A Martin T23 for me.

[Brian Holcombe]

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.

Previous owner is a lifelong woodworker, loves old tools and had enough machines that he simply parked this one in the corner and didn't bother with it. I suspect some of the intricacies of this machine caused enough of a headache that he didn't want to run it. The big one being the same issue Patrick ran into, which was to deal with the slow drip oil pump for the bearings.

512303

It has some sort of shop made makeshift oil pump and the spindle shows .002" runout so clearly the oil pump didn't serve it that well.

I got it delivered and started to dig in. I had little intention of doing anything more than cleaning up a few things and painting a few parts. It took hours to clean the sawdust, grease and old oil out of the machine to get it working smoothly through the motions. Surprising that even a clean looking machine was loaded to the gills with nasty grime.

I could tell at this point that it was repainted by a prior seller at some point in its life, with exception to the silver plates on the front. I did a bit of touch up to the lettering and cleaned, polished the aluminum tags around the wheel along with cleaning painting the wheel. In addition I stripped and gun-blued the handles for the hood. All the beat up old kipp levers hit the trash and we replaced by steel handles (elesa makes these in germany) generally I like the steel handles better and I feel they match style.

512304

512305

And the lettering

512306

The feeder was absolutely packed to the gills with wood filled grease and gear oil that turned into sludge. I cleaned it out and then painted it up. Paint job needs some de-turding after it hardens up to remove the little dusts that I can't escape.
512308

512307

Brought a sliding table in from Germany, it's made by Panhans. The bearings were dead so I replaced them so far and have begun painting to match the grey. I originally wanted to do light green hammer tone but it's become impossible to buy. Also could have left it alone but I wanted the top gear to match style. Replaced the beat up handles and repaired the beat up hardware.

512309

New Spindle bearings arrived and working out an oil pump solution. It's been an uphill battle since I am trying to avoid having air/oil and would like an electric pump. I bought a Bijur surefire and I'm planning the lines and valves to get 'er going.

[Tom M King]

Glad to see you posting again! This will be a fun follow.

[Andrew Hughes]

Poor work bench nice machine. :)

[Jim Becker]

I'm mildly surprised you're not going to do a complete tear down...just for the fun of it! LOL

Seriously, nice machine find and that's definitely a "stout" piece of gear. Where is it going to live...upstairs in the machinery "room" with the rest of the big machines? I suspect it's not a good candidate to get to the lower level.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Brian, ditto on the comment about it being good to see you posting, especially i do not do Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram or other social media. Hope life is treating you well. Best, Patrick (one without a Martin, sadly)

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, gents! Been pretty busy in recent years but this will be a fun one!

[John Pendery]

Looking forward to watching this unfold. I love the older cast iron Martin’s!

[Larry Edgerton]

Nice Brian! I was looking for one of those when I ran across my double spindle Unitronix. Love the Uni, but still. You going to leave it green or paint it Blue like Joe?

[Larry Edgerton]

What does one of those weigh Brian? My Uni weighs 3400#, so my tractor won't pick it up, had to have the local lumber yard come out and set it in the shop.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

That is a beauty! My wife's people from way back when are Martin's. I am learning that they have a long history with mills and milling.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, gents! Maurice, thats a neat bit of history. Germany seems to have a pretty long history of very serious machine work. It’s very present in how they solve engineering problems in this early machines. The solutions are almost always very heavy and neatly machined. I really enjoy seeing how they go about it.

Wow, Larry, 3400 is pretty hefty!

This one is 1900 without the feeder or sliding table. I’m going to leave the machine green, the green is in pretty good shape although whoever did it didn’t bother with prep work much.

The accessories are going to be grey, I think the two colors should coordinate fairly well.

[Bill Dufour]

What is the problem with the oiler. Is it a total loss system or does extra flow back to the reservior? I assume something like three drops per minute or so. Use constant flow metering units not cyclic units.
Bill D

[Maurice Mcmurry]

A bit about the NH Martin's.


https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510290&d=1699880517&thumb=1 (https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510290&d=1699880517) https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510291&d=1699880542&thumb=1 (https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510291&d=1699880542)
https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510292&d=1699881334&thumb=1 (https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510292&d=1699881334) https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510293&d=1699881357&thumb=1 (https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=510293&d=1699881357)

[Brian Holcombe]

What is the problem with the oiler. Is it a total loss system or does extra flow back to the reservior? I assume something like three drops per minute or so. Use constant flow metering units not cyclic units.
Bill D

It returns to the reservoir. Apparently it’s been fairly common for the original oilers to die, and so this one was replaced with something very homemade looking that includes a switch typically found on a lamp.

