williams&hussey clone impression

[tod evans]

yesterday i was in the griz. store in springfield and saw for the first time a w&h clone in the flesh. obviously it looks identical to the real mccoy so i pulled off the chip breaker/discharge chute and the casting appeared to be slightly different in shape and was coarser than the w&h. the cutterhead looked to be identical? but i did not have tools with me to measure the bolt spacing or thread pitch. finish of the bed was on par with the w&h, same guide clamping etc. the stand is what really stood out! w&h could learn from the importers on this one, much more substantial! looking at the feed transmission it appears as if the aftermarket servo feed would be a direct bolt on. again i didn`t measure! in the end my opinion is for 1200$ less than the w&h this machine may be a serious contender in the small moulder market.. if in fact cutters for the w&h are direct bolt-ins it is a very serious contender.....my .02 tod

[Shelley Bolster]

Thanks Tod for sharing your opinion and observations. Seems after some convincing by a certain someone, I have now added a moulder to my ever growing "wish list". Now that you, a W&H owner, have had to give the Grizzly a thumbs up from what you have seen of it so far, I might just have to add that to the "must have list". ;)

[John Miliunas]

yesterday i was in the griz. store in springfield and saw for the first time a w&h clone in the flesh. obviously it looks identical to the real mccoy so i pulled off the chip breaker/discharge chute and the casting appeared to be slightly different in shape and was coarser than the w&h. the cutterhead looked to be identical? but i did not have tools with me to measure the bolt spacing or thread pitch. finish of the bed was on par with the w&h, same guide clamping etc. the stand is what really stood out! w&h could learn from the importers on this one, much more substantial! looking at the feed transmission it appears as if the aftermarket servo feed would be a direct bolt on. again i didn`t measure! in the end my opinion is for 1200$ less than the w&h this machine may be a serious contender in the small moulder market.. if in fact cutters for the w&h are direct bolt-ins it is a very serious contender.....my .02 tod

That's good to hear and, I'd be especially interested in knowing if the knives are interchangeable! I still like my W&H and, it was a bit :rolleyes: less $$ than the Grizz.:D If you're interested, you can check out the explanation of that statement via these threads:

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=6180

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=47075#post47075

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=6549&highlight=restoration

Not shown in those pics is a modified base I made, which eliminates the need for the metal guide nearest the posts. The particle board/melamine base I made has its own guide near the posts, which in turn, automatically indexes the right side and I just need to clamp on the left side to keep the material in line and go. Works slick!:) :cool:

[Kevin Murdock]

Hi Tod,

Which Grizzly model are you refering to? The W&H appears to be $1,899.00 on their website and the only moulder I can find on the Grizzly website is a ShopFox for $995.

Just wondering where the $1200 difference is, and if there is a Grizzly version comming out soon.

/Kevin

[tod evans]

kevin, the dollar figure was off the top of my head, not for shopping comparison. the moulder i looked at was for sale in the griz. showroom, it was white in color, i have no idea if they intend to paint one green? next time i`m up that way i`ll take some knifes from my w&h and see if they fit. i only wrote this post stating my impression,not as a side by side comparison or tool review... please take it for what it`s worth....it`s only my opinion.. tod

[Keith Outten]

Thanks Todd for the heads up, I will make the trip to the Grizzly web site and see if there is more information there, I'm interested in a small moulding machine if the price is right :)

[Richard Wolf]

The molder is a Shop Fox. Grizzly does have some Shop Fox stuff in their showroom. You can also purchase it from any Shop Fox dealer. I have looked at it and was impressed, but it's not high on my list of needs. They also make the elliptical jig for curved molding for $275.00.

Richard

[Shiraz Balolia]

i have no idea if they intend to paint one green? next time i`m up that way i`ll take some knifes from my w&h and see if they fit. tod

1) No, only available in Shop Fox.
2) As far as we know, the W & H knives fit in the Shop Fox.

[Dev Emch]

The W&H moulder has been on the market for at least 50 some odd years. Its made up in Wilton, New Hampshire. This machine was made for use in job sites for the most part. As a moulder, it leaves quite a bit to be desired. For doing some light planing work and simple, one cutter profile work on the site, its an excellent machine. That is why many of these were motor driven by single phase motors. In general, these are neat, tiny and lightweight moulders.

However, there is nothing that a W&H moulder can do that cannot be done just as well using a full sized, industrial single spindle shaper equiped with a beefy spindle and a good power feeder. I will pit a fully equiped hofmann, martin, oliver, whitney, greenlee, ekstrom carlson or yates shaper up against the W&H moulder any day, any time. But, nothing beats the portability and in field versatility of the W&H.

Now, the one light weight moulder that I have a great deal of respect for is the Logosol Moulder. This is actually a planer with a cast iron, fully planed table equiped with both top and bottom full length cutter heads. There is one fixed side cutter and one movable side cutter. Each side cutter can takes a 30 mm flurry head which can use standard corregated stock knives. The machine is equipped with three motors in either single phase or three phase plus the outfeed system which may have its own independent motor. The whole thing weighs about 800 or so pounds. This machine can function as a 4 sided moulder, a two sided planer, a single sided planer or a shaper doing moulding cuts. Coping cuts are a problem. What I really like about this moulder is that its small and it has a reasonable power budget.

