Re: The Lone Beech Garage Build Thread (60x46)
Friday - July 7, 2017
Today we moved from the 21st century automotive diagnostic scanner I was playing with yesterday to a machine that was made somewhere between 1941 & 1948.
I went to an estate sale about 10 miles from my home and came across a Walker Turner MBN 1105 16-inch wood/metal Band Saw. The "Serial Number" on the Walker Turner Name Plate was 21-842. This was day 2 of the sale so I was a little surprised to see the saw still there.
A close examination of the saw was made difficult by where it was located. It was in an outbuilding with poor natural lighting and there were a few other objects on display that hindered an unencumbered approach. Despite the obstacles I noticed one thing that was unusual. The power cord was very thick and ran straight from the motor to what appeared to be a NEMA 10-30P plug (old style dryer plug). No switch between the motor and the power source. No doubt this "feature" was part of the reason this saw was still on the property.
A fellow that was involved with the sale noticed me looking at the saw and started talking it up. When I expressed some concern about if the saw worked, he said something like, "let's plug it in." I admired his enthusiasm but wasn't sure it was possible based on the odd plug.
However, we looked around and found a boxed safety switch mounted on a wall with a couple of pieces of short conduit coming out the bottom. One of the conduits terminated into a box containing a NEMA 10-30R receptacle.
The saw was plugged in by the Estate Sale minion and the safety switch was moved to the "ON" position. The saw ran!
Not only did it run but it seemed to do so without any squealing, scraping or unusual smells. We shut the saw down.
The more I looked at the saw the more it intrigued me. The thing had more metal in it than most modern cars. I walked from the outbuilding up to the main house and asked the fellow handling the money about the Band Saw.
He indicated that no one so far (this was day 2 of the sale) had expressed any interest in the saw. He was willing to drop the tagged price by almost half. I said I'd think about it and came back to my house to do some research.
BGGRNCHVY has a
thread on GJ of a very similar Band Saw.
The more internet work I did the more I thought that this saw was attractive. Unlike many examples on the web, this saw seemed to be complete and with no obvious repairs. Although I did note that the weight of the many layers of paint may equal the weight of the bare saw and said paint may be covering things of concern. Still...
I asked my son to assist, once again, in retrieving a treasure. We drove back to the estate sale arriving at about 2 pm. I handed the fellow that I had discussed price with earlier some folding money and then my son & I started the job of extracting this rather massive machine from the outbuilding. [A couple of sources on the internet had indicated this Band Saw weighed 600 pounds.]
Thirty minutes later we were back at the Lone Beech Garage. The Northern Tool Appliance Dolly was extremely useful in safely moving this machine.
Yes, we could have used the Electric Chain Hoist and the Yellow Beam to lift the Band Saw off the trailer - my son and I discussed that option and it was very tempting but...
...that would have required moving a bunch of stuff in the "long bay" to outside the LBG and we decided to minimize our exposure to the hot, humid Georgia July afternoon weather and carefully rolled the Band Saw off the trailer.
A few Band Saw Blades came with the saw.
I took quite a few pictures and then left for the day. I'm pretty tickled about the Art Deco look of this old machine and I hope to make it a useful tool in the near future.
Scott
