A Martin T23 for me.

[Joe Calhoon]

Nice Brian! I was looking for one of those when I ran across my double spindle Unitronix. Love the Uni, but still. You going to leave it green or paint it Blue like Joe?

In hindsight Larry I probably would have matched the original green. I realized this when I did the T17 but figured I better stick with the Wasser Blue at that point!😁

[Mark Hennebury]

Nice bit of gear there Brian. Tilting spindle too!

[Larry Edgerton]

In hindsight Larry I probably would have matched the original green. I realized this when I did the T17 but figured I better stick with the Wasser Blue at that point!

Well Joe, I for one LOVE that blue! But hey, I once painted a 12/14 with flames, so my opinion may be suspect.

[Jared Sankovich]

Nice acquisition. It will be interesting to see how it measures up to your standards.

Out of curiosity what is the total travel on the quill?

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, Mark! Joe, I love the blue and it looks great in your shop around all the newer machines that are blue.

Thanks, Jared, so far I think it's going to live up to them pretty well. I'm at the point where I'm getting ready to start checking and setting. I'm going to check the table for flat, I have moderated expectations for how flat the tables of this era are, but we'll see. If it isn't flat, I'm not sure I'm all that worried about it since I plan to put the panhans sliding table on it and if shimmed right that should resolve minor flatness issues.

Of course, it would be great if it is flat since that makes squaring everything to it a lot easier. I can set square pretty easily with the 90* stop in the front to back direction, but side to side will require shimming the table which is not that big of a deal. After that's accomplished I'll install the sliding table. The table has markings on it for where the fence is at a parallel position to the front of the machine. I'll be working off of those for the basic setting of the sliding table. The fine adjustments of course can be done with setup blocks to ensure parallel positioning and I'll square the tenon table fence to that.

I bought large tooling for it, so getting the spindle into range for runout is a priority but I figure I'll get the oil system working first and test it on the old bearings.

I have a Hitachi VFD for the machine, so I'm building up the courage to remove the existing wiring and install the VFD. I plan to wire it to the high range and setup push button switches for high (60hz) and low (30hz). I plan to run large diameter tooling, so I don't know if this is an unwise decision but my cursory research suggests this is a good approach to resolving the high/low in a modern fashion.

The feeder will also need to run off a VFD, So I plan to have two of these units inside the control box. The feeder also has a high and low, I'm not sure how I will approach that just yet.

The existing wiring has been gone through by someone a few times and looks pretty beat up so, I suspect I'd be re-wiring the machine regardless.

Nice thing about such a setup is that it's programmable and can slow down faster. A future owner (or if I move to a place with actual 3ph) has the ability to run it on 3ph with the VFD with some very simple wiring changes.

[Jared Sankovich]

Thanks, Mark! Joe, I love the blue and it looks great in your shop around all the newer machines that are blue.

Thanks, Jared, so far I think it's going to live up to them pretty well. I'm at the point where I'm getting ready to start checking and setting. I'm going to check the table for flat, I have moderated expectations for how flat the tables of this era are, but we'll see. If it isn't flat, I'm not sure I'm all that worried about it since I plan to put the panhans sliding table on it and if shimmed right that should resolve minor flatness issues.

Of course, it would be great if it is flat since that makes squaring everything to it a lot easier. I can set square pretty easily with the 90* stop in the front to back direction, but side to side will require shimming the table which is not that big of a deal. After that's accomplished I'll install the sliding table. The table has markings on it for where the fence is at a parallel position to the front of the machine. I'll be working off of those for the basic setting of the sliding table. The fine adjustments of course can be done with setup blocks to ensure parallel positioning and I'll square the tenon table fence to that.

I bought large tooling for it, so getting the spindle into range for runout is a priority but I figure I'll get the oil system working first and test it on the old bearings.

I have a Hitachi VFD for the machine, so I'm building up the courage to remove the existing wiring and install the VFD. I plan to wire it to the high range and setup push button switches for high (60hz) and low (30hz). I plan to run large diameter tooling, so I don't know if this is an unwise decision but my cursory research suggests this is a good approach to resolving the high/low in a modern fashion.

The feeder will also need to run off a VFD, So I plan to have two of these units inside the control box. The feeder also has a high and low, I'm not sure how I will approach that just yet.

The existing wiring has been gone through by someone a few times and looks pretty beat up so, I suspect I'd be re-wiring the machine regardless.

Nice thing about such a setup is that it's programmable and can slow down faster. A future owner (or if I move to a place with actual 3ph) has the ability to run it on 3ph with the VFD with some very simple wiring changes.

I'm running all my feeders off of vfds (well almost all I still have 2 single phase feeders). I saw no good way to wire the 2 speed motor directly to the vfd and switch between, so I didn't. The vfd is routed through the rotary switch. Ideally I'd have a remote start stop/hz control on the feeder itself, but it works well as is.

I would think it might be easier to keep the motor winding switch down stream of the vfd and generally keep the motor closer to 50/60hz than running it at 30/60.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, Jared.

I'm reading also that many people setup these constant HP two speed motors on the low wiring then overspeed it for the high. So, not sure what the best approach is there.

For the feeder, I think I'll do just that. I run a bridgeport like that and as long as you are careful not to flip the switch while it's running, no big deal.

The motor windings are currently on two separate starters.

