RogerS
Established Member
I thought it might be worth documenting all the various problems and solutions to buying and commissioning one of these on your own in the hope that it might help someone else out.
It was a modern MB planer/thicknesser bought on eBay. I was outbid the first time round but, as I seemed to have built up a bit of a rapport with the seller, I sent a quick note asking to have first refusal if the original purchaser pulled out. As luck would have it they did.
First problem. Transport! The Sedgwick was located in Stirling and I'm in Worcestershire. It weighs 390kG so what are the options? Especially as collection had to be on a Saturday.
Option 1 - Hiring a van with a taillift for the weekend (the only day they could load up the Sedgwick) would be £150 plus another £150 for petrol.
Option 2 - try a truckers forum to see if there were any return loads. Replies ranged from a p*ss-taking £900 'and I'll do it for you this weekend' to the suggestion of shiply.com and PalletForce.
Option 3 - Shiply - I received two initial bids of £400 and £300 both of which I rejected. One thing that I didn't realise was that, presumably, the other bidders can see what's already been bid as over a period of a few days the price gradually came down and down..so worth mentioning that it pays to wait.
Option 4 - PalletForce. Meanwhile I'd received two quotes from them and the cheapest was a staggeringly low price of £75 + VAT which I took.
In discussion with the seller, we agreed that it would be better to remove the tables and to pack them separately along with the very heavy and solid fence etc. This is what he did and packaged both items on to two pallets having liberally smeared grease over all exposed metal parts..a nice touch. One hour later and both pallets were loaded and on their way.
Then Bank Holiday came and went. So did Tuesday and still no indication of delivery date - not that I was in any hurry as that was part of the deal. On Wednesday my resolve cracked and I called to be told Friday was the day.
Now we've got a stone covered parking area outside the workshop so I bought in three sheets of suttering ply to cut up and lay down as a rolling surface for the pallet truck and to act as a ramp over the door threshold of the workshop. About 30 minutes after arrival, both pallets were inside the workshop for examination.
In the forefront is the pallet with the two tables, fence, dust chute and bag of bits. Behind is the main body on its' own pallet and can you spot the deliberate error? This is how it arrived and after seeing the driver use the thicknesser rollers to swing the planer round a bit on its' pallet I was a bit concerned to see that no wood had been wedged between thicknesser table and the cutter block and feed rollers as per recommended best practice. Glad that we removed the infeed/outfeed tables. Fingers crossed that the thicknesser table will be OK.
OK - how to get 240kg+ of cast iron off its' pallet by myself. Looking at the pallet I saw that it was supported on three bearers and that if I cut through to remove one of the outermost bearers that I should be able to tilt the planer/pallet over and then walk the planer off and onto the floor. One hernia later and mission accomplished. Notice the block of wood is now officially in place.
I then checked out the second pallet and removed the infeed table which really was a struggle. It's about 1m long and extremely heavy.
On opening the bag of goodies I was delighted to find that the seller had enclosed pieces of paper telling me which bag of bolts belonged where - again a very nice touch - although not being present when it was dismantled it took a bit of head scratching to make sure that all was in order.
So here are a few more pictures of the beast.
The fence moves on a steel bar about 2" in diameter!
The next task will be to fit the tables. I'm fairly confident that I can assemble the outfeed table by myself as I can use the thicknesser roller as a support and also perhaps use one of those screwfix roller stands - especially as the outfeed is not as long as the infeed. But the infeed does pose a problem. I will probably end up making a temporary support stand as I don't want to rely on those screwfix stands given the weight.
The other 'problem' (or not) is going to be power. Poor research on my part. It is single-phase - that's the good news - and I naively thought that it could be powered from a 16A supply. In your dreams. The steady state current load is 18A, fed from a 40A fuse and takes a staggering 87A - that's eighty-seven amps - on start up. So the whole thing is crying out for a permanent switched feed and the supply cable fixed to the floor with cleats. Only problem is my workshop consumer unit doesn't have any spare ways.
