Old Jointer Refurbish--as promised!

[Joanne Adler]

(Warning: Several long posts with lots of pictures)

There is probably a thread here once a month or so that discusses the virtues of an 8” jointer over a 6” jointer. Most folks consider it a worthy upgrade. A few months ago I added the riser block to my 14” bandsaw, giving it now 12+” of resaw height capability. My friend, Rich (who helped with the riser kit), said, “Now you need a bigger jointer. And forget those 8” or 10” machines. If you can resaw 12”, you need a 12” jointer. Or 16” would be even better.” But I really couldn’t afford a new 16” jointer or combo machine. “Naaah,” said Rich, who is an “old tool” aficionado and who doesn’t trust machines newer than, say, 1950. “Get an old, used machine. Much cheaper. And so much better! I’ll look for you.” I said okay. Uh oh! What did I do?! There is not much that Rich likes better than finding deals on old machines, refurbishing them, and getting them to be used as they were intended. It didn’t take him long.

Meet “Frank”—the new man in my shop.

Frank is a two-knife, 16” Frank H. Clement jointer. The Clement jointer was the model for many “3-legged” jointers to come from Clement, American, Yates, etc. Based on that history and where Frank came from, we think he dates back to the late 1800’s (maybe 1890’s). While there is a “No. 98” written on the front left of the machine, that is not his serial number; they were probably numbering the machines in the shop for some kind of inventory when they were moving or selling it. He came from the Finch Machine Co. in West Pittstown, PA (originally, the Finch company was in Scranton). Finch was a general foundry and machine shop that made turbine water wheels, engines, coal mining machinery, circular saw mills, iron fronts for buildings, steam heat parts, manhole covers, and repaired trains on the Delaware/Lackawanna line. Most of the forms built for the foundry would have been jointed on Frank. But when he arrived at my shop, it appeared Frank hadn’t been in use for a long time and needed a lot of cleaning up to get into usable shape. Lots of rust, sawdust cakes, and unidentifiable gunk. Boy, did that make Rich happy. I just wondered what the heck I’d gotten myself into.

Here are a bunch of “before” pictures. You can see the rusty mess on tables, cutterhead, cutterhead bolts, pulley, and the mess on the underside of the table supports. The cutterhead bolts were torqued on there so tightly, we had a devil of a time getting them off. Yes, in getting them loose, I said several words that would make a devil proud. But we got them off and cleaned them up and you wouldn’t recognize them. I had to get a machinist buddy of mine to make a special wrench for these bolts (thanks Pete!). He let me help make it, so I got a great lesson in machining steel, to boot. Most of the jointer’s parts are original, although it appears that sometime in the early 1900’s the cutterhead was replaced with one by Oliver (a good move). The knives were in decent shape, although I splurged and bought a new set so I can have a spare when they need sharpening. Now before all of you old-tool-fans-in-the-know exclaim and caution me against this clamshell cutterhead, let me say that I read about some of potential problems with these bolts. We cleaned and closely inspected every thread on every bolt and were very careful not to overtorque when reassembling. For “hobbyist” usage, this machine is safe and just fine.

[Joanne Adler]

Here are the undertable, pulley, and Frank's label.

[Joanne Adler]

Frank arrived on a flatbed truck. The guy I bought it from (a carver and woodworker who now spends much of his time buying and selling old machines) drove it down from his home in NY and helped get it off the truck (Absolutely priceless! Thanks, Jeff!). We had to disassemble it and slide each piece down heavy oak planks into the shop. Each table and table support must weigh 50 tons! Well, perhaps I exaggerate a little. Maybe they only weigh a ton each. ;-) Whatever. All I know is it took several people to get each one off the truck and 2 of us to drag it across the shop. But the main body with cutterhead still attached, we took off in one piece. I’m still not sure how on earth we got that off the truck without anybody getting killed or squished a little. With that last piece on the ground, Jeff said “You’d better decide where it’s going to go now. Once you clean and reassemble, you won’t want to be moving it, with all that weight.” Little did he know Ellis Wallentine would show up a few weeks later and decide I should rearrange my shop, Frank included! LOL! But 3 of us actually managed to slide Frank across the room without too much difficulty. And now he’s in a much better location. Thanks, Ellis!

Rich and I spent many Sundays working on the restoration. Removing that much rust is very good aerobic exercise. Half a gallon of WD-40 later and I can proudly say there is no rust on that beast. Once we got hold of a semi-usable wrench to try to get those bolts removed (a process that destroyed the poor wrench, so I had to commission one to reassemble), Rich dismantled the cutterhead, cleaned all the bolts, jibs, and other parts, and filed down the nicks and burrs. I scrubbed away at the rusty tables and fence. He took apart the oilers and cleaned out years of clogged gunk from those. I scrubbed the rusty tables. He scraped poorly poured babbet, so that when reassembled, every surface that should get oiled, does. I scrubbed rust. We put a wire wheel on one side of my grinder. With that we made bolts and gearshafts look like new. No more rust!

