Sedgwick 3 head Tenoner Restoration

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deema

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Though this might be of interest.
I recently bought a 3 headed Sedgwick tenoner off a well know auction site. Initial appearances suggested that a wipe down with an oily rag would bring it fully back to working condition. However, when I finally got hold of the machine I found that the motor brakes didnt work, the starter didn’t operate properly and after being storred in an open shed for a few years rust was the devil.

Anyway, here it is in its original condition
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What would the main use of this machine be? Door manufacturing?
 
When I got the machine home, a good press of all the buttons didn’t get the scribe head motor running. So, open up the starter.
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The starter consists of three relays or contractors each of which has a overload current relay attached on the back of them. They are all daisy chained together such that pushing the stop button stops all three motors not just the one that the stop button was pressed for. I’ve not had one of these machines before and I not sure if that is standard or just some tinkering that has taken place during its life. If anyone with a machine can let me know I’d appreciate it. At the moment I can’t think of a good reason to change it. The middle contactor has been changed at some point where as the two either side are original I believe. The offending contactor is on the right. First checking that all the wiring is good by continuity testing tells me that everything is wired up properly and that it should work. The culprit must therefore either be the contactor or the overload relay. With an insulated screwdriver pushing the plastic button in the middle of the contactor (I use an electricians screw driver to keep my fingers well away from anything that’s likely to make me dance a little) the contacts are brought together and the motor starts. Checking continuity between A1 and A2, which are the terminals for the coil that creates a magnetic field that pulls the contacts together normally I find it to be open circuit. These contacts don’t allow you to replace the coil....darn.....(some do, which makes it very easy and cheap to convert from 3ph to 1ph coils, or just replace the coil when it fails) so a new contactor was purchased and popped in place. Success. All three motors now work!
 

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The machines is used to make tenons for just about anything that needs a tenon.
I’ve had a Multico tenoner for a lot of years, and made everything from doors, windows, furniture, gates, etc. The main advantage of having three heads as opposed to two is that I will be able to have a tenon at a different width to the scribe and cut it all in one pass. It also saves wear on the scribe cutters which being HSS blunt far quicker than the carbide inserts used on the tenon heads. So, for instance on a thick door where I only want the tenon to be 1/3 of the thickness of the styles and I don’t want a really deeply relieved door panel the tenons are narrower than the Rebate or groove for the panel. To make this with either a spindle moulder or double headed tenon requires the tenon to be first cut, the machine reset and scribe cutters added and then recut which takes time and increases the opportunity for ‘oh dear’ moments!

I wanted an old machine as they have 50mm heads which will allow me to use the scribe cutters I have for the Multico. The modern machines have 60mm heads.
I’ve managed to find again on an auction site a set of heads that are 60mm just so I can use any tooling I buy going forward.
 
Use a couple of these and they are absolute monsters machines. The 3ph ones are seriously powerful and don't wince at anything you throw at em, the 1ph ones are a little wimpy but get the job done for the most part. There must be new regulations or something because I've seen a lot of them lately with guards on the front and rear of the carriage like the SCM machines.
 
All of the motors have brakes, they are activated by the electric current which creates a magnetic field pulling the brake plates apart. Unfortunately, the brakes on two of the motors didn’t work. One was permanently on and wouldn’t realease and the other wouldn’t full brake the motor. All of the motors and Suoer quality British built Brook Motors. A call to Brook Motors based in Huddersfield was really helpful. They don’t make the motors anymore, however spares were available. However.....the brake units and just that a complete brake unit. Each replacement brake unit was over £300! Ouch.

In case anyone needs in here are the kart numbers

wF119267 is a brake reference 761 31 11 c00 178 volt our part number to order is 33207305 £292.10 ea

The next is for the scribe motor.

J175943 is a brake reference 764 31 10h00 178 volt our part number to order is 33047743 £370.10 ea

The tenoner was sold as fully working, and I bought it off a really nice chap who was a skilled craftsman. Anyway a phone call later and we had agreed to split the cost between us.

I now have all of the electrics / motors running as they should all stopping in less than 10 seconds making them compliant.

The machine is 3ph, but I’m not sure there is much difference in umph compared to the single phase machine. The motors are not that big and looking at the Sedgwick Specs they are just about the same power.

They are lovely machines, the sliding table is a really good size and with the fence adjustable makes it very easy to do angled tenons. The Multico would also easily chew through 5” x 3” seasoned English oak to make 5” long tenons for doors etc without any issues
 
Stripping the machine down ready for preparing for paint was a relatively simple process. Although badly rusted everything came apart fairly easily with only a little pursuation required occasionally.
 

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Finally got it fully in pieces.

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There's a hell of a difference between the single and three phase machines, in my opinion, The single is a slow starter and would take about 25 seconds to get all the heads going full speed in sequence, on the three-phase machine you can pretty much press all the buttons and the machine starts up in 3 seconds. The single struggles a little to do the larger tenons for doors and you have to take it slowly, but the three-phase one just ploughs through the wood as if it wasn't there comparatively.
 
