A Martin T23 for me.

[Brian Holcombe]

Nice work, Mark! Much more nice and neat!

I’m constantly amazed by how much wiring is in some of these things. A lot of it seems like it can be simplified but that doesn’t seem like the German engineering approach.

[Patrick Kane]

Been a while, been collecting some old 'arn. Joe and Patrick posted up their absolutely beautiful restorations/modifications of their respective T23's. I was on the hunt for a Baurele shaper at auction that I missed (it went to the moon in terms of pricing) and so I was hunting around and found this T23.

I think i followed that same auction with the shaper. Interesting piano maker with a few very solid machines. I almost made a post after the auction's conclusion to ask, "what am i missing that this shaper is $15,000+?". What am i missing though? I get Baurele is somewhat rare in the states, but if you are that interested in a collector's piece, why not source one direct from Germany? I assume Baurele, Kolle, Martin, Hoffman, etc. are not that uncommon in Germany on the used market. I remember Joe commenting that most self-respecting shops almost throw away 30+ year old machines out of embarrassment.

[Joe Calhoon]

I also like the electrical box outside. But would agree with Mark in the case of the Maka STV that separate box with the big cord is a pain! On my to do list is upgrading the electrics on my vintage machines. I really want a brake on the T17 saw. I'm used to the nice braking action of the T72 and it is a great safety feature. The T23 shaper not so bad with the for brake when needed.

[Brian Holcombe]

Patrick, it was a great machine that had a few nice upgrades but without a sliding table I was frankly baffled. I thought I was a sure winner in that auction but someone was bound and determined to have it. It’s heavier than the Martin by a few hundred pounds but I don’t know what that actually translates to, from what I can tell the Martin seems plenty heavy enough but more weight is generally better.

He had a 1.25” spindle made for it at a very high cost and it was a 230v machine.

[Brian Holcombe]

Sneaking away a minute here and there to work on this machine. Starting to get out of the aesthetic and into the actual machine setup.

I haven’t yet trammed the spindle but that’ll be coming up shortly. Setting up the machine for Aigner fences and making them square and parallel.



The fence was shimmed out heavily so I suspected it would be pretty far out. I wasn’t disappointed, so most likely it’s going to see some machining work on the Bridgeport but I could be tempted to shim it again if it calls for fewer shims than were originally there.




After that I located the Panhans sliding table.

finally looking like something.

[Brian Holcombe]

Finished up the feeder and installed some tags from Tom Utley. Tom makes beautiful tags, I sent dimensions and he copied the sticker but made it on .040” Aluminum. Very happy with the tags and Tom’s service is fantastic.

Cleaned up the feeder stand, this was packed solid with ancient grease. Many folks seem to ignore the fact that oil fittings are meant for oil and not grease, so the thing doesn’t work well after a while.

Had some fun polishing the wheels to remove the dings and gouges.

Gun blued many things.

There is over 2mm space on the acme lead screw shoulder so I’m going to put an oil embedded bronze thrust washer into the assembly, it will take up 2mm of that space and reduce the wear on the aluminum. Aluminum is not a great sliding surface against steel so I’m surprised it didn’t already have a bearing. The underside of the upper hand wheel carries a lot of weight when the feeder is being adjusted.

This stand is beautifully heavy.

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[Jim Becker]

That's really cleaning up nicely.

[John Pendery]

Finished up the feeder and installed some tags from Tom Utley. Tom makes beautiful tags, I sent dimensions and he copied the sticker but made it on .040” Aluminum. Very happy with the tags and Tom’s service is fantastic.

Cleaned up the feeder stand, this was packed solid with ancient grease. Many folks seem to ignore the fact that oil fittings are meant for oil and not grease, so the thing doesn’t work well after a while.

Great tip on tags from Tom Utley! Just took a look at his website and looks like he does excellent work.

I ran into the same issue with my T17 with years of grease pumped into the oil fittings. Threads like this inspire me to do a full restoration one day when I find the time.

Looking great so far!

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, Jim!

John, I was happy that no one greased the oiled fittings on the machine itself thankfully. I picked up a Hapfo lathe over the summer and someone had greased the ways. They even replaced one of the oil cup fittings with a grease zerk. Thankfully they stopped using it. The shop didn’t really have anyone comfortable with running a copy lathe so they got rid of it. After I went through it I realized why. The spindle support was off center from the spindle and so they just opened up the gibs to allow the copy unit to float. It still killed the spindle bearings (more than once, the set I replaced were replacements). So I had to clean all the grease out, and reposition the eccentric dowel on the support. After which I replaced the spindle bearings. Doesn’t surprise me that no one went to reposition the dowels on the support, I’m amazed it left the factory so far out of spec. It could barely cut a ragged dowel when I got it.

This is super common with WWing machines, I guess a lot happens in 40 years but when I worked in the machine shop we had stuff that was older and everything was kept well, it was easy enough, shot of oil every use, grease occasionally and change the coolant routinely. Something sounds wrong, repair or replace.

[John Pendery]

Brian, that’s exactly what someone did on the T17 I picked up a while back. A couple oil cup fittings were replaced with zerks and the old grease was pretty caked up and solidified. I did a quick and dirty cleaning and once over of the machine, but almost immediately wound up using it daily for ripping and running shaper cutters as it just runs great. I plan to do a thorough restoration at some point with new oil lines run to a lubrication pump, but not sure when I’ll find the time. I only hope to get halfway to Joe and Mark’s immaculate T17 rebuilds!

Glad you were able to sort out the Hapfo. That’s a machine I’d love to own. I do just enough turning for historic restoration that a copy lathe is my good deal radar.

Keep us updated on your T23. That’s a sweet machine.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, John! T17 is a nice saw, definitely on my radar should I get a bit more space. Mark's build is incredible, really appreciate it even more after digging in to the T23. Joe did a beautiful job on his as well. These are like restoring old cars, doing one soup to nuts is enough to get it out of your system for a couple years before your ready for another visit to ancient grease.

[Larry Edgerton]

What I want to know is at 1900#m how did you stand it up against the wall? Dude, are you the Hulk?

[Joe Calhoon]

Yea, on my 17 the PO put in Zerks and huge lines for Grease. Was quite a chore to get back to original!
Right on about the visit to ancient grease Brian😁.
Except it took me less than 2 years to forget the pain. I think the South Bend lathe restoration may have cured me for life!

[Brian Holcombe]

The lathe looks great, was worth the pain and suffering! I think we need a social media campaign for oil fittings, it's ruined many a machine. Unfortunately the typical alternative to the wrong lubrication for WWing machines is no lubrication at all.

Once I recover from this one, I've been eyeing the super surfacer for at least a refreshed paint job but I want to keep the original hammertone paint and it's been a real PITA to find. I'm going to try mixing dark green and silver and see if I can get close. Someone mushed up the back panel on that machine, so i want to bang it out and repaint it. Outside of that the machine is in good shape so a full restoration isn't required.

The super surfacer was a pretty decent investment, so it'd be nice to have it fully look the part with a refreshed paint job.

[Bill Dufour]

On my to do list is upgrading the electrics on my vintage machines. I really want a brake on the T17 saw. I'm used to the nice braking action of the T72 and it is a great safety feature. The T23 shaper not so bad with the for brake when needed.[/QUOTE]
If this is a three phase motor it is easy to add a vfd to give electric baking action with no extra parts. It would probably be easier to swap in a three phase motor and vfd then to add a mechanical brake to a existing single phase motor.
Bill D.