Collecting vintage Sagar and Flat belt drive machinery.

[sion.dovey]

This is my first post on here, i have been thinking about talking about my hobby/problem (which is fast becoming what some might describe as an illness) for quite a while. It has been going on for about 15 years now, after purchasing a flat belt drive metalwork lathe of unknown make from my local scrap yard when i was still at school. It wasn't intentional to get such an old machine, i just wanted a nice lathe and there this one was with a load of useful looking bits in boxes and, most importantly, i could afford it. Since then i have set out on a developing ambition to collect a complete workshop of machines in both wood and metal work, going to local farm and collective sales brought in quite a few machines, and then in 2003 i discovered ebay, which opened the door to a huge choice of machinery, and fortunately i had a business manufacturing horse jumps which in order to deliver my product would take me all over the country.

I started to collect by accident a few similar make machines, notably a few Wadkins and a couple of Sagars. I learned that Wadkin had taken over Sagar at one point and had eventually wound the business down, and because of this and their relative apparent greater age i developed a bit of sympathy for Sagar and started to push to collect a one make carpentry workshop. As things stand now i have a total of nearly 70 machines covering my wood and metalwork collection, a couple are duplicates which need selling and some are just spare parts for when a better example surfaces. My collection includes 14 Sagars and a number of 'interesting' flat belt drive machines of different makes.

I'm not sure where to go with this, some people keep telling me to open a working museum, i think my collection is some way off that in quality terms and im not sure whether im ready for that, maybe one day. But i would like to put the thought out there that there is someone (and i'm sure there are others too) really intrerested in collecting, preserving and using vintage machinery, and i would be most interested in hearing about any that may be available, whatever it may be, or condition wise, i am always interested and often willing to 'try to beat the scrapman' or better. Something which has become quite hard to do in recent years. I have learned of many possibly unique machines making their journey to the scrap yard, something i get quite frustrated by, as, 'if only i had known about it earlier'. That journey is a one way trip and it often seems to me such a travesty.

My collection of Sagars include:
2 Tenoners, both flat belt drive, one builders tenoner and one smaller.
a 24" thicknesser
6" x 42" Surfacer
12" x 72" Surfacer
14"x 72" Surfacer
16" Rip saw
24" Bandsaw
Very large circular rip saw, swings a 48" blade, with power feed
Small overhead router
Spindle moulder, flat belt drive
a Lathe
Vertical sanding machine
Dimension saw, with sliding table, flat belt drive.

Other interesting flat belt drive machines i have include wood and metal work:
Haigh 22" thicknesser
Haigh 18" planer thicknesser
Large Hendey cone head lathe 18 x 30
Garvin automatic tapper
Charles Taylor brass finishers Lathe
2 Denbigh pillar drills
Robinson and Wadkin 26" Circular saws
Denham 6" slotter
Early Ward capstan lathe.

I will post later a few photographs of some of the better machines.

 

[hanser]

Welcome - perhaps medication would help? In the meantime I'm sure there's a load of folk who will want to see photographs and some may be able to help.

Now, how soon can you post the piccies?

 

[wallace]

Firstly, welcome to the forum. I too am a bit of old iron fanatic. And my first saw bench was a sagar, heres my restoration.
sagar-sawbench-restoration-t58914.html I sold that to make way for a wadkin PK. I have a few bits of wadkin namely RS lathe EQ spindle moulder LM borer this is my latest aquasition wadkin-ras-restoration-t68701.html
I also have a very nice J suttcliffe & son planer/thicknesser which dates from I think 1910. That company was from Halifax like sagar so there may be some links. When you've done five posts you can add some pics. And please put lots on.
Mark

 

[sion.dovey]

Here is a picture of my Hendey cone head lathe,which dates from 1920. The lathe that is.

 

[sion.dovey]

Here are some pictures of the 'builders tenoner, Sagar flat belt drive machine.

 

[sion.dovey]

Here are a few pictures of my smaller Sagar tenoner, as it was yesterday morning. This is as it came to me from purchase on ebay.

 

[sion.dovey]

Here is a little example of the sort of work i am doing with my machinery...

 

[wallace]

They are some lovely lumps of iron. Do you make them look all pretty or just make them useable. The woodwork is not too shabby either

 

[lanemaux]

I actually found myself describing this post to my wife. The woman has zero interest in woodworking machines and was still moved to exclamations by your lovely obsession. Once , way back in my youth , I was employed at a lumber mill in the wilds of rural Ontario. The machinery there was of the same age bracket as some of your posted pics and brought a wave of nostalgia . Post away mi amigo, any and all would interest myself (and dare I add most of our fellow forumites) to whom these treasures are slices of industrial artwork.

 

[AndyT]

Welcome along!
You are completely sane and also very fortunate to have the space to collect such wonderful stuff! Those of us who live in ordinary little houses will look on in admiration and envy at the fantastic old machinery you have.

Just in case you were not reading the forum back in February last year, may I direct you to this thread:

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/wadkin-time-warp-workshop-kent-t58290.html

- a terrific story with a happy ending, which will show you that you are definitely among people with similar good taste!

