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Where are all the Metal Planers around North America ?

Richard King

Diamond
Joined
Jul 12, 2005
Location
Cottage Grove, MN 55016
I was thinking we should do a thread of where are all the planers around North America that do contract work. I know Steve Watkins in Novasota Texas has His Beast that he has a thread in the Vintage machine forum. Where else are some? Cash are you keeping yours? Shan Carr some in Port Coquitlam, BC as the picture below. Lets tell all where some are so people can look on here when looking for one to repair machinery.

Pic. Shane Carr's (Canada) Rockford and Steve Watkins (Texas) Rockford
 

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Tuckahoe has 2 operational planers, i think 5 or 6' stroke and what seems like a 24" table. There are 2 smaller ones, i think only one those is hooked up to the line shaft. The museum is trying to get a 10' Rockford. Tuckahoe is not a for profit machine shop, so getting stuff done by them can become quite tricky. Paolo can chime in on ways to accomplish things with the museum. There are other big machines there that may be essential in repairing old iron :). I joined because i see value in being part of the museum. We are always looking for members local or remote.

http://www.tuckahoesteam.org/collectionspages/collectionsmachine.html

If you swing around on this image there is Paolo scraping away :D

Google Maps

here is the 1919 24"x6' rockford.....

http://tuckahoesteam.org/Collections/MachineShop/Rockford_Planer/RockfordPlaner.htm


dee
;-D
 
Still don't have power to the shop so nothing is running.

And yes I would do a lathe bed, or press brake tooling, or milling weldments, or anything else that would fit the machine.

Also thinking about using the table as a hydraulic cylinder brake down bench.

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Its ugly, but it looks to be a cherry of a machine under the faded paint and old oily crud. Also its probably one of the newer planers we'll see, made in 1972. Even though the design looks like it would be better suited to 1872.

Even though they are not on the machine right now, I also have the two other tool slides that are missing.
 
Rees Acheson has one in Alstead NH and will do work for hire. I just picked up my 48 inch King-Way straight edge casting today from him. he has a 24 inch x 6 foot inch Gray converted to Hydraulic drive.
 
Just got mine. It's a 30" x 8' gray circa 1900~
Going to be several months before operational but will be converted to hydro like Rees Achesons as he was nice enough to share his experience.
There are very few operational that I know of in my area. Been looking for years. It's rough but worthy of a little effort.
Gray.jpg
 
Just got mine. It's a 30" x 8' gray circa 1900~
Going to be several months before operational but will be converted to hydro like Rees Achesons as he was nice enough to share his experience.
There are very few operational that I know of in my area. Been looking for years. It's rough but worthy of a little effort.
View attachment 194861

Bob I talked to Rees yesterday, we talked a bit about your project. We are waiting to see how you make out.
 
Tuckahoe has 2 operational planers, i think 5 or 6' stroke and what seems like a 24" table. There are 2 smaller ones, i think only one those is hooked up to the line shaft. The museum is trying to get a 10' Rockford. Tuckahoe is not a for profit machine shop, so getting stuff done by them can become quite tricky. Paolo can chime in on ways to accomplish things with the museum. There are other big machines there that may be essential in repairing old iron :). I joined because i see value in being part of the museum. We are always looking for members local or remote.

http://www.tuckahoesteam.org/collectionspages/collectionsmachine.html

If you swing around on this image there is Paolo scraping away :D

Google Maps

here is the 1919 24"x6' rockford.....

http://tuckahoesteam.org/Collections/MachineShop/Rockford_Planer/RockfordPlaner.htm


dee
;-D

Actually, we have only one operational planer, a 6' x 24" Rockford from 1921. However, we are a working museum, not a job shop.
Here is how we operate: the highest priorities for us are restoring the various machines in the museum, providing support to the other exhibits by making parts to repair steam and gas engines, and doing educational demonstrations (i.e. when we're open to the public, we rather have the machines working on a project, than just cutting chips for the sake of cutting chips).

