Awhile back I convinced Allen Hunt to look for a real tablesaw instead of the sawstop he had originally intended to buy.  I tend to give Allen a bit of a hard time, and this would save him from much future torment.  Soon after his decision to shop for a saw, he came upon the online auction for the machinery at Tell City, IN.  They had a really nice old Tannewitz tablesaw, and he decided to make a bid on it.

 


He also bid on this nice old 8" Baldor grinder:



Some pallet racking, and some drawer clamps.  The saw, grinder, and clamps all ended, and he got the saw and grinder, but not the clamps.  Feeling the awful heartbreak of not being the high bidder on something he really wanted (we've all been there), he rested his eyes upon a "case clamp", and with a vacant, dreamy stare, he said "...it's got star wheels...". 





It was, of course, HUGE.

Now being the type of guy who really likes to have things planned out well ahead of time, he called me on Friday afternoon and asked me if I could accompany him Saturday morning (yes, the following morning) to pick these items up.  Since it was the only day Dan Warner would be there, and the owner, Gene, was asking $50 an hour to come in on weekends otherwise, Allen sweetened the deal by offering me the Baldor grinder.  I agreed, and informed him he'd be buying meals as well.  Since it was a 4 hour drive one way, I figured we'd be gone maybe 10 hours, because surely loading wouldn't take more than 2 hours.  Turns out I'm not too good at figuring.

We set out at 5:00am Saturday morning with about 3 hours sleep, and had an uneventful drive.  After arriving and spending some time looking around, we found Dan, who introduced us to Gene, the owner.  We mentioned that we were there for the saw, grinder, and case clamp.  Gene told Allen "The case clamp is on the third floor and you can't get it out of there."  Allen remained calm, but I'm sure that if I had screwed a steam pressure gauge in his ear, it would have been past the red.  Gene took us on a very long route, over conveyors, around machinery, and finally to an elevator up to the third floor.  As we were going up, he said it was welded together and wouldn't fit on the elevator.  Upon examining the machine, parts of it were indeed welded together.  Total weight was maybe 4000lbs. I gave it a slow, thoughtful look, and began talking about how we'd get it apart and down to the loading area.  I think Gene began to gain a little respect for us at that point.  I told Allen it would take all day, and he said something about how maybe we should leave it.  I said we didn't come all the way to Indiana to leave it.  When we got back to the first floor, someone, I think it was Dan, asked if we were going to try to get it out.  I said "We're not gonna try, we're gonna do it." 

First, we moved the saw out to the loading area.  Next, we hauled a bunch of tools up to the 3rd floor and began the long, slow task of taking apart this monstrosity, which by this time had earned the name "Allen's Folly".  Every time we'd get disouraged, I'd look over at him and say "...but it's got star wheels..."  Here is a not so great pic of Allen with his machine.


 
 Here is a pic of me standing against one of the upright sections of the machine, which would soon earn the name "man mashers":



We decided to take out the long screws which moved the central man masher, take the man masher out, take the top beam down, then take the ends down, cutting the little welds that held the end pieces onto the wheeled base.  Sounds easy right?  It only took about 7 hours.  Unscrewing the lead screws alone took over an hour:



We used an engine hoist and a strap wrapped around the top beam to lower the central man masher.  It was creepy.  Next, Allen did a fine job of tying a strap on the 10ft I beam that formed the top of the machine.  The strap was tied to hold the load in 3 places, and it was lowered without incident.  Next, we had to cut these welds that held the uprights to the base:



Dan and Neil helped us with that, and helped us lower the end sections.  By this time, Allen and I were so exhausted that the help was sorely needed.  We all worked together to get the pieces down to the loading area.  The wheeled base was so long that it had to be turned on its side and put in the elevator going from corner to corner.  Next, we took apart some pallet racking and got everything to the loading area.  About this time there was a tornado warning complete with storm sirens.  We just kept loading stuff all the way through it.  Allen pulled under an overhang and began to strap down the load.  From there, we went to take a short tour of Dan's shop.  Once again, I want to thank Dan and Neil for going above and beyond by helping us out so much. 

After what seemed like a very long, sleepy drive, Allen dropped me off at my house at 2:00am, 21 hours after we left.  I let him know that it was going to take quite a bit of time for me to imagine some project to get him involved in which was so horrible that we'd be even for this one.  We still have to unload the thing and rig it into Allen's walkout basement, but that's another story.

Eric 

Monday, day 3...
The day started with the lower wheel still on its shaft, the motor still in place, and the column still on the saw.


