Three Wise Men Bearing Gifts.

Timbuck

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I had a visit by "Three Wise Men" bearing gifts to my humble workshop yesterday It was Pete Howlet and two of his trusty servants ... it was the first time in 9 or 10 years of comunicating on the web that we had actually met in person.. We exchanged a few uke building items and stuff that I don't need anymore, and we had a very enjoyable time like guys do in a man shed ..One of the items that was gifted to me was a clapped out "Jet 10-20 plus" drum sander thicknesserer ... Pete was fed up with it and had bought a new super dooper king size sander to replace this one...the conveyor motor was dead ..the conveyor belt was all gnarled down the edges due to tracking problems and the winding up and down mechanism was non existant due to the stripped thread problem. He said I could sort it out and sell it if I wanted....Today I had a good look at it and fully stripped it down to the base..The conveyor motor was working off the machine so I had look at what the problem was with it..It was a simple error that stopped it working the motor spindle had a flat spot where the roller grub screw was supposed to bite into but whoever fitted the motor had missed the flat bit and the grub screw was biting into the round part of the spindle and had worn a groove all the way round...also a support bearing on the drive roller was badly worn causing the tracking problems....the main slides were jammed and it took a lot of work to get the main motor bracket off the slides ..i found they were gummed up with a stiff mixture of sawdust and old grease and i had to use a solvent to clean away the gunge..anyway that was about all that was wrong with it..So I gave every thing a good clean and rebuilt it..I fitted one of my repair kits to the stripped lug on the main arm..and a couple of hours later I gave it a quick set up and a test run ...I have ordered a new conveyor belt and a replacement roller bearing which i'll fit later..but all in all it's now good running machine and i'm thinking of running it in tandem with my other jet 10-20 with two different grades of abrasive one course and one fine.
I managed to get it accurate across the platern to within a couple of thou..Not bad for wood work;)...Here is a little Video of it working.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbFYI35keAo
 
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Ken,

What did you do in your former, pre-ukulele life? Engineering type work?
 
Damn. I wish I had your machining skllls, Ken. The threads on my Jet 10-20 recently stripped after 7 years of use, and I scrapped it and bought a new one. We'll see how long this one lasts.
 
Ken, you could make a saxophone from my drawer of old plumbing parts.

It seems odd though that the Jet/Performax 10/20s seem to be plagued with problems while I've hears no complaints from the 16/32s. You'd think they'd use the same engineering and maybe even some of the same parts. My 16/32 has been running strong for 13 hard years with only a feed belt replacement. (BTW, there's a much better feed belt replacement available. I bought mine from Amazon. It was a long time ago and I have no information about it other than it's white and it's made of a different material.)
 
We had a great time at Ken's - eat your heart out my American cousins! I have a brief video to edit which I will do tonight and post it here. We came away with some goodies - particulaerly a replacement for our hobby CNC machine, bought in error. We are now struggling to hook up Ken's but can't wait to get the hang of it.....
 
Chuck Wrote (BTW, there's a much better feed belt replacement available. I bought mine from Amazon. It was a long time ago and I have no information about it other than it's white and it's made of a different material.)
I looked on AMAZON Chuck they have a picture of one but it's no longer available :(
 
Ken,

What did you do in your former, pre-ukulele life? Engineering type work?

It all started in the 1940's when I was a 4 year old little lad Doug..my Dad had an Edison Phonograph in a cupboard the type that had tube shaped records...While he was away at work I used to get it out and play with it, the clockwork fascinated me...in the end I took it to bits to find out what made it go (I was like that)..I never got it back together again after the main spring shot out :eek:..strangely my Dad didn't seem too bothered about it..In the 1950's in Sheffield UK when you left school you had two main choices for employment..the Coal mine or the Factory, I chose the factory in a machine shop.;)
 
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To someone interested in guns and knives, Sheffield has always been a special place.
 
Tracking the conveyor belt seems to be a problem most users have difficulty with...this one has a worn bearing on the drive end support bracket and and it causes the belt to drift towards that bearing, I could over-tighten the belt at that side so that it stayed central but that would put even more pressure on the bearing causing more wear & causing one side of the belt to go slack The bearing has to be replaced. to fix it.:rulez:

If you live in the USA you can get spares here
http://www.ereplacementparts.com/jet-1020-plus-628900-drum-sander-parts-c-32652_32661_32862.html
But if like me you live in the EU or elswhere ..Tuff ! :rolleyes:
 
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I'm not sure you can call anyone who dedicates their life to building ukuleles 'wise' :D
 
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