I plan to plumb the bijur pump in where the original was behind the lower door.

Got the sliding table mostly back together, it needs some touch up after the first coat cures to get some of the light spots. Polished and blues the shafts.

Odds and ends left to deal with on this and the feeder. Waiting on rollers from western also.

512368

512369

512370512370

[Brian Holcombe]

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

[Joe Calhoon]

Nice Brian! I was looking for one of those when I ran across my double spindle Unitronix. Love the Uni, but still. You going to leave it green or paint it Blue like Joe?

In hindsight Larry I probably would have matched the original green. I realized this when I did the T17 but figured I better stick with the Wasser Blue at that point!😁

[Mark Hennebury]

Nice bit of gear there Brian. Tilting spindle too!

[Larry Edgerton]

In hindsight Larry I probably would have matched the original green. I realized this when I did the T17 but figured I better stick with the Wasser Blue at that point!

Well Joe, I for one LOVE that blue! But hey, I once painted a 12/14 with flames, so my opinion may be suspect.:D

[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.

[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.

[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.


512429

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.

512430

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.
512497
512497

512498
512499

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.

512501
512504

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.

512505

[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.

[Warren Lake]

old guy started farming with two Oxen. Hes the taller the other kids, the mom passing by on a bike wanted a photo with her son. He said the oxen listened to him but not the owner.

For machines i remember him saying Germans made the best machines then Italians next. If he was still here id tell him first there is often no best with most things but clearly he missed the british in there. I get it the biggest shop he ran had tons of machines and Copper and Horton sold mostly SCM stuff. Id ask a lot more questions now, he left too soon. When he learned they were on a line belt and had just converted most to Elec. If he was still here now id show him Wadkin, Robinson and Brookman to show him others made German quality as well.

This was the original John Deere

512516

[Brian Holcombe]

Wadkin built some fantastic machines, I was lucky enough to use Chris Hall’s Wadkin PP and it was an exceptional machine, especially so after he had the sliding table planed. The PP can have an 18” blade lower below the table.

We don’t get much in the way of Japanese machines in the US but I’ve been really impressed by the ones I’ve used (and own). Japanese machining in my experience is extremely accurate.

It’s really difficult to pick a ‘best’, that seems to really depend on the manufacturer and machine type more then country of origin when it come to the top stuff.

One of the things I’ve grown to really like about German machines is that they mount a big electrical box to the machine and everything runs through it. Japanese and English machines tend to bury it in the casting, which looks cleaner and it much more aesthetically pleasing but very hard to work in. It’s nice to pull up a chair to the big stupid looking electrical box and work on it without getting cramps. Now everything basically requires that so they all have it, but German machine have had those forever. Old Deckel Mills used to have a cabinet that came with the machine, their Japanese counterpart Riken had a machine mounted on/off switch.

[Mark Hennebury]

Hah...that's the thing that i hate about the German machines, the big ugly electrical box stuck on the outside, like it was and after thought.
The Maka STV models had a separate box mounted on a pedestal and bout 15' of cables, seemed like a silly mess to me, so I usually gut all of the electrics, throw away the pedestal box, cut a hole in the side of the base, weld in a new box and make a new electrical panel to go in it, nice, neat, tidy and compact.


512517 512522512519 512518 512521512520 512523 512524

[Mark Hennebury]

I make and test the panels on the bench first. plus I have a lift that can raise the machine up to a comfortable height to work on the electrical also, which is a lot easier on the knees.

512525 512526 512527 512528 512529 512530 512531

[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.

https://sawmillcreek.org/blob:https://sawmillcreek.org/48dff6d3-c4c9-460a-9199-1623a4f2911f

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.

https://sawmillcreek.org/blob:https://sawmillcreek.org/dae74fd4-b90e-46da-bdd0-587bf15a454c


After that I located the Panhans sliding table.

finally looking like something.

https://sawmillcreek.org/blob:https://sawmillcreek.org/d51e25a9-cb7d-44b0-bfe6-ff44817d77cf

[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.

512641

512642

512643
512644

512645
512646

[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? :D

[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! :D 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.

[Brian Holcombe]

They’re 3ph but you may be over estimating the ‘easy’ part :D.

[Brian Holcombe]

Working through the electrical. I have it running, need to wire up the push buttons and oil pump.

I tested it for a second, then shut it down since I need to setup the oil pump. Replaced all of the oil lines and fittings. Naturally, someone worked a tapered fitting into the spindle when they replaced the original pump. Thankfully it did not damage the original threads, so I just put a proper parallel thread fitting in its place.