First, we picked up the drive pulley and various parts off the floor to give us more room to work


There were 2 options for removing the lower wheel.  Either take it off the shaft or move the whole base casting over and pull it out shaft and all.  We chose the first option, using a 36" pipe wrench to take off the 4 1/2" nut by pounding the wrench with a small timber.  We then used the timber and a sledgehammer to drive out the shaft, which is as big around as a soda can and 4 ft long. We hoisted the lower wheel out of the pit.


We layed it over on a pallet and took it outside.  Next, we lowered the 30HP motor and the starter.


The back of the hoist tried to come up and catapult both my Dad and my friend Jack.  However, we prevailed.  Next, I unbolted the column from the saw and lowered it first with a chain hoist in the ceiling, then to the floor with the engine hoist.


We loaded all that stuff up and hauled it to Allen's garage, ate lunch, and came back to deal with the base casting.


It looked something like an anvil about 7ft long and maybe 3000lbs.  It was very tricky getting it out to a place where we could use the pallet jack.  There were holes in the floor on both sides of it which gave me visions of ending up in the basement with the casting.  After a protracted fight using prybars, blocks, a pallet jack, and the engine hoist, we got the base casting out of the building.  It was too late for the final loading, so I have to go back in the morning.

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Day 2 was very busy and I only got a couple pics. My dad accompanied me to help with tasks that needed extra hands. First, we used the engine hoist to put the feed mechanisms, ship's wheel section, and various other parts on pallets. Next, we removed the lower wheel guard. In order to remove the lower wheel and shaft, we had to remove the giant drive pulley (6 v-belts, over 2ft diameter). Luckily it was on a browning type tapered hub. It was easy to get it loose from the shaft, but it could not be slid off the shaft without lifting said shaft with the chain hoist so it would be above floor level. Of course in order to do that, we had to remove the bearing caps and oilers. The main casting will still have to be moved to the side since the lower wheel is built into the floor. Next, we hung a chain hoist from the same eye bolt that was used to assemble the saw so long ago. We hooked the upper wheel to the hoist, removed the upper bearing caps which looked like they had just been poured, and lifted the lower wheel and shaft. We then moved it to the side and lowered it until we could hook it up to the engine hoist. Here are some pics of that. In the first pic, you can see the big v belt pulley behind the bottom of the ladder. I'm in the second picture for scale, and to show just how dirty a job this is. The foreman was kind enough to use his forklift to load the pallets on Allen's trailer. We rolled the engine hoist out the door with the upper wheel still hanging, and loaded it directly on the trailer. There will be one more day of taking the main upright casting off, moving the lower casting over, and removing the lower wheel. We also need to remove the motor and starter yet. That will happen on Monday.

A few weeks ago, fellow owwm'er Allen Hunt bought a lathe sight unseen over Craigslist.  It was described as a jeweler's lathe, and when he went to pick it up, he was dismayed that it was only a foot long and unsuitable for any sort of heavy machinery repair.  Since he had promised to buy the little machine, he went ahead and took the deal anyway.  When he brought it home, I gave him a bit of a hard time about it.  I told him it really wasn't even big enough to qualify as a baby lathe, that it could only be considered a toy lathe.  He laughingly agreed, and I joked that I was going to put a Precious Moment's sticker on it so he could display it on a shelf somewhere.  He thought for weeks about who might actually buy the little machine for the price he had paid and came up with nothing. 
This morning my 7 year old son Logan needed to build a pinewood derby car for cub scouts.  He did all the sanding, painting, and decals on the car body, but the wheels and axles still needed smoothed and polished.  The little lathe immediately came to mind as a machine he could use without any serious danger, and which would be just the right size for the job.  I agreed with Allen that I'd trade him some labor for it, and I took it home.  I gave Logan a quick tutorial on how to chuck the work in the lathe and use progressively finer grit sandpaper to smooth first the shafts, then the wheels.  We did have to replace the belt on the machine, a small rubberband which had seen better days.



Unlike many of the other kids, he did most of this work all by himself.  His finished car looked good, though we had to glue some weights to the top, and some change, to get it to the maximum regulation weight for the race.

Though his car didn't place in the top 3, it did win 2 of 3 of the races it was in.  He had a great time along with the satisfaction of a creation of his own.

Here are a few humorous definitions of terms I've used recently.  Enjoy.
 
organizationally devastated - Completely deviod of organization skills i. e. The condition of Eric's shop and house showed that he was organizationally devastated.

vaguely ferrous metal - Metal used to make low quality tools, usually imported from Pacific rim countries. i. e. The  vaguely ferrous metal Chinese prybar bent easily while prying the heavy planer.

