Is this what you guys call a Bootfair?

[kirkpoore1]

I've been hanging out here for nigh on a year, and have been trying to figure out this "bootfair" thing. Sometimes it's described like a flea market, where regulars have a booth and sell used stuff (OK, junk) every week. Other times it sounds more like a swap meet, with folks showing up in a vacant lot and selling and trading stuff out of the back of their cars. Here's a few pictures of what I went to this weekend. This was the swap meet at the seventh annual Arnfest, the Old Woodworking Machines gathering at the Illinois Railway Museum about an hour northwest of Chicago. ("Arn": Imagine you were Elvis, and trying to say "iron".)

A couple of tough salesmen:

These guys were selling wrenches, spindle sander parts, bandsaw guides, a spray gun, and other stuff. They'd hit up everybody walking by--their dad said they were on commission.

Saw parts--motor, fence, arbors, plus some shaper cartridges and other stuff.

Lathe bed and legs, and I think there's a saw in there.

Ever wonder where all the lathe tailstocks go? Here's a few of them. Oh, and do you need a bench vise?

Can you spot the 4" planer cutterheads?

10" Delta bandsaw from the 1930's, just waiting for a new owner.

More Delta stuff, a scroll saw and jointer (err, planer) in parts.

Really cool motor from the 1920's. 2 hp, I think, and probably weighs a good hundred pounds.

More junk--err, critical machine parts.

WWII blackout lantern, allegedly British. One of your grandfathers probably made this.

Now, not all was being sold. A lot of guys were transporting stuff there to hand off to other people. For example, I carried this cute little planer-thicknesser up there to give to a guy from Wisconsin.

But this topped everything:

This guy started out in California with an almost empty trailer, and after 2000 miles wound up with this load. A few closeups:

He didn't take it all home, though. This guy took the overarm router:

So, do you guys call this a bootfair?

I just bought a couple of screwdrivers and files, and a Stanley 81 scraper. After that, I spent the afternoon pouring babbitt on a tenoner cutoff saw:

Kirk

 

[Blister]

Hi Kirk

Wow what you have is a tool fair :mrgreen:

Our boot sales are in fields

Most people take all the children s old toys
Videos
second hand clothes
second hand shoes
China
Glass
Old vacuum cleaners
Household items

And ( Not Very often ) some woodwork tools

I was a regular visitor to boot sales , but try not to go now as its mostly toot

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Thanks for sharing the photos and experience of your day Kirk, I really enjoyed looking at the pictures.

I can echo blister, our boot fairs tend to be held in a farmers fields or a racecourse or the like. Ocassionally one can pick up a good bargain or tool. The stuff tends to be cheap to buy, sometimes pennies, even so people still like to haggle.

Did I read it right?? did the guy with the flat bed lorry come 2000 miles to sell his wares??

David

 

[adidat]

After that, I spent the afternoon pouring babbitt on a tenoner cutoff saw:

Kirk

very nice kirk, we have steam rallies where tool and machine trading goes on, please tell me more bout the picture above

adidat

 

[DTR]

When you turn up at a boot fair with an artic lorry you mean business :shock:

Cool stuff, thanks for posting

 

[woodbloke]

Jimi's £25 pot won't go far there! :lol: - Rob

 

[bugbear]

AFAIK car boot sales don't really exist in America.

So (for Americans) a car boot sale is a lot of people doing a yard sale, all in one place.

Just to confuse matters, you get an increasing number of dealers selling at car boot sales, the sort of people (and goods) you might find at a flea market.

BugBear

 

[Eric The Viking]

And the obvious translations:

UK "boot" = USA "trunk" (of a car)
UK "bonnet" = USA "hood" (of a car, not relevant to this, usually, unless it's a Beetle, I suppose)

So it's really a bunch of people selling stuff from the backs of their vehicles, all in one place at one time.

 

[Tom K]

The dealers and Jimi buy it out of your trunk the tourists wait until after breakfast when its all laid out on a wobbly paste table. (hammer)

 

[bugbear]

The dealers and Jimi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test :lol: :lol: :lol:

BugBear

 

[kirkpoore1]

After that, I spent the afternoon pouring babbitt on a tenoner cutoff saw:

Kirk

very nice kirk, we have steam rallies where tool and machine trading goes on, please tell me more bout the picture above

adidat

The Illinois Railway Museum has a large woodshop with industrial woodworking machines from the era when railcar bodies were mostly wood. They use these to rebuild the cars in their collection, which includes over 400 freight, passenger, interurban, and streetcars, plus two or three dozen locomotives. As part of the Arnfest event, we will sometimes take on a repair project for the museum. In this case, their single end tenoner's cutoff saw had worn babbitt bearings.

This is the machine before being put into service a couple of years ago. It's hard to make out, but there is a thin arbor in the center just beyond the rolling carriage. This holds the cutoff saw, and is driven by a v-belt from the vertical countershaft on the right. This is an HB Smith machine, probably built about 1910 +/- ten years.