I had an electrician come to install 220 in my shop. I found a good, used 5hp single phase motor. Rich had a pulley for it and the necessary 4” belting and a lacer (so cool!). He also had an old box with fuses to use for an on/off switch (I spray painted it black to match Frank). My barn has a big steel girder in the center, so we designed a bracket to mount the motor to the girder. I made a bracket for the switchbox to hang from the girder right over the jointer, too. The original punch-out holes on the old box had one on the side. I got a plug and we moved the wiring to the bottom, so the cables would look neater.

Here are the infeed gear and outfeed gear (cleaned, but before the table supports were reinstalled), the front and rear oilers (sorry—no detailed pix of the babbet). Next are shots of the motor mounted, the belt attached, and the switchbox.

[Joanne Adler]

Here are shots of the belt, lacing, motor and switch.

[Ted Shrader]

Joanne -

Frank is a lucky guy to have such good care.

Well Done!

Ted

[Joanne Adler]

When we finally got everything cleaned, the motor and switch wired and mounted, new knives set and tables adjusted, we carefully powered him up. Between the big pulley and belt off the 5 hp motor and that huge cutterhead, there is enough vibration, believe it or not, to make that beast move ever so slightly. Not much. But enough to make the belt too loose. Time for Plan B. With radiant heat pex tubes somewhere under the new cement floor, I was loathe to drill into the cement to bolt Frank in place. Instead, I cut out little plywood brackets and used Liquid Nails to adhere them to the floor, around each leg. Unfortunately, the tube of Liquid Nails that I had on hand had been opened. I was unsure whether that stuff goes bad or loses its strength. We squeezed some out and remixed it and tried it anyway. I let it cure for several days before I braved turning the motor on again. Apparently, that glue does not go bad (at least mine didn’t)—it seems to be holding well.

Here are 2 huge, shiny, rust-free tables, a view of a 16” knife, the cleaned cutterhead with funky bolts and the great wrench we made. There is a shop-made guard (not quite as old as Frank) that is a character-filled piece of oak. In front of that is a rabbeting fixture.

Around back you can see the infeed table wheel (no, that big wheel is NOT the helm or rudder on the aircraft carrier), cool knobs that hold the fence, and the belt on the pulley. I didn’t have a 15 or 16” piece of wood handy to try out, but here is a 9” piece of cherry—room to spare! Finally, since dust collectors and cyclones were not high priorities when Frank was born, I had to make a box with a dust collection chute to hook up to the dc. It works pretty well. A few chips fly out the top, but then, they do that on my Jet 6” jointer, too.

Huge thanks to Rich Polinski for hours of work on Frank. I learned so much on this project. It’s a lot of work to refurbish an old tool, but very rewarding. And far less expensive than buying something with this capacity in a new machine. Thanks for checking out my new man. If you’re in eastern PA and need some wide boards flattened, give a holler and come visit.

[Joanne Adler]

Here are the last shots of the beast from the rear, a shot showing off the width (16"!!), and shots of the dc box I built for him.

Thanks for viewing. Hope this inspires some folks to revitalize some old iron. If I can do this, anyone can.

[Jim Becker]

Thanks for posting this, Joanne! And I will personally attest to the boys and girls at SMC that this is a really fine machine in a wonderful shop!

[Don Bullock]

Joanne, thanks for the post. That restoration is definately an inspiration and "eye opener" for me. Perhaps all new machines isn't always the best way to go.

I'm looking forward to seeing more pictures of your shop and work.

[Bill Simmeth]

Joanne, it's a beautiful machine and a really nice restore job. But, please, please replace that cutterhead ASAP. It is an Oliver clamshell head which was discontinued in the 1940s. Its design is suspect in that either through fatique or un-uniform bolt torquing, the "clamshell" covers can come loose, throwing the blade and creating general havoc. There's a thread running right now on the OWWM forum about two such recent accidents. I guess I can't post the link to that discussion which is a shame as it is a serious safety issue. PM me if you can't locate it. Here's a picture from a thrown clamshell a week ago. Fortunately no one was hurt...
56629

[Jerry Olexa]

VERY nice restore job....you should be proud....WELL DONE!!!

[Frank Snyder]

Thank for the documentary, Joanne. I am very impressed to see that you were able to bring this beast back to life. It looks good enough to place in a museum. I would heed Bill's advice and consider installing a safer cutterhead. I don't think OSHA was around back in the day when this behemoth was made. Maybe you could get Byrd Shelix for it? That would be really cool! Expensive, but really cool ;).

If only Dev were here...you'd put a tear in his eye.

Thanks again for taking the time to post this. Your shop looks really classy.

