Justifying A Major Tool Purchase

[Julie Moriarty]

Every euro machine I've got made my electrician curse.

We electricians are prone to complaining. And gossiping. The often told joke was "The three forms of mass communication are telephone, television and tell an electrician."

[Clint Baxter]

Stability shouldn’t be an issue as long as you don’t decrease the footprint of the base. The leveling feet in the front are actually offset a little from the corners so casters such as Pratel mentions would maintain that footprint.

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You can see the location of the wheel as well as the leveling foot. The A3-31 sits very solidly on these points without any rocking or movement.

Clint

[Jacques Gagnon]

...maybe because electricians are well versed in « current » affairs?🤓

[Martin Wasner]

...maybe because electricians are well versed in « current » affairs?🤓

Don't get me going on electrical puns. Ohm so many, and I don't have the spark for resistance. Watt were you thinking switching that idea on anyways?

[Jacques Gagnon]

Ok Martin you win. From now on I will follow your lead and benefit from your common sense.

[Warren Lake]

I buy some electrical supplies from a well known electrical supplier. The family last name is Watt. I questioned him years ago and it really is. I think the bus was even in his last name many years then sold and he had to started up in another location not using his name.

Martin ive always hooked up with a Hubbel strain relief into the box on the machine. I will say that most of the older Italian machines I have have crap plastic boxes on the outside and on almost all the used machines I buy they are broken. The Hubble strain relief is a bit of a bother to get the cable into at times, ive sliced a bit of the outside jacket slightly and usually throw some spit on there to get it to slide in and to bottom out in the connector still its a strain. They are a bit pricey but I like them and seemed to have a pretty good stock from the past, likely faint when I need to buy more.

[Julie Moriarty]

Yes you're missing 2 things

1) the Hammer feed speed is 6 metres/minute, a lot faster than your lunchbox planer.

2) The depth of cut on the Hammer is going to be much deeper ( you're going to typically take a couple of millimetres off per pass). You'll make way more chips in the same time period.........Rod.

P.S> That doesn't necessarily mean you'll have clogging issues as the Hammer uses a 120mm port (5").

I was trying to find the feed rate of the Delta 22-540 so I could compare it to the A3 31. One site said 22.6 ft/min or 6.9m/min, faster than the A3 31.

In this picture you can see what I had set up in the old shop, including a visual on the distance to the DC.

None of the PVC fittings were glued in so there was probably some loss there and the change over from PVC to metal wasn't the tightest fit but I did duct tape those connections. With the above setup there was always some chips that didn't get sucked up by the DC. I don't remember seeing any evidence of them hurting the finish of the boards though.

As for how much I'd take off a board, I would have complete control over that. So it looks like the DC issue may be workable.

FWIW, in the above picture I was planing about two dozen boards, 6"-9" wide and over 9' long. Never once did the planer overload trip or bog down and stop. After what I've seen from the DW735, I have no confidence it would perform as well. The new one is supposed to arrive today.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Julie, I think you'll find that that is the no load speed on the lunchbox, they're a lot slower than the A3-31 in use.

You are correct in that you will determine cut depth, however once you have a real planer you will be taking deep cuts to save time and cutters.........Have fun with the A3, you're going to love it......Rod.

[Julie Moriarty]

Stability shouldn’t be an issue as long as you don’t decrease the footprint of the base. The leveling feet in the front are actually offset a little from the corners so casters such as Pratel mentions would maintain that footprint.

You can see the location of the wheel as well as the leveling foot. The A3-31 sits very solidly on these points without any rocking or movement.

Clint

Thank you, Clint. And thank you again for answering my PM. The footprint dimensions you supplied - 630mm, (24-3/4”), across the front and 490mm, (a little over 19-1/4”) - eased my concerns about installing the wheel axle parallel to the width. But I still have some concern about the single point pivot of the lifting bar. Each use will require a 90 degree turn before setting it back down. If that thing ever went over, that would be bad.