Most full size moulders weigh more than an army tank and often have independent motors driving each spindle. Mattisons for example often weigh about 10,000 or so pounds. The motors used are often 15 or 20 HP each! That means you have a machine that weighs more than a handful of pickup trucks using a power budget in excess of 50 or 60 horse power.

There are smaller moulders out there such as the oliver 202 which was not designed nor manufactured by oliver. They picked it up to compliment their product line. These tend to be more trouble than their worth and your better off using the W&H type moulder. The logosol moulder on the other hand is different in that its based on a planer's running gear instead of a moulder's running gear. This makes the logosol easy to set up. Setting up a full size moulder is no easy task. Even a modern wynig is not as easy as it sounds. There are lots of adjustments to be made. Cutter heads need to go in and out and up and down. Pressure rollers need to be adjusted to compensate for trimmed down material downsteam of respective cutters, etc. etc. The end result speaks for itself. The finished stock is either straight and nice or wavy and curvy as if a drunk driver had been driving.

In everything I have seen so far, I have to admit that I am not rearing to get a moulder. For custom, one off stuff, I find the shaper and tenoner to be very handy. And the moulder work I need done can be done by the shaper. Having said that, I do like the vonnegut moulders. This hunk of old iron was named after the family who owned the company and one of the family members who worked there went on to become a famous author. Kurt Vonnegut. You guys may have heard of him.... At any rate, Diel bought out vonnegut and evolved the designs a bit. So a modern diel still has similarities to the old vonneguts from which they came from. I happen to like the V-6 or V-8. The V-8 with stock motors is about all I can run. The V-12 is too much of a power hog. But the logosol is much easier to set up, much easier to move and much cheaper to own and run. And for on site use, I do like the W&H moulder when I cannot move my pig of a shaper.

[tod evans]

thanks for your response shiraz, since you`re watching this thread i`ll offer to give the folks here a side by side comparison if you wouldn`t mind turning loose of a machine for a couple of days? i own a w&h and have used it to manufacture radiused mouldings on a wholesale basis for quite a few years so i am very familiar with the machine. as i stated earlier the shape of the chipbreaker/dust chute looks to be somewhat different and that may affect the machines performance one way or another? by and large it appears as though you have done a fine job and will be a major contender in this niche market. are there plans for a d/c servo feed motor on the board? imho this aftermarket add on is the best thing since sliced bread! .....................dev, when cutting a profile on curved blanks the small diameter head on these machines is indispensable! i own a shaper that is capable of swinging a head over 12" with 6+" under the nut equiped with a feeder and even with the smaller diameter heads it is not able to do radiuses as well as the w&h. plus the set-up on the w&h takes far less time than on the shaper. some weeks i will get orders for several different diameter radiuses in a couple different profiles so the time savings in setups alone justifies the machine to me, plus it frees the shaper up for fingerjointing the radius segments. .02 tod

[tod evans]

john, i just read your threads on your w&h........nice job on the restoration! imho you`ve got one heck of a nice little moulder, and for pennies on the dollar. i think the more you use it the more you`ll like it, these guys are the perfect low priced compliment to a shaper. fyi you can buy heads for the shaper that will accept w&h knifes...this will let you do curves in both directions under limited cieling height..enjoy. tod

[Scott Banbury]

I know several folks that run W&H style moulders for radiused moldings and they seem to be perfect in this application.

The other low-cost options for face molding--13" planer/molders--don't seem to be worth a hill of legumes.

Stepping up, the Woodmaster system is very versatile in its ability to gang rip, drum sand and wide plane. I haven't seen it in operation but the router attachment for edge profiling is intriguing. Micron also offers this option on their radius shaper/router for much more (best of Hussey and Woodmaster?)

I've been studying moulding options intently for the past year as I end up with a lot of lower grade rift and QS oak when breaking down 60"+ logs for wide clear QS boards.

2 weeks ago, I almost cut a hole in my roof to install an 80+ year old SA Woods 4"x12" capacity 4 head moulder that would have come with the entire segmented knife library for virtually the cost of having it moved to my shop. I backed out of the deal because I would have needed to install a straightline ripsaw and double sided palner to feed it.

I've since settled back on the idea of the Logosol (10" capacity) or a new player on the market, Planer Pro. Planer Pro was a dealer for Logosol but decided that offering the same machine in 12" capacity would be good. Logosol didn't want to do it so they had a Taiwanese shop copy the Logosol with increased capacity. It will be available in February.

The best thing about the Logosol variety over the Woods/Vonnegut styles is their ability to use well toleranced rough stock such as we get off our Woodmizer.

If only I could talk Shiraz into making a Grizzly version of the Planer Pro, I could keep all my tools a matching Green--the color of my 36" American BS is already about the same shade. :cool: