Question for Lou Sansone

[Peter Gavin]

Lou,

Seller 60615 in the place which shall not be named has a couple of pieces of 'Old Iron' for sale. I've put a bid in on the cabinet saw which I don't expect to win but I was wondering if you had an opinion on the quality of the pieces offered.

Thanks

Peter

[Mike Cutler]

Don't know what Lou will say, but he has a lot of nice looking machines for sale.
No worries from me though', I'm not going to bid on any of them.

[Rob Russell]

Of the 2 saws the seller has for sale, the Walker-Turner is a far better saw. If you don't mind having the broken piece fabricated by a local machine shop, you'll have a much better saw.

JMO.

[lou sansone]

I agree with rob. the wt is probably a better saw then the modern contractors saw, but I have not see one in person. IMHO WT stuff is not the highest quality old iron. Their real claim to fame was the RAM drill press that delta bought the rights to. It was really a massive beast for a DP and the best quality tool they made ( they also made a radial arm saw with a similar type of construction, but it was overkill ). Rob just picked up a rockwell version which is the best one out there now. I believe for the money you will do pretty good with this saw, but I wouldn't pay more than about 200 for it. If you are really interested in the old iron TS then you will have to look at another whole breed of machines such as oliver, northfield, moak, tannewitz, whitney and yates. best wishes

lou

[Dev Emch]

I have to agree with Lou. WT was one of 300ish makers in north american history and did a pretty good job. But the broken item is typical of this type of machine! The castings just were not that substantial. Should you win this auction, PM me and I can make you that part for a very reasonable sum. But I personally would be looking for an oliver, northfield, yates, martin, tanny, whitney, etc. Many of these saws were aimed at competeing with the delta unisaw and its particular "layout". The oliver 232 is in my opinion, the ultimate unisaw type table saw. As you go larger, the layout changes and the size changes. Yes, an oliver 88 is a table saw as is a martin T-17 or T-73. But they are completely different and have their own unique feature sets. The most significant complaint I have run across with respect to the unisaw type tablesaw is the breakage of parts and in particular, trunions and trunion support brackets. Hope this helps.

[Peter Gavin]

Thanks for all the advise. I put in a pretty low maximum bid and if I get it I guess I'm not out all that much. Do you think if I put the 5hp (I know, really 3) Harbor Freight compressor motor in it it would do for a while?

Peter

[lou sansone]

The reason I like buying old iron is that many of the older machines were just better made than the new ones. I know that there is a raging debate about european designed saws, but that is a design issue, not a fabrication issue. In the case of well designed older saws, many were simply made more substantial than the new versions. The maching and the castings were of much better quality then now days. Dev has given long lectures on the seasoning of cast iron and the plaining of the surfaces as compared to blanchard grinding done on many of them now days. Having said all of that it does not automatically mean that an older machine will be made or designed better than a new one. In the case of the WT I would wait until you get it if you do and then take a look at exactly how well made it is. If it is "so so " then I wouldn't go crazy with it. If you think you can hook up a 3 hp motor than that would probably be ok.

lou