I was looking at the Portamate 3500. That would seem to work pretty well for my situation. But I have no idea how I could lift a 700 lb machine onto that base. At the last shop I used a ratcheting lift secured to the bottom of the floor trusses to pick up my 300 lb bandsaw and set it into a similar mobile base. That was a bear!

Thinking back on work, I've been involved in moving plenty of transformers and switchgear many times heaver than the A3 31. We'd use a Johnson bar to pry them up and put what we called "tanks" under the corners to move the gear into place. Those tanks were amazing! But the four corners of the PM 3500 are connected by square bar stock that encloses the interior space where the machine goes, so the entire machine would have to be lifted up and set back down in the PM 3500.

When I started this thread, I thought money was the only issue. Was I wrong!

[Julie Moriarty]

I just looked back on Clint's pictures and it dawned on me if I used Hammer's mobile kit with the lifting handle, installed 90 degrees to Clint's, would the handle hit the planer bed when trying to lift that end of the machine off the floor?

[Julie Moriarty]

... however once you have a real planer you will be taking deep cuts ...

Oh yeah, if only for the sheer satisfaction of being able to do it!

[Bryan Lisowski]

Julie, congrats on the new machine. If you order the base first and have it assembled, getting the machine on shouldn't be to big of an issue. You can shimmy the J/P off the pallet and onto the base.

[Brian W Evans]

I was looking at the Portamate 3500. That would seem to work pretty well for my situation. But I have no idea how I could lift a 700 lb machine onto that base. At the last shop I used a ratcheting lift secured to the bottom of the floor trusses to pick up my 300 lb bandsaw and set it into a similar mobile base. That was a bear!

Thinking back on work, I've been involved in moving plenty of transformers and switchgear many times heaver than the A3 31. We'd use a Johnson bar to pry them up and put what we called "tanks" under the corners to move the gear into place. Those tanks were amazing! But the four corners of the PM 3500 are connected by square bar stock that encloses the interior space where the machine goes, so the entire machine would have to be lifted up and set back down in the PM 3500.

Julie,

I put a PM 3500 under a Minimax FS41 Classic J/P without lifting it. Did it right on the pallet, then rolled the machine down a shop-made ramp onto the floor. My father (in his 70s) and I did it without breaking a sweat. IIRC, my Minimax weighs about 10% more than the A3-31.

Here's the process: Use a pry bar to lift one corner of the machine at a time and assemble the mobile base corners and stretchers under the machine. Once the corners and stretchers are assembled under the machine, pry the mobile base up and put the wheels on. Definitely a two person job but not difficult. Unlike many mobile bases, the 3500 has threaded holes for the bolts connecting the stretchers to the corners - there are no nuts to tighten on the inside. This makes assembling around the machine possible, or at least easier.

One last thing: I think I used 2x4s to lift the machine so I wouldn't damage it, but I definitely used an iron bar to lift the mobile base.

[Jim Becker]

Julie, if the base you are considering can be assembled flush or nearly flush to the floor, you can raise one end of the tool, block things up, slide the parts in place and tput things together before jacking and removing the blocking, lowering, etc. You may even be able to incorporate this process into the work you'll do to remove the tool from its pallet upon receipt.

I have a base I use with my lathe that's setup that way. In the very, very rare situation where I need to move the tool, I just jack up one end, place that side of the base, lower the tool, jack up the other side of the tool, place the other half of the base and go from there.

[Rod Sheridan]

I just looked back on Clint's pictures and it dawned on me if I used Hammer's mobile kit with the lifting handle, installed 90 degrees to Clint's, would the handle hit the planer bed when trying to lift that end of the machine off the floor?

Hi, I rotated the axis of movement 90 degrees ( as you saw in the photographs I posted).

I don't have an issue with that.

The only issue you might have is that when you couple the handle to the machine, you might have to have it forward or back of the table, until you lift it, in other words, it doesn't matter........Rod.