To be continued.
It was a modern MB planer/thicknesser bought on eBay. I was outbid the first time round but, as I seemed to have built up a bit of a rapport with the seller, I sent a quick note asking to have first refusal if the original purchaser pulled out. As luck would have it they did.
First problem. Transport! The Sedgwick was located in Stirling and I'm in Worcestershire. It weighs 390kG so what are the options? Especially as collection had to be on a Saturday.
Option 1 - Hiring a van with a taillift for the weekend (the only day they could load up the Sedgwick) would be £150 plus another £150 for petrol.
Option 2 - try a truckers forum to see if there were any return loads. Replies ranged from a p*ss-taking £900 'and I'll do it for you this weekend' to the suggestion of shiply.com and PalletForce.
Option 3 - Shiply - I received two initial bids of £400 and £300 both of which I rejected. One thing that I didn't realise was that, presumably, the other bidders can see what's already been bid as over a period of a few days the price gradually came down and down..so worth mentioning that it pays to wait.
Option 4 - PalletForce. Meanwhile I'd received two quotes from them and the cheapest was a staggeringly low price of £75 + VAT which I took.
In discussion with the seller, we agreed that it would be better to remove the tables and to pack them separately along with the very heavy and solid fence etc. This is what he did and packaged both items on to two pallets having liberally smeared grease over all exposed metal parts..a nice touch. One hour later and both pallets were loaded and on their way.
Then Bank Holiday came and went. So did Tuesday and still no indication of delivery date - not that I was in any hurry as that was part of the deal. On Wednesday my resolve cracked and I called to be told Friday was the day.
Now we've got a stone covered parking area outside the workshop so I bought in three sheets of suttering ply to cut up and lay down as a rolling surface for the pallet truck and to act as a ramp over the door threshold of the workshop. About 30 minutes after arrival, both pallets were inside the workshop for examination.
In the forefront is the pallet with the two tables, fence, dust chute and bag of bits. Behind is the main body on its' own pallet and can you spot the deliberate error? This is how it arrived and after seeing the driver use the thicknesser rollers to swing the planer round a bit on its' pallet I was a bit concerned to see that no wood had been wedged between thicknesser table and the cutter block and feed rollers as per recommended best practice. Glad that we removed the infeed/outfeed tables. Fingers crossed that the thicknesser table will be OK.
OK - how to get 240kg+ of cast iron off its' pallet by myself. Looking at the pallet I saw that it was supported on three bearers and that if I cut through to remove one of the outermost bearers that I should be able to tilt the planer/pallet over and then walk the planer off and onto the floor. One hernia later and mission accomplished. Notice the block of wood is now officially in place.
I then checked out the second pallet and removed the infeed table which really was a struggle. It's about 1m long and extremely heavy.
On opening the bag of goodies I was delighted to find that the seller had enclosed pieces of paper telling me which bag of bolts belonged where - again a very nice touch - although not being present when it was dismantled it took a bit of head scratching to make sure that all was in order.
So here are a few more pictures of the beast.
The fence moves on a steel bar about 2" in diameter!
The next task will be to fit the tables. I'm fairly confident that I can assemble the outfeed table by myself as I can use the thicknesser roller as a support and also perhaps use one of those screwfix roller stands - especially as the outfeed is not as long as the infeed. But the infeed does pose a problem. I will probably end up making a temporary support stand as I don't want to rely on those screwfix stands given the weight.
The other 'problem' (or not) is going to be power. Poor research on my part. It is single-phase - that's the good news - and I naively thought that it could be powered from a 16A supply. In your dreams. The steady state current load is 18A, fed from a 40A fuse and takes a staggering 87A - that's eighty-seven amps - on start up. So the whole thing is crying out for a permanent switched feed and the supply cable fixed to the floor with cleats. Only problem is my workshop consumer unit doesn't have any spare ways.
To be continued.
