Wadkin & Bursgreen Table Saw

[craig smith]

Hello,
I found one of these in a local paper but I havn't seen it yet, original fence, 3 phase (would require a conversion) for 675$USD. Is this a good saw? It would be replacing a General 50-185 Contractor Saw with the Bies fence. I was lusting ater the General 650 but this might be a way to get a great saw at a much better price.
Craig,

[Ian Barley]

Craig

Wadkin was a large UK based manufacturer that made many different types of saws - some of them carrying the Bursgreen name. Unfortunately the saw you are looking at could be magnificent value or a waste of money, depending on the model, age and condition. Ther machines were basically very well made but it is likely to be fairly old and its value will therefore depend on what sort of life it has lived and how able you are to give it the attention it may require. have a look at it - post a picture if you can. But ultimately you have to make up your own mind about your ability to get the best out of old industrial type machines.

[Brian King]

Hello,
I looked at a couple of older Wadkin saws a couple of weeks ago. They were pretty whipped but I was looking mostly to see how well they were built. I did not care for the overall design or construction. There were 2 things I liked about it:
1)It was not built in communist China.
2)The table was built nicely. Heavy casting and nice miachining.
The trunnion was not as heavy as a PM or Uni.
A Unisaw or Powermatic 66 is a better ovall built unit.
I've included a photo of one of them FYI.
My .02.

[Brian King]

Oh yeah, I like the fence. For a design similar to a Jet Lock it was well built (machined nicely) and I think it would be pretty accurate.

[craig smith]

Thanks for the replys,
I just looked at it, looks much older than the pic that was posted. Owned by someone that wants it gone so I may have lots of bargening power.

Right now the saw is on a pallet under a tarp ;( One of the handwheels is broken and the mechanism is very stiff. There is some cast broken off the underside of the wings (the ribbed part) but the tops are in OK condition, the motor is 3hp 3ph and it comes with a Unifence plus small fence tubes and the original fence but no rails for the Unifence. 12" blade. light surface rust on the tops but the cab looks very nice with a funny green crinkle paint that I like. It has a big red nameplate on the front. Taller and narrower than the posted picture. It's a big saw, approx 16" of infeed before the blade! I need to price a phase converter and fence system to see if its worth my while.

Thanks,
Craig

[Don Baer]

Craig,
Besides a pahse converter also check out the price for a new 3Hp 1 Phase motor. Might be cheaper then the phase converter.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

http://www.codesmiths.com/shed/workshop/wadkin/

[Dev Emch]

Here is my 5 cents worth. First of all, wadkin has many split personalities. The original wadkin, mostly badged as Wadkin Ltd., were extremely heavy and extremely well built machines. Easily every bit a match to an Oliver.

In the lighter realm, wadkin made the PK which was made for many years and a handful were imported into the US. These are on a parr with an oliver 232 or maybe a 270. What makes them different is that they have a sliding table and 232 saws do not. They rely on bridged mitre gages. When I say lighter, I mean 1200 to 1800 pounds. If I were looking for a super shop cabinet saw in the unisaw class, I would choose either an oliver 232 or a wadkin PK. You can't loose with this combination. The oliver 270 is slightly larger and some had optional roll tops. Same body configuration however. Lastly I suggest the Tannewitz J or J-250. Excellent saw but they lack true trunnions and have a couple of issues I am not pleased about.

As Wadkin tried to surrive, they evolved into Wadkin Bursgreen. I never liked the stuff made by wadkin bursgreen and its not worth the effort to machine replacement parts or undergo a full restro.

If your debating a general 650 (or 350) for that matter versus a bursgreen, this question is simple. RUN dont walk from the bursgreen and snag the general 650. Personally, I like traditional right tilt saws better and you can add nice sliders to them as well. A good slider on a right tilt machine virtually eliminates any tidbit of the old woodworkers agrument about Left versus Right tilt. Also remember a right tilt saw has the motor bump out under the right extension table and the left is free. I still think that general makes the finest table saw out there in the unsaw cabinet saw class with the exception of the oliver 232/270 and the wadkin PK.

