New addition to the shop

[scsmith42]

One of our valued add on's to the milling and drying business is some basic millwork.  We have an Oliver 25" jointer/planer, Mattison straight line rip saw, 37" wide belt sander and a dedicated horizontal resaw. These are all used to provide additional services to our customer's such as S1S, S2S, SLR1E, veneer sawing, etc.

One aspect of our business is being able to start with a customer's logs and give them back a finished product such as flooring, ceiling or wainscoting boards, furniture grade lumber, etc.  

When we first kicked off the millwork portion of our business back in 2009, we purchased a 4 head Baker moulder. Similar to the Logosol PH260, it was a nice machine but not designed for production level work. When we would try to make a couple of thousand square feet of oak flooring with it, we usually ended up fighting the machine throughout the process.  

Several years ago I had the opportunity to sell it and ever since then I've been watching for a replacement.  In the interim, we used a 5 hp shaper to make flooring (very slow process).

Last month I bid on and won an auction for a Wadkin 5 head plus 6th universal head moulder.  It was located at a company in Granville, NY that was closing up, and I took the truck and trailer up to load out and bring it back to the farm.  It took all day to load; we had to jack it up, put machinery skates under it and skate it through the plant aisle's to an 8' wide loading dock and then bolt skids onto it and winch it onto my trailer (the machine is almost 16' long). According to the former operator as well as the business owner, it's a great machine and needs nothing to work properly.

It's now sitting in it's new home in my shop.  In order to accommodate it, we had to move several other pieces of equipment to new locations inside the shop and I'm in the process of rebuilding the dust collection system and running new 480V drops to the equipment.  Just about all of the duct fit up has been completed and today I plan to hit some hard licks on the welding the ductwork together.  Thank goodness for Silicone Bronze MiG Wire; it makes welding up the galvanized duct a much easier process!

Here's the moulder in it's new home. I'm looking forward to using it this upcoming week.



 

[Dave Shepard]

I bet that is a solid running machine. 

Did you go up Route 22? If so, my condolences to your suspension.  :D 

[thecfarm]

Don't know nothing about a molder. But I want to wish you luck and I hope the over all plan goes well.

[scsmith42]

I bet that is a solid running machine.

Did you go up Route 22? If so, my condolences to your suspension.  :D

I went across on 29.  Still some rough roads up in that part of the world.

[Dave Shepard]

Everything is rough up there. Late model cars and trucks that look like they went through a world war, or two. And those were the nice vehicles. 

[Don P]

Looks like a long infeed, that thing should make some nice flat, straight stock.

[tule peak timber]

Very nice . A time saver 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[YellowHammer]

Thats sweet.  

[barbender]

That looks like a real nice machine!

[JustinW_NZ]

Nice, what model?

I have a GA220 9 head setup.
Very solid machines.

Cheers
Justin

[boardmaker]

Great addition.  Keep us informed on it's performance.  I've always heard great things about Wadkin.

I really like the signage behind it as well.  I love it when I walk in a shop and it's been personalized.