Help required with Cooksley 12 inch planer/thicknesser restoration

[OldWood]

I'm doing pretty well on this so far in that I have the motors and drive belt/chain running but have suddenly realised that there is clearly a special tool for setting the bed height which didn't come with the machine.

But more seriously, and what I do now need some help with, is that I cannot find how the get the beds off. I need to do this so that I can either make a matching tool or do a mod that is user-friendly. It the moment the tool looks as if it was a nominally 50mm long hollow shaft which engaged with two now-rather-tired pegs to turn a threaded shaft.

I won't go into how I would like to fix it for the moment but I need to get both beds off and that is defeating me.

 

[OldWood]

Just so this question is answered for anyone else coming to this Forum with the same question - the beds can be removed by winding them all the way up. I had to use pair of plumber's pliers and some oil to get this to happen. They are really a two man lift so beware.

How I have overcome the drive problem is to have two large nuts welded to the ends of the threaded shafts so that I can use a suitable 24mm socket spanner in future. The other problem I have also now found is that the in-feed table bush for this threaded rod in the machine frame is significantly worn - just a hole through the cast iron - so is going to have to be reamed out and sleeved with a bronze bush.

One of these days I will get to use the machine!!!

 

[Jameshow]

Just so this question is answered for anyone else coming to this Forum with the same question - the beds can be removed by winding them all the way up. I had to use pair of plumber's pliers and some oil to get this to happen. They are really a two man lift so beware.

How I have overcome the drive problem is to have two large nuts welded to the ends of the threaded shafts so that I can use a suitable 24mm socket spanner in future. The other problem I have also now found is that the in-feed table bush for this threaded rod in the machine frame is significantly worn - just a hole through the cast iron - so is going to have to be reamed out and sleeved with a bronze bush.

One of these days I will get to use the machine!!!

Come on let's have some pictures of the machine and your engineering get rounds!

 

[Housey210]

what cooksley is it, pickies will help. We had a 12 inch one at the council back in the 70s. The machinist took the tables off only find it did not plane up correctly afterwards. Cooksley sent an engineer out to fix, "shouldn't be removed they said, all assembled then ground tru and flat insitu." This was also the case with my dominion 16x9, table gound in one in situ.