[craig smith]

http://www.codesmiths.com/shed/workshop/wadkin/

Looks just like this... Price has come down too. ~500USD, After looking at the fence and phase issue I think that I'll just save my money for a General. I'm in Canada so they come around once in a while, although still a rarity in the used market!
Craig,

[Ian Barley]

Looks just like this... Price has come down too. ~500USD, After looking at the fence and phase issue I think that I'll just save my money for a General. I'm in Canada so they come around once in a while, although still a rarity in the used market!
Craig,

If it is that sort of model I would not touch it. As Dev said older Wadkins can go on forever and have quality and mass. Later models are nothing special and you would be better of with a new(er) saw.

[Phil Pritchard]

Wadkin was a large UK based manufacturer....

Ian, Wadkin are still in existence and still make a range of "classic" woodworking machinery in the UK (as opposed to importing Chaiwanese). Just had some spare parts delivered this morning - but they were a tad expensive....

Oh yeah, I like the fence. For a design similar to a Jet Lock it was well built (machined nicely) and I think it would be pretty accurate.

The saw you picture is a 1980s or later Wadkin AGS. Having had one I can say that the fence is a lot more rigid than the Delta fence and comparable to that used on the 1980s and 1990s Altendorf panel saws.

Besides a phase converter also check out the price for a new 3Hp 1 Phase motor. Might be cheaper then the phase converter.

Many AGSs can be easily converted to single phase as the motors ar standard size foot-mounted. You will, however, need to replace the DoL starter (Direct On Line or magnetic starter) as the 3-phase one will be set-up for a lower amperage

Here is my 5 cents worth. First of all, wadkin has many split personalities. The original wadkin, mostly badged as Wadkin Ltd., were extremely heavy and extremely well built machines.

I’ve just found this post, and for your five cents I think you're wrong about Wadkin and Bursgreen, Dev!

Bursgreen was originally set-up in about 1932 by a Mr Burroughs and a Mr. Green (hence "Bursgreen") with the stated intention of manufacturing newer, lighter woodworking machinery designs based on the lightweight machines then appearing in the USA. The principle was to build a fabricated base with cast-iron tops or "thin skin" cast iron framed machine that could be built more or less "on-demand" as opposed to the traditional cast and machine a batch then common to the industry. To that end Bursgreen were certainly successful. By 1947 Burroughs Green had become part of John Sagar & Sons (Halifax, England - established 1875) one if the largest woodworking manufacturing companies in this country - and were selling through a new company, Sagar (Developments) Ltd.

By 1954 Sagar and Bursgreen were trading as Sagar Bursgreen Ltd. and the two factories had been “hived-off” as Bursgreen (Durham) Ltd and Bursgreen (Colne) Ltd. Sagar in turn sold-out to Wadkin in 1956 and by 1959 all production at Sagar's Canal Works in Halifax had ceased with most of the production being transferred to the more modern Bursgreen works at Fence Houses, Houghton-le-Spring in Co. Durham and Trawden, near Colne in Lancashire. Wadkin Bursgreen took over some of the Sagar designs, such as the UO/S 18 x 9in combined planer/thicknesser and the UO thickness planers (which re-used a lot of components from the heavier Sagar GES 24 x 9in combined planer/thicknesser) but in the main the Sagar products were quietly dropped after the take-over as they directly paralleled products from Wadkin’s heavyweight range (these firms were, after all, rivals). There is some indication that in the early period Wadkin intended keep Bursgreen as a separate entity – production of one or two machines such as the Wadkin LM borer were transferred from Wadkin’s factory at Green Lane in Leicester to Bursgreen and rebranded “Bursgreen”, but by 1958 the brand “Wadkin Bursgreen” had appeared and continued to be used on the “lightweight” range for the next 30 or so years. Bursgreen in fact designed and built some heavy mainstream Wadkin products in addition to the lighter fabricated products, including the PP dimension saw (the successor to the PK and similarly all cast iron, including the base and even heavier), the all cast-iron BZB bandsaw (in 30in and 36in wheel sizes and big brother of my MZ), the BAO/S combined planer/thicknesser (up to 24 x 9in), the UX and UR series of pin routers and all of Wadkin’s CNC router production until the closure of Trawden in the 1990s. Some of the lower volume smaller machines such as the LQ recessor were transferred to them as well. However, after 1960 Wadkin never sold their machines as anything other than Wadkin or Wadkin Bursgreen.