The replacement pump was basically just along side the machine, wired with a lamp switch :o and hose-clamped lines in.

I’m learning about oil pump systems as I do this, the pump is a Bijur Surefire PDI, it will pump into an injector which can be setup to get the right amount of drips per minute.

514102

514103

replaced the push buttons and lamps. After all said and done I’m going to have Tom make a nice place for it.

514106

[Brian Holcombe]

Got the oil pump going. This was a fair amount of brand new information for me, it was difficult to figure it out without much easy info around. Patrick Walsh helped out a lot, he has an air/oil system but I wanted something closer to OEM and didn't want to need an air line.

The oil req. on this system is something to the effect of about 3 drops per minute. Most oil pumps put out a continuous volume of oil, this is problematic. So, then one needs an oil pump which can put out droplets. This is done with an inline restriction unit called an injector. These are sold at various different sizes. These exist mainly so that a distribution network of oil lines has enough resistance that the oil doesn't just flow down the path of least resistance. It also allows for metering.

I lucked out when I purchased this Bijur PDI pump as I did not actually have a complete understanding of what I needed. This pump can be setup to pulse, so I set it up to pulse 4 seconds every 15 seconds. This produces enough pressure (450psi) to open the injector and pump out one droplet that is .06cc. These droplets stackup and run through the FEP tube in the system. There is essentially no pressure in the plastic line, aside from that which is produced by the weight of the oil. Even so, I fitted everything with stainless or nickel plated brass 'push to connect' fittings, these replaced the original fittings with a ferrule. I did this mainly because the original stuff was a hodge-podge, but also because 7mm line doesn't have any modern fittings associated with it aside from barbed fittings which I personally despise.

I took the spindle out and removed the top cover of the unit to see what was happening. Even pulses of oil every 15 seconds, great.

Right now I have this setup so that it runs when the machine is armed, but I will change it so that it runs when the machine is running. Wanted to make sure I could prime it for a while without the machine running. Thankfully, the way this is designed, the bearings don't run dry for quite a long time, I drained the spindle previously and there was still a lot of oil floating around the unit.

514337

For some strange reason I felt the need to clean up and paint the foot pedals. I figure since they are part of the e-stop system, they should be different than the machine and in some sort of high visibility color. Mission accomplished on that one.

514338

Naturally, all of these photos turn 90 degrees. Perhaps the admins can fix this?

Onto the start/stop control wiring.

I bought a Harvey G700 dust collector for this shop but it's going to take a bunch of weeks for them to get it to me, so I'm going to fix 'er up with a Horror-Fright special for a few weeks.

I've got a couple Pro-Lock spindles en route. 1-1/4" for the typical stuff and a router collet spindle.

[Larry Edgerton]

The brake pedals on my Uni are orange, makes sense to me.

[Warren Lake]

514347514348514349514350514351

[Joe Calhoon]

Foot pedals look good Brian. Mine were black and green originally but I painted them silver metallic. My old EMA shaper had orange for the brakes.
Thanks for the info on the oil system. Mine quit working, need to dig into that.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Brian, nicely done, sir.

Warren, thank you for the photo flipping magic.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, gents! Warren much appreciated!

Glad to help, Joe! Hopefully yours is an easy fix, but if not then this is seems to be a viable solution.

[Warren Lake]

black on one SCM Orange on another. That will change to red, orange doesnt fit with the colour scheme, I noticed stop signs are red.

[John Pendery]

Brian, looking really nice! I’m curious about that oiler system. Are you running that off the vfd or is it powered separately? I have a couple machines where an automatic oiler would be nice to have, but not sure how the installation would work.

Thanks for taking the time to post these updates and photos. My favorite threads are machine rebuilds like yours, Joe’s, and Marks etc… I learn a lot from the photos alone. Not sure why they always post sideways. I’ve noticed if I edit and turn the photo sideways and then back upright on my phone or iPad before posting they are right side up, but have no idea why this extra step solves the problem.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks, Warren!

Thanks, John! I've learned a ton from threads like these, so happy to contribute to it. Funny enough, I have been wiring the VFD into the push button controls and searching for my old threads was helpful. I posted up the programming notes on practical machinist and it was a huge time saver.

The oiler is currently running when I turn on the disconnect. I will probably change that so that starting the motor also turns on the oil, but I'm undecided. I have a 24v relay which is setup to operate through the VFD, so likely that's the route I will take. No real need to have it pumping oil when the machine is not running and the bath is such that it really doesn't seem to need to have the oil pump running before the machine is turned on.