[John Schreiber]

Congratulations on the restore job. That's a great accomplishment. It's amazing how things were made back then with grace and beauty. I know it's named Frank, but curved legs like that have a definite feminine look to me. Heavy, but feminine.

[Reg Mitchell]

Yes what Bill said. I like the older machines myself. I try to keep them as original as possable but sometimes its best to "update" somethings. You have a nice machine and works well. Too a little investment on another head might save a serious accident later.
Nice job on the resto too. Do consider the update. Ask around in the OWWM room and maybe someone can help you out with a newer head and help you with the update
Reg

[Matthew Hindman]

That is an amazing thread, and the pictorial journey was fun. I suppose it would be poor form to inquire how much coin went into the thing? (I know an abundance of sweat was paid - maybe some blood and tears too!?)

[Mike Weaver]

Joanne,
As owner of a 12" jointer that needs restoring, I appreciate the time you took to document the process for us.

I defer to the experts with regard to the cutterhead, but 'Frank' sure is a beauty!
-Mike

[Matt Day]

Very impressive! If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay for it and how much time do you think you invested? I'd love to tackle a project like that, just need a bigger shop!

[Al Willits]

Thanks for posting, very nice job, a definetly a "atta boy"...er...."atta girl"...:)
I bought all new stuff, but rebuilding a piece of old iron would have been fun, and no doubt better, congrats.

Al

[Larry Crim]

Very well done I admire your dedication to the old iron, anyone would be lucky to have that in the shop.
Larry

[Carl Eyman]

Would some Lock-Tite on those clamshell bolts be a good idea?

[Joanne Adler]

Thanks for all the nice comments.

The pictures look pretty good here, but I wish you could see this beast in person. He is really beautiful. Someone mentioned the curves of the legs--that is what lends a kind of grace to such a big piece of iron; it is not all straight and squared off like newer pieces. While I love a new, precision tool as much as the next woodworker, there is a kind of mystery and romance about using an old tool. And I love not sending every old thing to a junkyard or scrapper. Even though it was a lot of work to clean up, I would very much consider going this route again on, say, a larger planer (I just have a Dewalt lunchbox) or an older Unisaw or some cabinet saw (I have a contractor saw, which is fine, but one can always dream of better dust collection!).

I appreciate the safety warnings. Some day I hope to replace the cutterhead. I think that will be expensive and may require changing out the babbet for bearings, too. As I think I mentioned in my post, I know about the issues with the old clamshell heads. We cleaned scrutinized every bolt and bolt hole. We very carefully replaced them and tightened them equally. I clean and check the area regularly. I suspect many of the problems people had with them were due to lack of attention to things like that. Trust me, I am very cautious in my shop. My middle initial is "S" and I think that stands for "Safety".

Price--I paid $900 for Frank, plus $100 for delivery (from upstate NY to PA). And the guy helped unload it from his flatbed. I think anyone else would have charged $200 or $300 for such delivery, so I think I did all right. Other similar units I had seen listed went for quite a lot more. If I knew more about old tools, I might have tried to barter down, but I think this was fair; he had to haul the thing from western PA to NY and then down to eastern PA. Oh and I found a rebuilt 5hp single phase Leeson motor for around $200. My friend Rich had the belting and pulley for the motor. We spent a month or two of Sunday afternoons doing the refurb.

[Bill Simmeth]

Joanne,

Frank is a beauty (sounds somewhat like an oxymoron) and my safety warning wasn't meant to distract from that. Sounds like you have him well researched, but it's worth pointing out that patent research shows the Clement to be the progenitor of the highly copied "three-toed" jointer design. Clement merged with a slew of other companies in 1897 to form American Wood Working Machines. American then merged with Yates in 1925 to form Yates-American, the largest machinery company at that time. Through all of these machinations, Frank and his brothers survived as the Yates-American model No. 1. It was produced for decades and considered one of the finest jointers ever made. Yours is a fine example of the beginnings of that storied lineage!

As for the clamshell, it sounds like you're aware of the issues, so I won't belabor the point (okay, maybe just a little more ;) )... The picture I posted is of a machine in use at a technical school in New England. The machine received regular maintenance and all blade changes were done by the shop teacher, a seemingly-knowledgeable trained professional following documented procedures. Yet, you see the results. Metal fatigue is not always readily visible until it's too late. This is especially true in this case where you have five medium-sized bolts straining to counteract the centrifugal forces pulling on a 20 lb hunk of steel spinning at 3,600 RPM (and have done so for 80 years or so).