If we have a few spare cycles, we could use the machines for some other job.
Since I joined a few years ago, we used the planer to re-cut the bed of a 13" South bend belonging to one of our volunteers, we cut some aluminum bar to make blanks for soft jaws, which would get finished on our P&W production milling machine (and given as gift in exchange of a reasonable donation), I've machined to dimensions a piece of 1018 bar for a different project, machined my 18" KingWay dovetail straightedge, and now it is set up for machining a piece of cast iron into a small dovetail straightedge which will be used in the hands-on demos on how to scrape.

We are there almost every Saturday doing some work. Another peculiarity of being a non-for profit organization and not a job shop is that we have to rely mostly on donations (both from us, members, and from the public) and gotta use the tooling that is available, unless you make/donate what is missing.
I'm working on enriching the collection of fixtures that can be used to hold in place work on the planer's platen, but I'm far from being done.
If somebody is willing to wait several months for his project to be worked on and is keen to help the Museum with voluntary work and/or monetarily, we could be considered part of the list.

Speaking about the 10' planer that is being donated to us, we're still working on the logistics of retrieving it and storing on the grounds till it's restoration has passed the "gross phase" and, at our pace, possibly 4-5 years time for restoring it. Its retrieval and transport to Tuckahoe will likely cost us over $2500.

Paolo
 
Bos Machine in Hillsdale, IL has a planer. I've never seen them use it to machine anything, but they use the table as a platten to straighten things once in a while.
 
I got a little planer, an 8" x 32" open side Rockford. Used to run them back in the day. Can't be beat for making long parts of constant section like rails for stuff, press brake dies, machine tool way bearings, long keyed and splined shafts, accurate plane surfaces, etc.

Rant - No! Wait! -Brag:

I recall a piece of sonar sensing gear that required a dozen plates 7 ft square, flat and parallel within 0.005" over the full surface. The plate finished 1 1/4" thick to hold the weight down. (Celled or stiffened construction was not an option for some reason.) We started with 2" plate stress relieved on sand, roughed and finished them on an 8 x 8 x 32 Gray planer and hit every one the first go. We broad-nosed them using a rich soluble oil/water mix for coolant. The finish was like glossy gray satin ribbon laid edge to edge..Charley Gibbs masterminded the job and there was no man on Earth in my opinion better qualified to run a planer job demanding unusual accuracy.

Some things - a very few things - are better accomplished on a planer which is why a few are still around
 
Richard, the 18" SE, that was my first project at your course, I'd planed (actually shaper- a 25" stroke TOS) many years ago and 'allowed' to season ;-)

Denis' 36" SE casting, that was my second project, he'd machined for me. I think it was done on a good sized horizontal mill.

Regards,
Stan.
 
Forrest, I'd love to see pics of your planer. One of my regrets is not buying a 48" open sided Rockford years ago from college I'd done machining courses at. Didn't have space, didn't know enough at the time...

Lucky7
 
I goofed up this morning and put up some pic's and info in another thread. I added that there is a huge planner at Columbia Forge in Portland OR and 3 planners and 1 planer mills at Northfield Machinery in Northfield MN. There is also a big planner at Industrial Welding in Duluth MN.
Pic's L to R. Columbia Forge, Northfield machines and shop.
 

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Sorry, The hydraulics, swivel slides, and clapper boxes on my Rockford needed attention late 2004 so I got to fixing them. Spring 2005 I had that stroke and never finished what I started. Otherwise, I'd be Denis's machining contractor. I could line up two castings and do them both the same time..

Anyone want a Rockford 93 x 32 open side hydraulic planer with rail and side heads?
 
Anyone want a Rockford 93 x 32 open side hydraulic planer with rail and side heads?

What's the footprint on a machine like that? The planer Bos has is 16' stroke, so twice as big as yours. That actual machine is probably 35' long and it might weigh 60,000 lbs. It might weigh more than that.
 








 
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