It all started last winter. A guy posted on the Neanderthal list that he had this big jointer in his way in his shop. "Hey", I thought, "I'm looking for a big jointer." So I sent him a PM. A couple weeks later my brother and I made the trip from Wilmington to New York to pick up this beast of a machine.
Well, I'm finally making some progress on getting it up and running, and thought I'd share my experience here. Mainly this is for Ed, the guy who had it in his way.
So here you go:
Loading the machine onto my brother's flatbed.
We used these, the coolest things ever. Called tank rollers, they can handle a whole lot of weight and made the trip from the garage to the bed of the truck almost easy.
Off the truck in my shop. The top's pretty rusty.
Bought a motor from a guy on the OWWM site, a 5 horse Leeson. I went single phase even though I have 3 phase in my shop. You never know what the future holds. Got the mount from Grainger and bolted it to the leg. The casting is about 1/2" thick.
Babbit bearings. This has been an adventure, as I've never dealt with them before. These seem to be in good shape...I guess.
Here's the gibs. I think the machine was stored in a wet environment with the one on the right facing up. I had to cut 5 of the bolts off in order to get it out. Took the whole kit and caboodle to a local machine shop and they're making new gibs and screws for me.
And finally, the cutter head. This is the slot that had the rusty gib in it.
At this point, I've installed new bearings in the motor, installed new pulleys on the motor and cutter head, reinstalled the cutter head, gotten a magnetic switch, wired it up and wired a 30A outlet for it, gotten belts and have the cutter head spinning. It'll be another month untill I have the gibs and bolts, so I won't be able to use it yet. I didn't realise that I don't have any pics beyond what I've posted. I'll have to take some and post them. There's still some bugs to work out, like figuring out how much oil is supposed to be in the bottom babbit reservoir, but I'm really excited to get it running and using it. It's gonna be a long month.
Thanks Ed,
Paul
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