An English metal planer in Australia

A recent Ebay purchase made its way home today. As I've been after a planer for some years I was quite pleased to finally manage to acquire one, even if incomplete and with some pieces broken.

It's in better condition than I was expecting so no buyer's remorse yet.

First job is to clean it up and figure out how the power feed system works as I can't move the cross slide down and I'm pretty sure something in the power feed system is locking up. Odd because I can wind it up.

Nameplate says C Redman and Sons Halifax England.

Anyway some photos and if anyone out there has more information or pictures, please post them.

PDW

Looks good.

Some info on the company here:-

C. Redman and Sons

Asquith said:

Looks good.

Some info on the company here:-

C. Redman and Sons

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Thanks. So, machine was made prior to 1934 as the company name changed then.

This one is a 4' machine - the table is a little over 4' long and 16" wide, 20" between the uprights if I recall what I measured properly. Weight guesstimate, 1.5 tonnes plus. But really no idea, I had a crane truck pick it up, take it to the freight depot and another crane truck deliver it to here.

Obviously the clapper assembly is missing. Belt shift is broken - old break from the patina on the cast iron. I'll need to fabricate something to replace it, doesn't look too hard if I know what to copy. There's another break visible as well in that cast iron piece on top of the pulleys - looks like those pins were supposed to lock into the bit where it's broken.

PDW

Hi, i have just parted with a 6' Redman, didn't like to see it go but can't have everything? i bought it from a long established firm of millwrights in Bolton who kept EVERYTHING in their records, mine was new in 1909, the invoice and sales book were sold to another fella who had all the books, could try (again) to get copy of book.

The man who has my machine would, i'm sure take as many pics as you need, i'll ask him?

Charles Churchill bought in to Redmans in the 1920`s but did not take over until the mid 30`s when the name changed.
It eventually merged into Churchill at Blaydon in 1972 and the name disappeared.

On the up/down feed on the toolslide:
See if the gear on the feed rod is removable (as in just slides off for double use as the crossfeed when placed on the leadscrew) or reversible, or has a pawl that needs to be flipped.

Many planers did use a single gear for use on either the feed rod or lead screw. Besides reducing parts count for the manufacturer, it eliminates the possibility of a jamb from running both at once.

To reverse the feed (up instead of down, say) sometimes the pawl was such that merely sliding the gear off and putting it on the other way would do the trick. In other mechanisms, there is a means to flip the pawl to reverse the feed.

There is probably also a lever or button on the toolslide to engage or dis-engage the miter gears or a clutch from the feed rod, so the head can be run cross ways with the leadscrew & fed up or down manually.

smt, Whitcomb Blaisdell planer owner.

Ruston3w said:

Hi, i have just parted with a 6' Redman, didn't like to see it go but can't have everything? i bought it from a long established firm of millwrights in Bolton who kept EVERYTHING in their records, mine was new in 1909, the invoice and sales book were sold to another fella who had all the books, could try (again) to get copy of book. View attachment 76280

The man who has my machine would, i'm sure take as many pics as you need, i'll ask him?

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If you can get a copy of that book, I'd love to have one.

As for photos, yes please. Any of the belt shift mechanism, the countershaft drive setup & motor, the clapper box and power feed system would be useful.

Off to the shed shortly for a 2nd round of basic cleaning.

PDW

stephen thomas said:

On the up/down feed on the toolslide:
See if the gear on the feed rod is removable (as in just slides off for double use as the crossfeed when placed on the leadscrew) or reversible, or has a pawl that needs to be flipped.

Many planers did use a single gear for use on either the feed rod or lead screw. Besides reducing parts count for the manufacturer, it eliminates the possibility of a jamb from running both at once.

To reverse the feed (up instead of down, say) sometimes the pawl was such that merely sliding the gear off and putting it on the other way would do the trick. In other mechanisms, there is a means to flip the pawl to reverse the feed.

There is probably also a lever or button on the toolslide to engage or dis-engage the miter gears or a clutch from the feed rod, so the head can be run cross ways with the leadscrew & fed up or down manually.

smt, Whitcomb Blaisdell planer owner.

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Stephen, there is in fact such a gear and I was planning on removing it today. The system looked like that on my Prema shaper where the placement of the gear on one of 2 shafts determines cross or vertical feed. I'd decided last night that this had to work the same as there was no other way it could.

In my ignorance I thought the vertical power feed would lift the entire cross assembly up/down and as there was no obvious way of doing that, my initial assumption was that this unit didn't have vertical feed. But if there was only powered cross feed, why 2 shafts? So I had arrived at the 2nd one being there to power the feed on the vertical head. As this is the shaft the gear is on at the moment, and I have something jamming in the works, a little disassembly is now in order.