Spoke to Malcolm, got a plan to use the low speed windings and overdrive them for high speed.

[Larry Edgerton]

I'm running all my feeders off of vfds (well almost all I still have 2 single phase feeders). I saw no good way to wire the 2 speed motor directly to the vfd and switch between, so I didn't. The vfd is routed through the rotary switch. Ideally I'd have a remote start stop/hz control on the feeder itself, but it works well as is.

I would think it might be easier to keep the motor winding switch down stream of the vfd and generally keep the motor closer to 50/60hz than running it at 30/60.

I put a VFD on my Clausing DP with a two speed motor and it works fine. I used Automation Direct and they told me how to wire it but with the rule being do not change speeds while it is running. Shut it down, change the speed on the drum switch and restart. Been many years and still fine.

[Brian Holcombe]

The feeder is finished, awaiting new wheels.


IMG_1775.jpg

I started to attach Aigner fences to the shaper hood but ultimately decided that the micro adjusters and the tilt feature needed restoration. The painted over hardware just kills me.

Took a minute to figure out how it comes off the hood. The top cover I’m going to fill and repaint grey.

Cold bluing the steel parts.

IMG_1777.jpg

Keeping the light green paint.

[Brian Holcombe]

I don’t mind a touch of character on these parts, just making them work well and not have paint all over the machined parts and surfaces. There is just ages of goo and slime mixed with sawdust to unpack from everything I touch, in a way I think it preserved the machine.
IMG_1780.jpg
IMG_1780.jpg

IMG_1786.jpg
IMG_1792.jpg

The knurling was in pretty good shape, only been flattened a little, that’s impressive for 40 years in a wood shop. The factory setup on these is perhaps pretty loose, I tightened it up quite a bit so that the setting feels smooth and precise.

The aluminum tags look crappy even after having been cleaned up, so maybe I’ll find a way to improve upon that. German machinery in this era is both impressively hefty and so well made and also occasionally disappointing in how they do certain things. These crappy aluminum tags are one of those areas. These should have been etched in along with the markings around the hand wheels. I’ve learned that it is simply the character of a time and place and the decision-making that goes along with that.

IMG_1789.jpg
IMG_1790.jpg

The top flap for the hood was at some point broken and welded, then painted over. I knocked the weld down then painted it again. The silver plate needed a refresh on the Hammertone paint prior to getting some new tags from Tom
Utley.

IMG_1788.jpg

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Neat bit of history, Maurice. Amazing we can know these small details about folks lived so long ago.

The old timers feel less and less long ago every day. I find it hard to believe that the evolution of power tools happened so fast. Power from animals, wind and water, to wood and coal fired steam, then oil, gas, & electric, all in 100 to 150 years. Now on to CNC, Laser, and digital 3D printing. Amazing.

[Warren Lake]

old guy started farming with two Oxen. Hes the taller the other kids, the mom passing by on a bike wanted a photo with her son. He said the oxen listened to him but not the owner.

For machines i remember him saying Germans made the best machines then Italians next. If he was still here id tell him first there is often no best with most things but clearly he missed the british in there. I get it the biggest shop he ran had tons of machines and Copper and Horton sold mostly SCM stuff. Id ask a lot more questions now, he left too soon. When he learned they were on a line belt and had just converted most to Elec. If he was still here now id show him Wadkin, Robinson and Brookman to show him others made German quality as well.

This was the original John Deere

img524.jpg

[Brian Holcombe]

Wadkin built some fantastic machines, I was lucky enough to use Chris Hall’s Wadkin PP and it was an exceptional machine, especially so after he had the sliding table planed. The PP can have an 18” blade lower below the table.

We don’t get much in the way of Japanese machines in the US but I’ve been really impressed by the ones I’ve used (and own). Japanese machining in my experience is extremely accurate.

It’s really difficult to pick a ‘best’, that seems to really depend on the manufacturer and machine type more then country of origin when it come to the top stuff.

One of the things I’ve grown to really like about German machines is that they mount a big electrical box to the machine and everything runs through it. Japanese and English machines tend to bury it in the casting, which looks cleaner and it much more aesthetically pleasing but very hard to work in. It’s nice to pull up a chair to the big stupid looking electrical box and work on it without getting cramps. Now everything basically requires that so they all have it, but German machine have had those forever. Old Deckel Mills used to have a cabinet that came with the machine, their Japanese counterpart Riken had a machine mounted on/off switch.

[Mark Hennebury]

Hah...that's the thing that i hate about the German machines, the big ugly electrical box stuck on the outside, like it was and after thought.
The Maka STV models had a separate box mounted on a pedestal and bout 15' of cables, seemed like a silly mess to me, so I usually gut all of the electrics, throw away the pedestal box, cut a hole in the side of the base, weld in a new box and make a new electrical panel to go in it, nice, neat, tidy and compact.


33026A.jpg 33026B.jpgRebuil1.jpg stv19a.jpg SAM_0587.jpgSAM_0620.jpg SAM_0636.jpg SAM_4394.JPG

[Mark Hennebury]

I make and test the panels on the bench first. plus I have a lift that can raise the machine up to a comfortable height to work on the electrical also, which is a lot easier on the knees.

SAM_4462.jpg SAM_4501.jpg SAM_4538.jpg SAM_4549.jpg SAM_4551.jpg SAM_4553.jpg SAM_4572-001.jpg