[Joe Calhoon]

Figured out the Oil problem on my T23. It was pumping oil just not up to the sight glass. Oil level was below the bottom line on the reservoir. Filled it to the top line and it pumped like crazy till oil went up to the sight glass and back to normal now. Glad you are doing yours Brian, it has me looking closer at mine. I have a Aigner bar that covers the sight glass and makes it difficult to see. I’m going to drill a hole through the bar to make it easier to keep an eye on.

[Brian Holcombe]

Excellent, good to hear that it was something simple!

Measured runout with my Pro-Lock spindle, now that I have something reliable it's nice to see the results. The runout is .001", so I'm going to clean the bore a little more and see if I can get it down further. I've got new bearings but I'm not yet convinced that the old ones are the culprit.

[Matthew Hills]

Just gonna say that I got off my butt to renew membership so I could see your restoration pics, Brian.

[Brian Holcombe]

Much appreciated!

[Warren Lake]

Every head has some amount of clearance so even if you had zero shaft run out you might not have a head totally centered

[Brian Holcombe]

I'm checking on the shaft directly. It runs nice and smoothly and the bearings are replacements for the originals. I bought new bearings with the expectation of replacing them but I don't see a point to doing so just yet.

The original shaft in the machine contributed about .001 to the runout, so I'm suspecting the bore might not be absolutely perfect. Something causing .0005" or so of it.

[John Pendery]

Out of curiosity, where do you source the pro lock spindles your ordered for your machine?

[Brian Holcombe]

John I ordered it directly from Pro Lock in Germany. It was a tad pricey but a very well made product.

[John Pendery]

Brian, thanks for answering my dumb question! Google searches were not bringing up their website, so I had to be persistent to finally find it. I’ve been curious about their spindles because I would love to have a router spindle made for my T20. I don’t think it will be possible due to how the spindles are fixed to the machine through the length of the spindle with a long hex wrench on T20/26’ though.

[Joe Calhoon]

John, Pro Lock made a router spindle for my T23. Martin should also have them available for the T20 to fit the Dorn Fix shaft.
might be less money through ProLock.

[John Pendery]

Joe, thanks for the tip! I’ll reach out on both ends to see what’s available, and brace myself for sticker shock.

[Joe Calhoon]

Not something I use a lot but handy for some special setups.
514953
514954

[John Pendery]

I don’t think it’s something I would use a whole lot either Joe, but I have a collection of router bits that occasionally are just what is needed. Right now I have a router table on casters that I have in the corner and occasionally roll it out when needed. I would love a single spindle for my shaper to replace an entire router table that sees seldom use. Thanks again to you both, Joe and Brian, and sorry to temporarily derail your T23 rebuild thread, Brian!

[Brian Holcombe]

John, I bought these on Joe’s recommendation. Very happy with them. I’m awaiting the router spindle which will arrive in April. I figure it will come in handy at some point. I have some router cutters which are actually a little overkill for the router and the collet system in the ProLock is a much stronger system than a standard router collet. They use a 462E collet.

Working my way through various aspects of the VFD. The push button speed change didn’t work out so I’m swapping the ‘high’ switch for a rotary switch. I’ve decided to have three speed settings which will allow me to have 3000/4500 in low (bottom and top pulley respectively), 5250/7500 at 90hz and 6000/9000 at 120hz.

I haven’t install and wire the switch. Then I have to wire up that relay for the oil pump. After which I’m having Tom make a new legend plate for the switch panel.

The lights will designate speeds, and the lower right light will designate that the machine is armed. It’s a little surprising to me that the machine didn’t have a light indicating that the main was turned on originally. I have that as a universal on every machine now. Good to have a little bit of idiot proofing when one spends all day with hearing protection on.

514978


Im also working through making and adding some air clamps for the tenoning work.

514975

Still working on the overhead clamp. I goofed on the part spec trying to simplify things and ended up needing to revisit my design. The side clamp is great, I spun around the lever arm after this and I’ve redone the hoses.

I put a Festo filter/regulator/oiler inside the machine. Found a fitting which looks factory for the 8mm inlet

514976

And two quick disconnect fittings for the front of the machine to quickly tap into for clamps.

514977

[Malcolm McLeod]

Hope your quiet evenings by the fire with the German are going well! Has she made you assign her as the beneficiary on your life insurance policy yet? But fear not, I'm sure that work visa will come through any day now and you can put her to work.

[Brian Holcombe]

:D Takes quite a few shiny things to keep her happy.

[Jim Becker]

:D Takes quite a few shiny things to keep her happy.
Doesn't hurt that you like the same shiny things. ;) :D