Fortunately all the bolts - so far - seem to be reasonably lubricated and come free without major force required. Famous last words...

PDW

PDW-

As you surmised, the rail does not move except by manual effort to gross position it.
In fact with a planer as late as yours, there should be a way to clamp the rail so it does not drift or float in use.
But i did not see anything obvious in the pictures. WB's have a toggle action clamp that works like a monster vise grip across the back, actuated with a tommy bar. Again, not clear if or where yours clamps but it probably should.

smt

PDW
Have sent you contact details for the new owner of that planer,he's expecting to hear from you. I did find another picture, almost worse than the first one! The bed seems to be a little older in design than yours? odd little removeable feet around 3" high,even with those the bull gear is around 1" below floor level, i wonder how many of those got damaged being moved? The countershaft is on end behind bed,just see the cast forward/reverse pulley. Shaft was mounted on a pair of perch brackets fitted to top of side frames,bit of an "afterthought" sort of arrrangement.
Drifting OT, sorry, next door here we had a very old plastics factory making a range of celluloid based products (inc. the covers for old type UK passport). One of the processes involved the use of highly pollished brass plates 5'x2'6", they had 4 6' redman pollishers in a row, all belt driven,identical to your machine only with a third side frame beyond the bull gear and a 3 bearing shaft carrying the mop.
Richard.

Ruston3w said:

PDW
Have sent you contact details for the new owner of that planer,he's expecting to hear from you. I did find another picture, almost worse than the first one! The bed seems to be a little older in design than yours? odd little removeable feet around 3" high,even with those the bull gear is around 1" below floor level, i wonder how many of those got damaged being moved? The countershaft is on end behind bed,just see the cast forward/reverse pulley. Shaft was mounted on a pair of perch brackets fitted to top of side frames,bit of an "afterthought" sort of arrrangement.
Drifting OT, sorry, next door here we had a very old plastics factory making a range of celluloid based products (inc. the covers for old type UK passport). One of the processes involved the use of highly pollished brass plates 5'x2'6", they had 4 6' redman pollishers in a row, all belt driven,identical to your machine only with a third side frame beyond the bull gear and a 3 bearing shaft carrying the mop.
Richard.View attachment 76380

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Thanks for that, I'll drop him a line. Those photos you've posted are pretty interesting too.

I got the gear off the vertical feed shaft without dramas and that freed up the jamming. I've now disassembled the work head and everything looks good there, bevel gears etc all look fine. I also found why it was jamming - the vertical slide gib was frozen solid with congealed oil and glued in place. Backing off the gib screw until it was under a reasonable amount of tension then tapping the other end of the gib with a brass drift got it moving, after that it backed out easily and the rest came apart without dramas.

The original scrape marks are still visible on just about every sliding surface, which I certainly wasn't expecting. OK, the table V ways show some scoring and galling due to lubrication failure/contamination but nowhere near as bad as my shaper which is a lot newer.

Only bad thing I've found so far is a break in the retainer/power feed casting on the LH side of the bridge. The part that forms the back part of the box (there is no gib, it's a close fit) is broken through the bolt holes. I'll have to pull it all down to see what can be done but all the pieces are there and I can think of a few ways to repair it. So it's annoying but neither surprising nor any sort of show-stopper.

More pix when I remember to take the camera back out to the workshop.

PDW

I think you need a bigger one

It is even local for you...

Planer- It's old but it works! | Miscellaneous Goods | Gumtree Australia Glenorchy Area - Derwent Park

Dragging up a zombie thread here but I was wondering how you are getting on with the planer. I have just acquired the same model in reasonably complete condition if you need any details or pics

donkey said:

Dragging up a zombie thread here but I was wondering how you are getting on with the planer. I have just acquired the same model in reasonably complete condition if you need any details or pics

View attachment 202050

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I picked up a second planer of about the same work envelope, complete and functional. The Redman planer has been moved to the back of the shed until I have more time to work on it.

One thing I'm considering is fitting a big ball screw rather than refitting the original drive/reversing mechanism, as there are parts missing & broken. I also have a spare B/port J head so could turn it into a plano-mill relatively easily without doing any irreversible changes.

The Redman is a more elegant shape than my later model Macson planer and the ways are in really excellent condition so it's well worth the effort to get it working again. I just have too many projects with higher priority ATM.

Please post more photos of yours though. We all love tool porn, especially planers.

PDW

Will get some pics up when it is running, might be a while.