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DoAll Band Brazer/Welder Photos

jdleach

Stainless
Joined
Sep 19, 2009
Location
Columbus, IN USA
After weeks and weeks of bad weather, illness, and just plain sloth, I finally made it to the Shop yesterday. At the request of one of our forum members, kielbasavw, I took a few photos of my ancient DoAll Model AB file saw and its associated welder. Shop was rather dark inside, and the camera is a real POS, so please forgive the rotten quality of the images.

As can be seen, the saw is pretty much unlike any subsequent models Continental has made over the years. There are only two speeds, off and glacial. The welder likewise is pretty primitive. Just the band clamps on either side of the weld lever and the amperage control. There is some type of clamp off to one side. What its purpose is, I do not know.

Would one day love to either have the transformer rewound, or find an electrically similar one to replace it. I have never used the welder, as the transformer "let the smoke out" just before I started working there some 40 years ago. Dad looked into getting it rewound at some point, but never had it done after finding out the cost. He always said the brazed joint was superior to any welded one he had ever seen.
 

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Hmmm.... Seems the uploading software on PM prefers that the first photo is turned 90 degrees. Image is upright in my files, but gets turned when uploaded to Attachments. Anyone know the fix?
 
Do Alls Ive owned had a 3 speed gearbox,and a var pulley drive...from memory......but I do remember the first one I had had a welder that was magic....you simply couldnt go wrong......and I assumed all were the same....it was big,so I sold it for a goodly sum,and bought another.....the welder wasnt the same,and you had to be a genius to get a decent weld....And it seems,they are all like that.....so my first one must have had some special welder.
 
So, How Much Would It Cost to Have This Transformer Re-Wound?

JDLeach,

You wrote "Would one day love to either have the transformer rewound, or find an electrically similar one to replace it. I have never used the welder, as the transformer "let the smoke out" just before I started working there some 40 years ago. Dad looked into getting it rewound at some point, but never had it done after finding out the cost"

This opens up the general topic of having transformers rewound: How much would it cost and are there any specialist shops that would do it economically.

The economics of shipping a transformer change with time. The U.S. Postal Service now has those "Flat Rate Boxes," which IIRC can weigh up to 40 lb., for a modest charge. They did not have these 40 years ago.

Members of this forum must have some relevant experiences with transformer re-winders and their price points. There are vendors shown on the internet.

My own experience is very limited; I rewound a fist-sized transformer just once. My father had the necessary cambric (varnished linen) tape and glyptal varnish "on the shelf," which meant I needed only the magnet wire, which was then available from Newark Electronics. I made a makeshift hand-cranked winding machine. (This was before variable-speed drill motors.)

There are YouTube offerings about "repurposing" transformers from defunct microwave ovens which might provide some insight, although at least one of the videos is nonsense because it uses wire with thermoplastic insulation.

John Ruth
 
Purchased same vintage Continental-DoAll band saw at an auction for $100 for the shop I worked at. Should have bought it for myself as it needed only light maintenance to bring it to life. No welder but it had the variable drive pulleys inside the cabinet. There was only one blade guide, the upper, and it cut straight with just that.

Touched up your photos a bit :)
Right Side.jpgWelder.jpgTag.jpg
John


P.S. Don't shoot into the light! Those brooms show up crystal-sharpe :D
 
Thanks for fixing the images John, I am not at all good with cameras. Just a metal sorta guy.

Rewinding transformers can get very expensive, very quickly. Over the years, I have dabbled in vintage electronics, 1930-50s radios, and smoked transformers are the bane of the hobby. Outside of the very smallest ones, rewinding is not something one does when the windings burn out, unless the radio/device is extremely rare or valuable.

The transformer in my brazer falls into the large, expensive category. Looked into having it rewound about 5 years ago, and the fellow at the motor shop just laughed, and asked me how many thousands I was willing spend. I am thinking, given the size and weight, he was talking a couple grand.
 
I have rewound lots of them and designed and made a number of them. None of them got into thousands of dollars. I just posted a similar note to someone else who had fried a DoAll welder. I used to rewind all sorts of strange things for the local GE shop. Often the largest part of the work is unwinding the charred remains, counting turns.

Bill
 
I was just quoting what the last motor shop told me Bill. I never could figure out why the several shops I had talked to over the years kept quoting such exorbitant prices. That last shop was not unusual in their pricing.

As I stated in a previous post, I have wound some coils for my electronics projects, and just do not see how it could be all that difficult.
 
It's not a matter of difficulty of rewinding the transformer, it's a matter of the skills and quality of people calling themselves motor mechanics these days. Most lack the ability to set the winder up for anything they don't do 10 times a day.
Then there is the question of the construction and disassembly of the transformer. They don't do that and they aren't capable of figuring out how to do it, so it can't be done.
If the wire is anything but standard round wire 2 problems come into play, the first being the shop doesn't want to order a roll, and the "mechanic" doesn't know how to work it even if the shop stocks the insulation.

I'd google up transformer rewinders and send out requests. Somebody's done it, and they will probably do it again for right money. If all else fails, you can do it yourself.
 








 
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