That does sound like a big difference in performance between the two. I’ve not used the machines before and was just looking at the specs. I have 3ph so that was a logical choice as well as the secondhand prices being lower, I’m delighted I went for the 3ph based on your experience.
 
You must employ someone if you have to meet the regs on stopping? I picked up a load of scary tooling that came off a big old wadkin EKA a while back. There was some massive trenching heads I think that were about 14" and a load of square blocks.
 
The slog now begins of stripping off the paint so that I can resolve the rust issues. The rust has pin pricked through almost everywhere meaning that the paint layers are unstable and unsuitable for painting straight over. This really is a task for a shot blast, but since I’ve never used paint stripper before I thought it was an opportunity to give it a go. The paint appears to be a hammered paint over some form of primer / undercoat. I’ve heard mixed reviews of the domestic paint stripping products, I thought I’d give a product with dicloromethane in it a go. The active ingredient is what made traditional Nitrimos good. With respirator, full face mask and something a little short of a biohazard suit (you can’t be too careful with this stuff) I gave it a go. The stripper ate easily through the hammered paint but struggled with the primer / undercoat. It ‘melted’ or softened the undercoat but does not bubble it making it difficult to get off. On the cast iron, it’s has been a very frustrating and time consuming process. Would I do it the same way again? no chance! I will definitely find a local dung blast facility as the results aren’t brilliant.

From this
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To this
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The sheet steel cleaned up very well, the cast iron not so. Where the corners are there is still paint left, as no matter how much stripper I applied, it would not shift it. I used an angle grinder with a wire brush to clean up the cast iron, but again there is paint left in the dimples. The next challenge was how to neutralise the stuff. The COSHH and Technical data sheets suggested washing with soapy water. Google suggested white spirit as an alternative. I was seriously concerned about using soapy water on steel, I had visions of rust developing very quickly. I tried White spirit, it sort of worked, but did not fully get rid of the residue. I needed to find a way of using water and avoiding rust. The cast iron would I was sure absorb the water and rust out. I use Gunk for initial degreasing of metal stuff I’m going to paint, and this is water based. I decided it must contain some form of rust inhibitor. The process was to wash down with Gunk and then wash with soapy water and then wash down with Gunk again. This seemed to work very well, with no rust being generated. Each piece was dried and any water allowed to evaporate before covering with Krust to convert any rust to a hard stable surface.
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I use Tractol enamel to paint machines, I find it hard wearing and easy to apply. It can be brushed, rolled or sprayed. I spray it using a HVLP. You dilute it with either white spirit or standard thinners.

The parts are both big and heavy, so I sheeted up the workshop and stood them on pallets to paint.

First a coat of primer / undercoat.

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Then two coats of top coat.
 

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Thanks for posting your refurb.

I used to have one of these, paid about £1600 for it back in 1998.

They work well, although a bit tricky to set up with the scribe head, more time consuming than the 2 head multicos although more versatile.

I built a set of air clamps for the machine so I could do end matching on oak flooring -we used to do 500 boards at a go! (With 2 people the air clamps got the cycle time down to a few seconds).
 
On this occasion I decided to replace all of the nuts and bolts. They were all badly rusted and the prospect or rust removal and re-nickel plating seemed to be too much like hard work.

Sedgwick machines are well engineered IMO and are both easy to disassemble and reassembly. Nothing to specially align or setup on this machine, just bolting everything back together and adjusting the gribs to have sufficient hold to prevent slop and not too much that you can’t turn the handles with undue effort. The only slight adjustment was ensuring that I got the spindle for the sliding table arm perpendicular with the bar that the table slides on. If it wasn’t the table would dip as it slid along the bar causing the tenons not to be level.

I set the sliding table top to be level with one if the heads and then checked that the alignment of the heads was correct; which it was.

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I mount all of my machines on steel C section with home made feet added (M14 boots with. Disc of steel welded on the head of the bolt. This raises them to a better working height for me as well as allowing easy levelling and access for a pallet truck should I wish to move it around.
 

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Though this might be of interest.
I recently bought a 3 headed Sedgwick tenoner off a well know auction site. Initial appearances suggested that a wipe down with an oily rag would bring it fully back to working condition. However, when I finally got hold of the machine I found that the motor brakes didnt work, the starter didn’t operate properly and after being storred in an open shed for a few years rust was the devil.

Anyway, here it is in its original condition
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Hi Seller

Are you able to give me a call on 07804667444 I'm maybe interested in your Tenoner.
[email protected]

Kind regards
Tristan
 
@TristanM thanks for your interest, this machine I restored about five years ago. It wasn’t and isn’t for sale, it’s one of my own user machines😀
 
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