Who made this Sears planer/molder

[Dan Connolly]

I think it is either Woodmaster or belsaw---anyone know for sure?

And a guesstimate of its worth with a 5 hp motor in good shape?

[Brian Backner]

That was made by Foley-Belsaw. I had one exactly like it for 20 years. While the bed and cutter assembly is cast iron, the bed extensions and the cover is folded sheet steel. A major design flaw is that they do not have provision for dust/chip collection. It also lacks a bed height lock (on my version, the bed moves up and down beneath a fixed cutter head),though one can be fashioned easily enough.

The unit works with rubberized feed rollers above the bed and you need to check them to make sure that they are in good shape and not cracked or checked. Likewise check the roller hold down springs - if they are shot you are likely to see tremendous snipe

Once tuned up, these units can provide reasonably good results, but they can be a bear to adjust. I probably ran 15k board feet of maple and oak through mine. The stock knives (typical 3 knife head) needed to be sharpened at least yearly until I got fed up and got carbide blades. I don't know if you can get a Shellix head to fit this - not I think you'd want to.

To call them a molder is a bit of an exaggeration. Most of the molding knives this thing can take are only 1-1.5" wide. You can make quarter round in one pass, but anything like crown molding would take multiple passes with different knife sets - NOT. I think I ran about 20' of molding before I decided it was easier to use my shaper and never tried it again.

With a 5hp motor, they are probably worth in the $250-300 range (I actually gave mine away to a friend) and IMO are only useful as a basic planer.

Edit: I just noticed that the asking price is $150 - that's probably a good deal assuming that nothing major is wrong with it!

Brian

[Neal Clayton]

the current woodmaster design is very similar, i have one.

they sell a spiral head for the new machines, not sure if it would still fit the old ones. as a planer it won't be very good without a spiral head, too much vibration for rubber rollers, imo. the spiral head they sell is expensive, though, 1000 dollars roughly.

it can work well as a molder but it takes alot of trial and error (and scrap ;)) to get it tuned up just right.

the optional attachments they sell for it make it a pretty decent machine if you need a mop sander, power-fed router, dedicated power-fed rip saw, etc. however if you don't have a need for these things, it might not be worth the trouble.

[Shawn Honeychurch]

Looks just like my BBQ. :)

[jerry nazard]

I used one (Belsaw) for five or six years back in the early 80's. Very noisy, lots of vibration, no dust collection. Had to lock the bed height adjustment with vice-grips. If I remember correctly, it had a 5 hp Century motor that is probably still going strong.

In really good shape, I'd give $150 for it, but not much more.

[Ed Gerken]

Looks just like my BBQ. :)

It's a Planer/BBQ, my dad usta have one. After grilling, the planer part takes over and cuts off the burnt crusties and delivers it to a plate on the outfeed table. They're not too common, but you see them around, so it's a "medium-rare" find. It's worth more if it comes with the optional Condiments Mop. :rolleyes:

-Ed