Gray 7' metal planer suggestions

I picked up this very nice Gray planer at an auction with a LeBlond mill (posted in other thread).
The table is 7 feet long end to end and there is 24 inches between the columns.
It seems to be in great shape with the only damage being to the big bull gear on the side and it's guard (nasty weld job fixing the cracks). I'd assume it's from the teens or twenties, but where would the serial number be and is there any way to tell from that anymore?
Doesn't look like there's much info. on the vintage machinery site for Gray.
Never thought I'd get to buy one of these and I'm going to have to do some reading to get the terminology right, so pardon my ignorance on proper part names.

I want to do a nice lean-to off the side of my shop for it and was wondering what you guys would suggest for size.
Would three feet on each side be enough to comfortably work around it or should I do more?
I'd assume it weighs about 8,000 lbs, so would a 10" concrete reinforced floor be enough?
I'd like to get it inside before winter and then putter on cleaning it and doing cosmetic work indoors.

Thanks,
Jay

First off congratulations that is really neat. I look forward to following the thread. Now on to the ones that know.....

On UK made planers the serial number was normally stamped on the upper shear of the cross rail at the end nearest the operators station.

10" of concrete should be ok for a small planer.

Leave as much room as you can around the machine. 3ft is probably a minimum. Be aware that at some point in the future you may need to withdraw the shafts and leadscrew on the cross rail for some reason. They usually come out towards the operators station so don't get that side of the machine up against a brick wall unless you don't mind knocking a hole in the wall.

Regards Tyrone.

And one must not forget the total length of the space is double the length of the table - and maybe a bit more so physically you can't get hammered into the wall if you forget and stand there, or the trip fails and the platen doesn't reverse.

10" of concrete might have problems with "settling." I have 6" of concrete in my garage floor (24x32) and the center portion is homogeneous, but the four corners have "cracked loose" a triangle about 6x6: i.e. the center is "dropped" and the corners are staying where they are. Freezing/Thaw may be part of that movement. (center of floor never experiences freeze/thaw.)

Pillars under the feet to below the frost line with a "footing" might be best, and then pour a "surround" walking floor as a free float slab around it.

I like New England Wireless & Steam Museum's pillars under each major machine foot - and the standing floor around it done with bricks set in sand.

If you want to be REALLY period correct the bricks can be maple blocks grain vertical set in sand.

Joe in NH

Consider carefully if you might ever want to work on a 7 foot long 1 foot thick bar ... You may want to allow for fork truck access ... or not!

In my experience planing machines, by their very design, are the most forgiving of machines regarding less than perfect installation. Especially small planers. They'll put up with a lot as long as the height from the table top to the tool tip remains the same whilst the table is in motion, which it usually is.

Regards Tyrone.

More concrete is no doubt better, but the fact here is 15K on a 4" slab (three 5" X 5" points) for 17 years - no issues noticeable - discounting occasional leveling

All the planers I worked on/installed had the more modern style beds were the bed rested on the floor for the full length of the machine. That way the weight was spread more evenly on the foundation. What the machines are like with old fashioned style beds with four small pads bearing down on the foundation are like I wouldn't care to say.

Regards Tyrone.

Bigtrucklover said:

would a 10" concrete reinforced floor be enough?

Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I have a 12,500 lb horizontal boring mill sitting on a 4" concrete slab. The somewhat unique thing about my situation is my shop has radiant underfloor heat which means there is 2" of styrofoam insulation under the slab. The crush weight rating of the insulation is 30 psi which doesn't sound like much until you calculate the actual load once it is spread. I was concerned that the concrete would crack under this load but so far so good. I'm quite sure the floor moves a bit more than if it were poured directly on the compacted base but as i said, so far, no cracks. The concrete is fiber-glass reinforced and is awesome at spreading the load. You should be fine with a 4 inch slab and an 8000 lb machine.

Cool machine
Mark

Thanks for the thoughts gentlemen.
I'll consider your guys's opinions and experiences as I do my planing.
I'd like to build it as big as the pocket book allows of course, but we'll see as I crunch numbers. Biggest thing is to get it indoors before winter.
I've got some heavy track and trolleys that I salvaged from an old meat packing plant that I was thinking about mounting above it so that I can load and unload heavy pieces of work without too much hassle.

I'll add some pictures to this thread as I progress.