On this particular machine, the origial cutoff saw was either never present or had been damaged, and there was a cobbled together frame made of steel plate bolted to the main casting. The steel frame held the babbit journals, but wasn't well designed or constructed so we had to first reinforce it by welding on some angle iron. After that we could remove the frame. In the past, the babbit would have been poured with the frame in place, but IRM safety regs prohibited us from doing that inside, and we couldn't move the whole machine. So we took the frame off and clamped it to a table at the back of the car repair barn. The old babbit was melted out with a propane torch, and the journals and shaft cleaned up. I melted new babbitt in the ladle over a big propane burner, and while that was going on Keith Rucker (in the orange shirt on the left) and I carefully set the shaft in place over the lower half of the journals. This put the shaft parallel with the journals and with about an eighth of an inch of clearance. Keith put dams around the ends of the journals to hold the babbitt in, forming a small pool, and then preheated the shaft and journals with the torch so the babbitt wouldn't solidify as soon as I started pouring. Once the parts were set, and the babbitt was melted and up to temperature, I poured the metal into the journals around the shaft. After it cooled, we pulled out the shaft, filed the new babbitt flat with the journals, and started on the top halves. This involved putting some cardboard shims on the journal flats, putting on the shaft, and mounting the babbitt caps, then preheating again. Finally, the babbitt was poured through the oil holes on the caps--I'm doing this in the picture. The next day, we scraped the bearings to get better contact, then tested them successfully. The tenoner still needs some work on the belt and pulleys to be set up correctly, but it does work now.
Keith wrote a good article on this process a few years ago, with much better pictures, and you can read it here:
http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/CrescentBandSawRestoration2.ashx

Babbitt bearings were the standard bearing used before the invention of ball bearings. Although they require maintenance and oiling, they do offer some advantages over ball bearings, such as a larger support surface and very long life (if kept oiled). The bearing we poured Saturday will last for many decades under the amount of use that the IRM will give them.

Kirk

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Kirk, where was the Arnfest held exactly, you mention about an hours drive NW of Chicago....would that be anywhere near a town called Port Washington in WI, I have a few friends there. May make my next visit coincide with the Fest.

David

 

[kirkpoore1]

Did I read it right?? did the guy with the flat bed lorry come 2000 miles to sell his wares??

David

Well, he started off empty, and picked up most of the machines in Indiana, about 200 miles from where the picture was taken. But he's probably still driving back to California now. I don't think he got all of these machines for himself. I think some of his buddies bought many of them, so they'll be chipping in to pay for his fuel when he gets back to Los Angeles. Big industrial machines like these are scarce in California because there weren't many factories using wood.

Bugbear, thanks for the group yard sale analogy--that sounds like the right one. Though this swap meet was at least quacking.

David: Looks like Port Washington is north of Milwaukee, and about 2 hours north of the IRM in Union, Illinois. Well within reach, I'd say. Arnfest is usually held the last weekend of September, so mark your calendar now.

Kirk

 

[jimi43]

The dealers and Jimi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test :lol: :lol: :lol:

BugBear

HEY!! :mrgreen:

The differences between me and dealers are many:

1) I don't do it for the money...(only the milling machine!)

2) I end up keeping virtually everything I buy because it's too nice...as a dealer I would be broke wouldn't I?

3) I know what I'm buying...they just have the dealer's touch.

4) I get there earlier than them.....and finally....

5) My missus is at the bootfair selling the tat to pay for my goodies...fuelled by the odd unwanted gem from me during my saunter around...only if she sells it at least 5x more than I bought it for and only if she then gives me the profit!

It's a formula cultivated over many years! 8)

Kirk...that is one hell of a bootfair! Tell the guy I'll give him a fiver for the lathe! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: (delivered)

And can I join the others in asking what the hell are you doing with that molten metal!????

Jim

 

[adidat]

check out the 11th post, kirk gives a fantastic description and the link really helps visualize it

adidat

 

[Bluekingfisher]

Thanks Kirk, yep PW about 20 or so miles north of Milwaukee, so once I get the new calender I'll mark it up.......bringing cast iron back here on the plane may be a bit of an issue though

 

[kirkpoore1]

After that, I spent the afternoon pouring babbitt on a tenoner cutoff saw:

Kirk

very nice kirk, we have steam rallies where tool and machine trading goes on, please tell me more bout the picture above

adidat

Babbitt pour links. Note that these are unedited, and so leave in the boring parts (ok, it's mostly boring parts).
ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 1
ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 2
ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 3
ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 4

Also included are pours of lead hammers and lead vise jaws, using molds that used to be available in hardware stores and the like.

Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

But wait! There's more! This time, the ever exciting babbitt scraping, shaft installation, and actually running the tenoner! And in the best Normite fashion, some of the guards are removed for clarity! Don't try this at home, kids! Well, unless you have a babbitt-bearing tenoner you have to refurbish.

ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 5
ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 6
ArnFest '11 Babbit Demo Part 7

Kirk
who actually does have a babbitt bearing tenoner in his garage that he plans on refurbishing this fall...

 

[jimi43]

Ah....the things you can learn on this forum are many....

I am now...with the help of dear old Wiki...fully clued up on your New England inventor Isaac Babbitt...and understand what is going on.

I may even spend the weekend stripping down my old Taylor for a much needed clean and refurbishment...he gets used quite a bit.

Not sure will be pouring babbitts though....probably just cleaning off the phosphor bronze and getting all the crud out but thanks for the insight Kirk...

BTW a wrench is a spanner ok... :mrgreen:

Jim

 

[woodbloke]

I end up keeping virtually everything I buy because it's too nice...as a dealer I would be broke wouldn't I?

Jim

I was under the mistooken impression Jim, :lol: that you kept only the very best and sold on the rest (Fleabay etc). Any plans to build a bigger (if need be) depository for all your accumulated 'stuff'? :-" - Rob