors. Actually, with today's great combo blades, I often run with a combo blade on one and a short dado stack on the other (you can't spin the arbors with a larger stack). That way, I can quickly switch from stock prep to plowing dados. The only thing I can complain about (and it's minor) is I have a love/hate relationship with the fence. It's a great fence and typical of the fence found on the group of saws discussed in this thread. However, if you're making repeated switches from a short cut to a longer cut, it can become a hassle to reseat the fence again and again. It is better suited to batch work. But, the saw itself is awesome. Each arbor has its own 5HP Louis Allis motor. You can't beat that.

Don't know if I've helped any. Let me know if you want any other info.

[Alan Turner]

Thanks for the notes.

[Jim Dannels]

Good Lord that bandsaw is massive! I guess that vibration is not an issue

Michael if you think thats big, search out Lou`s shop tour and check out the aircraft carrier he calls a jointer

[Bill Simmeth]

Hope this doesn't violate the TOS, but on the subject of "old Arn", the first ArnFest is happening next month -- October 8th and 9th. This is coming out of the OWWM group and is a gathering of individuals interested in old North American woodworking machinery. It will be held on the grounds of the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL. This facility has a tremendous wood shop used in restoration projects and features some awesome old "Arn". More info can be had here: http://www.arnfest.org

[Dev Emch]

The 260 is an awsome saw. But its blade flask rotates making it hard to install euro sliders. But since the 260 has its own sliding top which is identical to the 88 rolling top, this is no longer that big of an issue. Another thing about the 260 is that as you rotate the turret about, you can position the blade at either the front of the machine or the rear of the machine with its max height being in the middle of the machine. This gives you some more flexibility.

When looking for these items, you should be careful. Dealers will often serverely overcharge you and will discount cracked parts as *NOT* being an issue. I have been burned here and you should carefully inspect the machines prior to buying them. Right now, I am trying to get a new cope head casting for an oliver tenoner. I think I could buy another tennoner for what oliver wants for this part. I have been trying to get a new pattern made and have the cattail foundary make me a new one. I still need to do the final machine work. But time has been short so I have had to live without the top cope motor and this has been very bad for me this summer. So make sure everything is present and that nothing is in need of any machine work. The 260 has quite a few moving parts so you will need to inspect it with care.