Thanks again,

Jay

Bigtrucklover said:

Thanks for the thoughts gentlemen.
I'll consider your guys's opinions and experiences as I do my planing.
I'd like to build it as big as the pocket book allows of course, but we'll see as I crunch numbers. Biggest thing is to get it indoors before winter.
I've got some heavy track and trolleys that I salvaged from an old meat packing plant that I was thinking about mounting above it so that I can load and unload heavy pieces of work without too much hassle.

I'll add some pictures to this thread as I progress.

Thanks again,

Jay

Click to expand...

It's a good idea to have some means of lifting components on and off the table. Sliding things onto the table off a fork lift truck etc usually causes scoring of the table top even if you're pretty careful.

Regards Tyrone.

Finally got around to posting an update.
Due to local concrete shortages and my work schedule, I'm way behind where I wanted to be, but grateful to be to this point.
I ended up pouring a 6+ inch slab with integral wall 21'X 12.5' (8 yards of concrete) with a bit of rebar thrown in. Ended up doing the concrete forming and pour myself with my fathers help as I couldn't find any concrete guys that weren't booked for a month out and freezing temps were approaching.
Just got the planer rolled inside yesterday and now I can frame up the doorway and tin the remaining two walls. There's plenty of room to walk around it and I'm going to put a nice wall to wall bench and cabinets on the back wall. Once the sidings up I need to hunt down a matched pair of old doors and then I'll work on getting lights run inside.



Thanks again for the advice guys.

Jay

Got the tin up and got the planer in position and off the skates.
Still trying to find a nice matching set of old wood doors before starting on wiring
I noticed a round knob on the pulley side of the planer in the side of the bed towards the front (you can see it in attached pic).
I looked under the table and saw it was attached to a rod about a foot long with a clevice fork on the end. Anyone know what that was for? I've looked at a couple pics of similar machines and didn't see it on them.

A 4 to 5 inch slab is more than you need, my 72 inch Bullard only had a 8 inch slab, and that's 70,000 lbs in a small ft print...Phil

Nice work! Should be a fun project making your first chips on that machine. Our first planermill was a Cleveland from the 40’s. It still gets used regularly.

We have a 90,000 lb Butler going together now on a 8 inch slab with 2 inch sole plates grouted and anchored on top to avoid point loading. Patch of floor covered by the machine is about 8 x 10 around the column plus about 8 x 60 under the table. Dimensions in feet.

Interesting to note that when assembling the machine we leveled and joined the two X-axis ways to the column to better than 0.0005 inches per foot. Everything looked good.

Then we picked up the table (about 15,000 lbs) off the floor in front of the machine and set it on the ways. After doing this we check the machine for level again and we found that by shifting the weight of the table from about 15 feet in front of the machine to onto the machine, that the column and table were now leaning back about 0.0015 inches per foot.

Our floor has large aggregate and plenty of rebar in it. Will be interesting to see how much things move when we get it running.

The usual foundation plan for a decent sized planing machine would probably start at about 3ft at either end of the ways increasing to about 8 ft under the uprights. I recall installing a " Stirk " about as big as the " Butler " mentioned above. Back it the day it was a road drill and pick and shovel job excavating the pit. No wonder I've got a bad back ! One of the reasons why the foundation was so deep was to make way for two really large " sash " type weights that counterbalanced the two side planing boxes. The weights were about 10" square in section and about 8 feet long. When the side boxes were up as high as they could go the weights were almost fully into the ground.

The customers had prepared all the shuttering prior to the concrete being poured. The boxes for the holes were the weights went were a bit on the flimsy side and when I got the machine in place and assembled it was touch and go wether the weights would go down the holes. The weight of the concrete had caused the sides of the boxes to bow inward slightly and the clearance had gone from a couple of inches all around to about 1/2" ! With a bit of juggling I got everything to work. The joys of engineering.

You've got a good machine in a " Butler ", they were built to the highest standards. When we installed the beds we allowed a slight hump in the ways leading up to were the uprights are fitted. When the uprights and table were fitted everything worked in perfect alignment.

One place I was working at installing a plano mill already had an old ( 1920's )" Butler " planer. The maintenance guys in the shop were pulling it out for scrap so the new machine could go in the same place. It had a 40ft long bed and to make things easy they were trying to break the bed in half. They had jacks in between the ways in the bed, they were dropping down from the overhead crane onto a length of 8" round bar placed cross ways. No matter what they did they couldn't break it ! They had to get the thermic lances out and cut it in half.

Regards Tyrone.