Craftsmanship in Wood

The forum here has given me such excellent advice, I thought I should share what I actually did with that advice.

First I managed to win a FD250 horizontal mortiser at auction, 2004 machine and appears in good shape. This Felder machine can use an adapter to hold hollow chisels. Not sure if this will be the be all end all machine for mortising but it will be the one I rely upon until I can manage a swing chisel mortiser that I want for making double mortises. It will maintain some relevance at that point allowing for me to make square through tenons for pegs. Mortising I enjoy in a way but cutting square holes I truly dread doing so by hand in anything with any depth.

Next I bought a Minimax Elite S 16” jointer planer. This is a pretty hefty machine at 1400 lbs. it has shorter tables than a stand alone jointer but that is not necessarily a problem in my shop. They’re 86” long so biggest of the group. I had looked into the more basic machines but this one offered a large four knife tersa cutter block, heavy fence, single phase , and from a reputable company.

I have a small space (by NJ standard) and likely will always be working around small spaces because I’m allergic to rent.

I appreciate the advice I have received, I think it was good to avoid machines not really suitable to heavy work and avoid machines such as the more hobby shop oriented 8" jointers, and flimsy mortisers.

I also appreciate the cutter block advice that Chris gave me, this was echoed by Sam Blasco. There is a shop local to me that does use a spiral head and from what I've gathered they do lament having it each time they have to turn the cutters rather than simply replacing with a new set of knives in a few minutes.

Congrats Brian, sounds like you are set-up and ready to run. Envious of the Tersa head, not a fan of manually setting knives.

Thanks Chris! Doing duct and electric currently in preparation. Nice to replace the shelves in garage storing junk that goes untouched with something useful.

Congratulations! Please do post up some pics and your impressions when you get a chance to put some material through the equipment.

Thanks Chris! Will do. Wiring and duct are up, and got much junk out of the way. Not sure why I enjoy cleaning the garage so much?

I can't get a picture to upload here without resizing, so here's a link for all those interested:

https://brianholcombewoodworker.com/wp- ... g_8818.jpg

One down and risking death by minor expenses.

Went with a rotary type phase converter with built in 3 phase breakers.

I managed to work out, at least on paper, how to convert the duct from 80mm to fit the 5" leg that I had previously installed anticipating some type of machinery to be located there. 80mm pipe measures 3.16", so I located a class 200 series PVC pipe, ID is 3.166" OD 3.5". I plan to cut this and use it as a bushing.

I then found a water pipe reducer nominal size 3" to nominal size 4". Actual size is 5" OD on the large end and 3.516" ID on the small side so that should bring me to 5" which should fit my DC hose.

A few minor issues with the machine, as expected for anything used. Someone had opened up the electrical and when reinstalling the cover they turned it 90 degrees. In doing so they directed to wire toward the fan at the back of the motor. The fan worked its way partially through the wiring, just barely exposing two wires. I cut the wire back and reconnected it removing the damaged wiring. Nothing inside appeared to be damaged, nor did the switch. So, I actually think that it did not short out amazingly. I made certain to redirect the housing properly.

The machine has stops which can be set to limit side to side movement and rear to front. It also has a hold for the up and down travel. Someone had broken off one of the toggles for the side to side stops locking it into place and broken just the handle off of one of the other stops. This appears to have been due to the stop locking on the shaft.

I removed the shaft, assuming at first that I could drill out the damaged bolt. I drilled through 90% of the way, relieving the bolts of its ability to apply pressure to the shaft. I then heated the collar and knocked it off of the shaft. Amazingly it did not score the shaft. I then drilled the remainder of the way through, and was able to drive the bolt out of the hole with a larger sized drill bit. The threads were in good shape. After cleaning the shafts and inside of the collars, all slide nicely.

It seems to go without saying that there is always something to manage when buying a used anything, but I'm pretty happy so far with how it has gone.

On it's face this seems like a screaming deal but considering all of the minor expenses it is a close race. Machine so far cost $1250 + auction expenses of $250, + palletizing $200 + shipping $430 + Phase converter $485 = $2610. Brand new single phase machine $4000 less discounting $3400 and I could drive and pick up myself.

Good thing is that I can use the phase converter for the other machines up to 2.5hp, which given the kinds of things I might consider that should be more than enough.

Good work so far Brian, and glad the repair came out so well. That's the non-tilting head model yes? I seem to recall they made one with a tilting head at one time and then discontinued it.

$200 for palletizing? Really? Did you mean palletizing and crating?

Thanks Chris! This one is without the tilting head, I think the tilting head models were troublesome from what I’ve heard.

$200 for palletizing, unfortunately I was beholden to the auction house on that one.

They told me that they did not have access to pallets on this site and would need to pay a 3rd party to make one. What turned up it was a junky pallet that was likely something the 3rd party found behind the building and it was practically falling apart. I ripped it apart to trash it and all the nails were rusted through, so not likely newly made.

Still a pretty decent deal overall but I felt a bit taken advantage of.

Yeah, they soaked you on the pallet for sure. Who is the auction house (for my future reference, to learn who to avoid)?

It was ex-factory auctions. I would buy again only if they had something I could not find elsewhere and desperately needed.