 

[sion.dovey]

They are some lovely lumps of iron. Do you make them look all pretty or just make them useable. The woodwork is not too shabby either

Thank you, they are indeed lovely, even my girlfriend thinks so. Yes she does! I'm not sure on the restoration front, there is a little bit of a purist in me i think, where there is any original paint, no matter how drab, i am inclined to leave alone, i feel that i have done a good enough deed just to save many of them from the melting pot, and in my eyes no more than to use them for the occasional job and keep them all free and turning with a little oil is required. However most machines of this age have been repainted at least once and perhaps several times and i will certainly restore those in that bracket when the time is right. My general and engineering workshop is in a most basic cramped state at the moment and until i can provide a more suitable premisis for that sort of work here i don't feel to undertake any such restorations just yet.

 

[sion.dovey]

Some more pictures here of my Sagar machines; the lathe, a 24" bandsaw and the nice little 6" Surfacer.

My bandsaw and the tenoner behind it travel around with me as part of my 'nomadic' workshop, moving from one building project to the next and they have both been away from home for nearly 2 years now. Hopefully they will both return home next month!

 

[sion.dovey]

A couple of pictures here of a nice little rise and fall circular saw of unknown make. I purchased it from ebay beleiving the seller who listed it as a Sagar, which i am now certain that it is not. I travelled many miles for it and was most dissapointed by this discovery when i returned home, there is a lesson in there somewhere! The only piece to read Sagar is the crown guard, which has clearly been fitted post manufacture and it is of a size a couple too big for this machine. i would be most interested to hear if anoybody may be able to help identify it?

It's a lovely little saw, with a most unusual rise and fall mechanism, and also the original belt shifter mechanism in place. It swings about a 20" blade.

 

[sion.dovey]

A little picture here of a little flat belt grinder by Danckaert, the stones are about 10", and it has a most useful slide arrangement on the front for grinding straight knives.

 

[Jelly]

Excellent, it's a good job there are private individuals like you out there with an interest in preserving important examples of our industrial heritage! From what the pictures are showing, you're doing a wonderful job of keeping most of these machines in a state of "arrested decay" (as museums are wont to call it) or better, that many of the machines are still in useable condition is the icing on the cake.

Out of interest, are you planning to convert them to motor-drive if/when you have permanent home for them, or would you consider setting up a line-drive to maintain the authenticity of your collection?

As to your collection growing large due to an urge to save old machines from the scrap merchants, I would think that if you were able to get them working and clean (not totally refurbished to like new, just functional) there would be a good potential to sell on examples you don't want/need to retain to other users. IIRC a lot of the later era belt-driven Wadkin machines were offered with both line drive and motor drive (I presume this goes for others too), converting them over would definitely make them more salable; the only limiting factor would be that many of the bigger and older machines might be impractical to bring into line with PUWER and the other H&S regs, limiting their appeal to only hard-core hobbyists.

 

[sion.dovey]

Firstly, welcome to the forum. I too am a bit of old iron fanatic. And my first saw bench was a sagar, heres my restoration.
sagar-sawbench-restoration-t58914.html I sold that to make way for a wadkin PK. I have a few bits of wadkin namely RS lathe EQ spindle moulder LM borer this is my latest aquasition wadkin-ras-restoration-t68701.html
I also have a very nice J suttcliffe & son planer/thicknesser which dates from I think 1910. That company was from Halifax like sagar so there may be some links. When you've done five posts you can add some pics. And please put lots on.
Mark

Thankyou, Mark, for your kind comment. I am interested to hear about your J. Suttcliffe planer thicknesser. I immediately wondered if it is the one that apeared on ebay a few months ago? They are a maker that seems to surface very rarely, i know nothing about them apart from their hailing from Halifax. There is an example here too, a 12" version that was my first planer thicknesser here. Unfortunately i never quite got on with it at the time as it has had a very hard life. One of the tables has been broken right across and neatly braized back together slightly out of shape, and the plain bearings are in such a state, they have been shimmed many times in the past to keep it going but really it needs new ones pouring.
That is something i have to learn to do as there are quite a few plain bearins here requiring renewal.

 

[wallace]

Heres some pics of the planer. I got it from ebay about 6 months ago so maybe the one you noticed. It had spent the last 50 years in the same shop working for living. The thicknesser feed rate was too fast for a decent finish so I have added a separate motor wired upto a VFD so I can alter the feed.

 

[sion.dovey]

A coupleof videos here on youtube which may be of interest.
Firstly my Sagar builders tenoner, in the yard at home about 3 years ago;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kegmacS2dc8

Here is a little clip of my Stenner sawmill working, cutting small Japanese Larch;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBwFRlq2tFY

Both videos are rather poor qualiy, especially sound wise. I would really like a better camera one day please, and perhaps somebody to hold it!

 

[wallace]

I thought I was lucky for haveing some big toys at the bottom of my garden but I think yours trump mine. That re-saw is brilliant. Keeps the pictures comeing. I even like the tractor with the lichin covered dash
Mark

 

[sion.dovey]

I may have been able to identify the saw i posted pictures of earlier in this thread, I discovered by accident this saw which is of a very similar design clearly marked in its castings as made by E. S. Hindley:

Its not quite identical to mine, but is very similar in many ways. I imagine there must be a connection somewhere.