Williams and Hussey W7 Questions

[jim lengel]

Hello All,

First time to post and first time running my moulder. I have a couple of questions to hopefully obtain answers to. I purchased the W$H around five years ago for a song and never used it. Finally a job came up on my 1870's Queen Anne and I decided to give it a try. This unit is belt driven and is on a generic Kreg table with the moulder on top and the motor on the shelf below. I run it on 120 power. First question is as the unit lowers into the stock the belt slackens and the it loses head speed due to slippage. My solution was to move the motor laterally and do the last cuts on the retightened belt. Is there a more elegant method? I can think of using t-slots and sliding the motor as it slackens. I could also make a hinged base which travels through an arc lick a car alternator. Thoughts?

Also the automatic feeder rollers turn but during the first passes are at least 1/4" above the stock. From what I see there are pins which act as a hard stop so there is no way to lower the roller which I can see. So I end up hand feeding but even when it does engage it needs to be helped along. Bigger and newer rollers perhaps. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[Mark Bolton]

The standard configuration for the belt tension is the motor is mounted to a large hinged plate and the weight of the motor (gravity) is your tension throughout the range of travel of the head. Thats how mine is.

With regards to the feed roller travel, I cant remember for sure but there is a shop mod where you can cut the pins or make some sort of mod to increase the roller travel and install longer springs. I did this to mine so long ago I cant remember the details. But it increased the roller travel for much deeper cuts. I think as I recall I had a set of almost the identical springs that tension the roller and I simply stacked up two sets of springs and have never looked back.

Handfeeding defeats the purpose of the machine so dont be bashful and search out the mod and hack it up. Other major gain with the machine is what I call the "leo G" mod and to block up the cantilevered end of the molder on your final pass and clamp it to take the flexure out of the cantilevered head. It makes a world of difference for super clean final pass. That and M2 knives.

[John TenEyck]

You should download a copy of the machine manual if you don't have one; sounds like you don't. The W7 in most cases is meant to run full depth cuts. With some profiles like crown molding where the final profile no longer has any flat spots that's pretty much your only option. With some other profiles, like brick mold, etc. you can take multiple cuts. The modification Mark talked about would probably make it possible to take multiple passes with any profile but, surprisingly, the cuts I get in one pass are amazingly smooth.

Do NOT hand feed stock into it. If it kicks back you could be severely injured.

John

[Richard Coers]

These machines are not made to nibble away at the cut. First cut pretty much has to be a hogging cut and then a light second cut for a better finish. BUT you have to be very careful there is no slippage with the infeed rollers doing that second cut. Usually very little contact area with the wood from the profile being nearly complete. It will wear out a feed roller super quickly unless you keep steady hand pressure to prevent feed slipping. For deep moldings, I put a dado head in the table saw and waste off wood so the molder doesn't have so much to hog off. These are little machines for specialty work. They need to be attended to and finessed a lot. But you didn't pay for a 5 head Weinig and it's a great paying little machine. I paid for a new one in one restoration job.

[Mark Bolton]

Hogging out some of the material is handy but multi passing is pretty much the default for me other than on rare occasion. There is enough chatter and risk of tearout (pretty small cutting diameter) that the multi pass saves a mile of culled molding and 20 miles of profile sanding. Clamping the cantilevered side of the machine helps with single passing a lot but a finish skim pass makes a ton of difference. Richard is spot on that multi passing profiles with sharp profiles is hard on the rollers but rollers are cheap. Keep your table/sleds heavily waxed and its not too awful bad on the rollers. If you were running miles of molding it'd just be what it is but these machines are best suited for shorter runs of odd profiles so the rollers still hold up for a long time.

[Warren Lake]

I run one pass in a woodmaster, you can do it and get clean as you can turn the feet rate down low. I could not do 1000 feet on it as its mcigivered up to an oversize head and would heat up too much. Otherwise it works very well. The key I think is the adjustable feed rate and turning it down slow.

[Bradley Gray]

I have a very old W&H with steel feed rollers and I have heard that it must be run full depth but I have not found this to be true. I run moldings much as I run stock through a planer - 1/8" cut, one turn, repeat. Usually 5 or 6 passes.

Maybe my machine was modded by a previous owner?

[Richard Coers]

I have a very old W&H with steel feed rollers and I have heard that it must be run full depth but I have not found this to be true. I run moldings much as I run stock through a planer - 1/8" cut, one turn, repeat. Usually 5 or 6 passes.

Maybe my machine was modded by a previous owner?

The depth of the molding permits some patterns to be run with several passes, and others to be run at 1, maybe 2 passes. No hard and fast rule about all moldings being run the same way.

[Jared Sankovich]

They sell a multi-pass kit to allow the rollers to drop farther down.

[ChrisA Edwards]

Are we taking about the W&H Moulder similar to the ShopFox W1812?

[Mark Bolton]

Are we taking about the W&H Moulder similar to the ShopFox W1812?

Yes. I am not familiar with the shopfox but have been told it doesnt not allow depth of cut or something with regards to knives as a W&H.

The VS option for the W&H is handy like Warren mentioned with the Woodmaster being able to dial the feed way down but in my experience the W&H is so painfully slow as it is I would likely lose my mind running it far slower and the finish of a final pass is something I dont think a very slow single pass, heat into the knives, would ever be as good to me. Im likely going to two or three pass anyway but it would be interesting to time single pass and whatever needed sanding as opposed to 2-3 pass and pretty much a light wipe with paper or nothing.

[ChrisA Edwards]

Thanks for the info Mark. I have the W1812 and was wondering if the W&H was the similar tool to the ShopFox.

The height of the infeed/outfeed rollers can be adjusted, but not by much.

I've only done two sets of cuts, plantation shutter louvers, which required two passes, top side and bottom side, using a false bed for the second cut, and some custom baseboard.

All of this was done to the final depth of cut in one pass, on the slowest feed speed, and produced good results. Although as it passes through the machine it sounds like all you should expect is firewood out the finished side.

I know you can get a jig that allows for doing curved moulding i.e. arched door frame trim.

[Tom Schmutz]

Jim,

Can you contact me directly. I have had a WH7 for years. I can send you some photos of how to mount motor to maintain belt tightness as thickness adjustments are made. Also you are missing some ways to adjust roller tension. I used steel rollers for years without any slip, but recently upgraded to rubber roller and both infeed and out feed rollers. I can also copy my old manual so you can see the adjustments


Tom

twschmutz1@gmail.com