So you see, no multiplicity of "split personalities", just two main ranges.

Wadkin were actually the inventors of a series of patented pattern millers and the like which from 1908 onwards were imported into the USA by Oliver so they have had a very long presence in the American market. Following Wadkin chairman J.H.Goddard's extended worldwide sales trip in the mid 1920s Wadkin redesigned their entire range of line-shaft driven machinery to have integrated direct-drive electric motors based on the American model (probably the first woodworking machinery in Europe to so do), emerging in the 1930s as a very progressive machinery company. In fact between 1928 and 1935 brand new machine designs were produced by the draughtsmen at Wadkin at the rate 7 per year and belt machines were dropped from the main catalogue for the first time in 1936, although available to order well into the 1950s. Wadkin continued to have relationships with American manufacturers throughout the 1930s and later, importing the Vonnegut through-feed moulders into the UK before WWII and manufacturing the American Sherrill drum sanders under licence in the 1950s and 1960s whilst simultaneously exporting to the USA. It is therefore hardly surprising that Wadkins come up for sale regularly in your country, at least in industrial site auctions.

As to "run, don't walk from an AGS", well that's your opinion - but a lot of these have survived in industrial usage for years over here. Can the same be said of the Unisaw? I've had two AGSs over the years and they are what they are, a good general purpose machine for the smaller shop (and come in 10in, 12in and 14in sizes), the only thing I would recommend is trying to get one with the later fence type (1977 or so and later) as they are just so much better than the earlier Unisaw-type through fence.

If anyone is ever interested in older Brit iron and needs details, please email me - I have amassed and continue to collect information about the major British makers in the period 1930 to 1980 and might be able to assist with copies of sales (and in some cases technical) literature

Phil

[Tom Andersen]

I have a Wadkin Bursgreen that dates back from the 60's. I bought it cheaply and cleaned the rust away, put on new belts, and painted it. It is very similar to the one you are looking at but has a sliding table. The only disadvantage that I have seen is that I cannot use zero-clearance plates. I had to take it into pieces to transport it and to move it without crane assistance. It ways some 1700 pounds...

The picture is a little dark but I do not have a better one here (traveling...)

[Alan DuBoff]

Wadkins obviously made different grades of saws. The one linked to by Cliff which Craig says is what the saw looks like, is 180 degrees from a Wadkins saw I saw not long ago, which was not even in the same class of machine.

The second description of it doesn't sound too good from Craig, best to keep looking as there are great saws out there. There's some great Ollies and Tannies, and similar out there. Tom, your saw is a much more industrial saw than the one linked above, which looks like a Unisaw clone with a heftier base, but even the feet design looks like it was rip'd off of Delta.

[Phil Pritchard]

I have a Wadkin Bursgreen that dates back from the 60's......

.....The only disadvantage that I have seen is that I cannot use zero-clearance plates.

Hi Tom, that's a BGP with a large slider. They were designed to size plywood and chipboard panels and the edge of the slider runs close-up to the side of the blade so it's hardly surprising that it's impossible to install a zero-clearance plate. Same as you wouldn't expect to put a zero-clearance plate on an Altendorf panel saw, really. Below are images of the BGP from a distributor's catalogue of the mid 1960s:





The BGP illustrated shares the same mechanical components as the AGS illustrated earlier and some of the later ones were offered with a 60in crosscut (as opposed to the 48in standard), up to 16in saw blade and a scoring blade for handling melamine faced boards. It is not a patternmaker's dimension saw, but then it normally only runs a 12in blade. Trying to compare a 12in table saw with an 18in patternmakers saw is pretty pointless IMHO - chalk and cheese. I feel this isn't so much different "quality" as different target use.

Phil

[Tom Andersen]

Phil, thanks for the interesting info on my saw. I have observed many old Wadkin saws without the sled that mine has, and the other parts of these saws are identical to mine. I believe that agrees with what you are saying. There's a large number of old Wadkin saws from the 60s and 70s still in operation in professional workshops out there. The saws seem to live forever. One thing: They are not exactly "sawstop" machines...