A Martin T23 for me.

[Brian Holcombe]

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

[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.

[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.


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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.

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[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.

[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.