The other incident I alluded to was recounted by Patrick Haire. Patrick is rather well-known for his incredible shop as documented on PBS and in countless articles. He is a professional cabinetmaker who operates a shop full of linebelt-driven machines, all impeccably restored. Patrick knows machines, especially old ones. (If you want to see some incredible old arn, rummage through owwm.com to find Patrick's picture postings!) Here is Patrick's narrative:


On the trial run of a restored 16" Clements jointer using this type [clam shell] head one knife was thrown, laying itself out along the entire width of the in-feed table. All the cap bolts instantly snapped throwing the cap upward with such force that it broke the cast iron fence into four pieces. This took out more than the replaceable table lip, but ruined the entire in-feed table. All pieces , including the knife, came to a rest within four feet of the jointer. I was standing five feet from the jointer. It was a head on crash with the miracle of everyone walking away unscathed. An audio witness to this who was several rooms away said the noise at impact dwarfed a shot gun blast. Graphic enough? I hope so. The question of whether or not this type of head should be used shouldn't fall into the category of opinion. Do away with them!

Finally, Oliver pulled the heads from the market in the 1940s due to a rash of similar incidents. As well, they took the (at that time) rather rare step of sending letters to registered owners urging them to retire the heads. They obviously were concerned -- 60 years ago.

There are several options to replacing the head; a new Byrd Shelix being one of the more expensive. With furniture plants closing in the Southeast, there are many larger gibbed/wedged blade heads floating around. (Your machinist friend might be able to help prepare one to fit in Frank.) The folks at OWWM.org can be a real help in exploring these options. Yes, you'll probably need to repour babbitt, but in the scheme of things...

Okay, end of sermon. Sorry for going on and on, but I'd surely hate to see either you or Frank in a mishap!

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Joanne, beutiful machine, fabulous restoration job.

Enough has been said about the cutterhead, I saw one come apart in 1981, it was pretyy scary.

On another note, do you have a magnetic starter on that motor or do you simply operate the disconnect switch to turn the machine on/off?

Regards, Rod.

[Bill White]

Wonderful job 'cause I like the old stuff too. I guess the '50s is a far back as my iron goes. By the way, that ain't a wrench. That's a "spanner". Keep us posted as to what you decide about the cutter head.
Bill

[Kristian Wild]

Simply beautiful. Frank is a very lucky guy. Great job Joanne.

[Corvin Alstot]

Wow great old jointer. Although its nice to see pristine new machines, the
lines and patina of the old iron are a treat to see.

Any other interesting tools in your shop?

[Sean Segraves]

Hello, my name is Sean. Recently obtained an old American 16" jointer, looking very much like your Frank. I just wanted to say that reading your post and seeing your photos are inspiring. As my jointer is sitting in misc. pieces in my basement waiting to be stripped, cleaned, painted and rebuilt. Thank you for your wonderful post.
Sean

[Charlie Velasquez]

Beautiful job! Well done.


PS - Welcome to the Creek, Sean. As you see already, you'll find a lot of know-how about refurbishing your machine here, just ask!

[Bryan Berguson]

Joanne,

Concerning you not wanting to drill into your heated concrete floor... I had to do the same thing to install a Radon system and like you, I didn't want to drill into my radiant tubing. I had a buddy that was a member of a fire department and had him come out with their infrared camera. I had shut the heat off for awhile, long enough to equalize the temperature, and then turned it on about an hour before he came. We could easily see every tube in the floor and I marked them while he directed me with the camera. We never touched a line when we drilled. So, if your glue doesn't hold, you could still "see" the lines and drill.

Bryan

[joe aiello]

I picked an old OLIVER 16" ( pattern makers) at an auction last year and from what I get from the serial # it was built in 1907.It is 9' long and the second heaviest machine in the shop. It's on a wooden floor that is suspect and currently sits over a structural wooden beam. The original owner(I am the 2nd) painted it the ugliest blue possible. Almost immediately, I started the refurbish cycle - paint stripping, sand blasting, grease, re-threading (1/2" uses 12tpi) where necessary;did in-feed and out-feed tables. The Babbitt bearings look good and had 5 hp 3ph motor( long and wide belt driven). I left the motor and went to get the next day and it was gone. The cutter head is a two knife type with the four hole clam bolts. This where I stopped. Everything I have read about this cutter head is negative; a liability, a safety issue, etc. Even talked to the OLIVER people and Rick Fink(I think). Questions -- anyone here have a similar machine? What is the replacement for this cutter head? What is the original color(I think dull green)? -- Right now it is being used as sturdy bench. ......This would be more presentable with paragraphs, lists, etc. - How do I do this? - thanks Joe.

[Joanne Adler]

Once again--Bill, thanks for the friendly info on Frank and the cutterhead. I will seriously consider replacement in the future. For now, I will inspect routinely and be very careful.

Rod--I just use the black switch we mounted above to turn him on and off. There are dual 30A fuses in there.

Bill W.--"Spanner"--thanks for that.

Sean--Thanks for your kind words. Now get crackin' on yours! It is not hard to restore; just time-consuming.

Bryan--The Liquid Nails seems to be holding just fine, but thanks for the tip on how to locate the tubes.