Famco Arbor Press

[Roberts210]

Found this rusty Famco press at a local machinery seller's outdoor yard for $100. It was missing the brake, daisy wheel, the racheting arm and rachet pawl, and had been knocked over, breaking some of the handles on the ship's wheel.

First thing I did was clean the press all up, remove the rust and prime and paint it with Ford tractor paint.

Famco is still in business, so I asked what a new brake, daisy wheel, racheting arm and rachet pawl would cost. Got a reply back--more than a thousand bucks--a lot more. To heck with that!!

Then I started on making the missing parts. I made a brake out of an old bronze door knob. Worked great.

Then I went to work fabricating the ratcheting arm. I took two pieces of 3/4" steel and welded them together and had a machine shop do the drilling for the holes. For the "cave" for the end of the pawl I drilled a hole and cut the cave out with my old Delta W&M bandsaw, and welded side pieces on the cave. A friend on the owwm website gave me the daisy wheel for shipping cost. For an extension on the ratchet arm I used a 3 ft. long meat hook from a slaughtering plant. It is some kind of strong steel--I can't bend it even when I hang all my weight on it--which makes sense since cows hung on it at one time.

For the pawl I took a big old grade 5 bolt and started cutting and grinding on it, careful never to get it too hot. You can see my crude wooden pattern next to it--hey, I never said I was a pattern-maker!

Works real good.

 

[sqaurelizard]

nicely saved good stuff

 

[Roberts210]

I don't know if my old buddy Dan, also from Mo. is on this site, but he is the guy who steered me to this. So if you are here Dan, THANKS!!

 

[raddksn]

Nice find, and nice work!!!

 

[organ]

Nice job!

 

[Roberts210]

Thanks raddksn and organ. I always wanted one of these and when Dan told me about this one I couldn't resist.

 

[Ponchoguy]

Found this rusty Famco press at a local machinery seller's outdoor yard for $100. It was missing the brake, daisy wheel, the racheting arm and rachet pawl, and had been knocked over, breaking some of the handles on the ship's wheel.

First thing I did was clean the press all up, remove the rust and prime and paint it with Ford tractor paint.

Famco is still in business, so I asked what a new brake, daisy wheel, racheting arm and rachet pawl would cost. Got a reply back--more than a thousand bucks--a lot more. To heck with that!!

Then I started on making the missing parts. I made a brake out of an old bronze door knob. Worked great.

Then I went to work fabricating the ratcheting arm. I took two pieces of 3/4" steel and welded them together and had a machine shop do the drilling for the holes. For the "cave" for the end of the pawl I drilled a hole and cut the cave out with my old Delta W&M bandsaw, and welded side pieces on the cave. A friend on the owwm website gave me the daisy wheel for shipping cost. For an extension on the ratchet arm I used a 3 ft. long meat hook from a slaughtering plant. It is some kind of strong steel--I can't bend it even when I hang all my weight on it--which makes sense since cows hung on it at one time.

For the pawl I took a big old grade 5 bolt and started cutting and grinding on it, careful never to get it too hot. You can see my crude wooden pattern next to it--hey, I never said I was a pattern-maker!

Works real good.

I have a miniature Famco arbor press, saved from the dumpster at my old job. I just moved it last weekend...

 

[Roberts210]

And it's a funny story about the first thing I pressed on this. I'd been wanting to replace the bearings in a 1950's 6" jointer for some time. I had bought this jointer in the 1980's and had never replaced the bearings, and they seemed dry and noisy. They had shields and so I had never greased them either. The ball bearings were in cast iron housings--and I pulled the housings off the jointer and took the first one to my nice restored press and set it all up and pulled down and nothing happened. Eventually I was hanging my full weight from the extension handle and... nothing. The bearing was stuck in the housing. I tugged and pulled down and hung on to no avail. I got my heat wrench (propane torch) and fired it up and heated up the housing to what I felt was about right and then jumped onto the extension handle and hung on. Nothing. Then with no warning the bearing exploded out of the housing with a loud CRACK and fell to the floor along with me and the housing and all the paraphernalia I had used in the pressing. Luckily I had bolted the Famco down securely or it probably would have fallen over too. So I approached the second housing with some hesitation. I mentally planned out exactly how I would set it up on the daisy wheel so as to avoid any problems when it too exploded out of the housing. So I set the second housing up on the daisy wheel and that bearing fell out from gravity alone.

 

[Roberts210]

Saved from the dumpster!! Oh man, you got a good deal there.
Before I got this one I was looking at them on ebay and even the small ones bring a pretty penny.