Tiawan peanut butter - see vaguely ferrous metal

baby talk - Any complaint that a task or machine is too big, too hard, or too dangerous.   i. e. Allen's request that we use a forklift is baby talk.

single use tool, single use machine - Any machine or tool that breaks or stops working after or during its first use.  i. e. My single use sander wouldn't start the second time I tried to use it.

Crapsman - The proper name for many of the low end power tools made by Sears, which are labeled "Craftsman".  i. e. The Crapsman wood shaper burned up after 15 mins.

Home Despot - The name for Home Depot after paying for a cart of materials there.  i. e. I can never get out of Home Despot for less than $200.

Blowes - The name for Lowes after paying for a cart of materials there.  i. e. Eric exclaimed "This Blowes!" after paying $200 for a half cart of rental house supplies.

rental hell - Owning a rental house that is so torn up it takes a year of renovations to make it habitable.  i. e. Honey, today I need to go to rental hell...and tomorrow, and so on, and so on...

baby machine - Small hobby grade machinery, or any machines smaller than mine which are owned by good friends who I want to give a hard time.  i. e. Allen, your new sander is a baby machine.

WSPOB - Acronym for weekend single phase office boy, a person of limited woodworking and mechanical skills who only mostly buys hobby grade tools and seldom uses them.

craptastic - A shiney, but poorly made tool which quickly breaks, usually made in China. i. e. The craptastic nail gun fired only one shot before breaking, which really ticked me off since I was in the middle of a paying job.

devious - Intentionally wiring all of a friend's saws to run backwards.

It all began about a week before Christmas when my Aunt Carol mentioned that my cousin Connie had a dead tree in her backyard that needed removed.  She said it was huge and was hanging over some power lines on one side, and a fence on the other side, so it could not be dropped safely without climbing it.  I drove by and took a look from the front of the yard.  The tree didn't really look that big, and had only 3 large limbs left, which stuck well up in the air to a height of perhaps 40ft.  The tree removal company wanted about $800 to remove the tree, and I told her I'd do it for $100 since she was family.  I arranged for my Dad to come back with me and help cut it on the morning of New Year's Eve. 

We arrived that morning and he said "I thought you said it was a small tree."  I said something about it looking smaller the first time I saw it.  Perhaps it grew some between the first time I saw it and New Year's Eve.  Next, he looked at the limbs and said "We shouldn't do this one."  Now my Dad has 30 years of experience cutting trees, so he really knows what he's doing.  However, I decided since we were already there and I really needed the money, I was going to do it anyway.  Knowing I'm too stubborn to be dissuaded, he reluctantly agreed.  We spent the first half hour talking about which way we'd pull on the limbs to get them to miss the fence, the power lines, my ladder, and myself.  We had ropes and a come along to pull the limbs in the desired direction.  I climbed the ladder, which had been placed between two of the dead limbs and rested on a third.  I tied the rope around the desired limb, and we tensioned it to fall sideways with the come along.  Next, I climbed 20ft up with the chainsaw, and discovered how nervewracking it is to first climb a ladder one handed while holding a chainsaw, and then actually put both hands on the chainsaw while on the ladder and saw with it.  I followed his directions on how to cut the limb to make it fall the way we wanted.  Keep in mind this limb reached another 15ft over my head and was as big around as a pie plate.  As I sawed through the limb, it suddenly went down.  The tension on the rope holding it was so high that I didn't even see the limb fall.  It actually sort of "shot" sideways, shook the whole tree, and fell to the ground.  My dad asked me if I had been hit.  I asked him "Hit by what?" to which he responded "That limb hit the limb next to it and fell so close to you I could swear it grazed your back."  Feeling very relieved, and suddenly full of adrenaline, I climbed down to reset the ladder for the next limb.  This one was hanging over a power line.  We pulled it sideways, and this time everything went smoothly.  The final limb was hanging partly over another tree.  As it fell, it hit a limb on the other tree, and sprang back, narrowly missing the fence.  I figured the worst was over.  It was time to cut the trunk of the tree and finish the job.  It was about 20ft tall and 2ft in diameter at the base.  We tensioned it to fall toward the other tree, thinking that it didn't have enough reach to hit it.  As my Dad cut through the trunk, I added tension by cranking the come along.  After a time, it fell.  Almost instantly, it caught the end of one of the limbs of the other tree, snapped it off and threw it onto my right foot.  I lucked out once again not getting hurt.  After cutting up the fallen tree, my Dad went to get a haircut while I was loading the trailer with logs.  He asked me how I was going to get those big logs loaded by myself.  I said if there's one thing I can do right, it's rigging heavy stuff onto a trailer.  So I did.

 

Eric