Sedgwick P/T

[Wilson joinery]

Lads and ladies

Having recently missed out on another Sedgwick P/T, this one has come up for sale not far from me. Anything I should be looking out for? Or any alternatives? I like the idea of buying something older and better built instead of one of the newer modern Far Eastern machines (not that I’ve got anything against anyone who owns one of these mind!). Up for £450. Does this seem a decent price?

Cheers

 

[RobinBHM]

I would say it’s a bargain.

I often see the Metabo / Electra Beckum HC260 variants for for over £400

I seem to recall somebody saying the older Sedgwick had an issue compared to more recent ones - not saying it’s that model though and I might have remembered wrong

 

[grumpycorn]

funnily enough I was looking at that one today as it’s just down the road from me… too big for my tiddly workshop unfortunately. Looks like a good price to me, looks like it’s single phase as well.

 

[Jameshow]

Looks a good price.

So long as it's not worn out which it doesnt look to be ...

 

[Fitzroy]

That’s a great price for a machine of that size. There’s a write up of a rebuild here Sedgwick Planer Thicknesser (PT 255) Rebuild. May give you so ideas of things to look out for.

 

[Doug71]

Think that's the CP model, only downside on them is the outfeed table is a fixed height, makes setting the knives a bit trickier.

Looks in good nick though and a good price

I'm sure @deema will be along soon with some good advice.

 

[Sideways]

It's a proper old one.
Given the size of the DOL starter on the front compared to the width of the body, I'd say it's the single motor, 10"x7", P/T model.
The MB is a 12" and the CP is 16". That's a massive machine and I wouldn't expect to see one sitting on a set of castors.
The PTs that I've seen all had a fixed outfeed.

Inspect the screw that raises and lowers the infeed table. The thread can be rough and chewed up if it hasn't been maintained.
Wind the thickness table from top to bottom and back to be sure it's smooth. There's a pair of helical gears underneath the big bottom casing.
Take off the back cover and check the chain and sprockets for wear. Like on a pushbike, worn sprockets become sloppy / shallow with sharply pointed teeth
Spin it carefully by hand. The PT has a single motor driving both a v belt for the cutter block and a flat belt to a chain. There's a spring tensioned arm halfway up with an intermediate pully / cog. Make sure this whole unit moves smoothly with no clicking and no contact with the edge of the belts. I've only renovated newer models of the PT than this and when those are serviced it's quite easy to fit the idler cog the wrong way round during reassembly.
Assume with something old like this that you'll need to replace the cutterblock bearings and probably the bronze bushes at each end of the infeed and outfeed rollers.
Check the toothed feed roller to make sure it's not worn out.
Take out the blades - not because they matter, but so that you can look at the block, the wedges and the grub screws that adjust and clamp the wedges. Most importantly the screw threads in the block need to be OK. It's very exciting when a blade is spun out by centrifugal force and whips around to smash into the lip of the infeed table. Occasionally you see a planer which has had the infeed table machined and a new "lip" bolted on. It's not a replaceable wear part, it's a repair job

Oh, and is there an extraction hood with it ? I think new ones from Sedgwick were running about £260 last time I checked.

 

[baldkev]

Good shout doug, the outfeed does look fixed. Theres a good way forward though with setting the knives.... get 6x neodymium rare earth magnets and 2 very straight bits of 2x1 or similar.... glue ( epoxy ) magnets as shown in the drawing. When you set the knives, put a piece of paper under the mags on the outfeed table and let the knives be held in position by the other magnets, then tighten. The paper spaces the batten and magnets up to allow the knives to be set just a hair above the outfeed
Obviously you need to check the infeed, outfeed and block are all parallel.
Hope that made sense.

 

[deema]

@Sideways has covered most things, I think he’s right it’s a 10” PT: just a couple to add.
Check with a good straight edge the tables are actually flat and true, not to each other but they are not worn, if they are walk away. Verify that the infeed table edge closest to the spindle is actually parallel to the spindle on either side (not the blades the actually body of the spindle) you will need an accurate clock and stand. If it isn’t walk away, chancers are the infeed table sliders are worn.
The flat belt Sideways highlighted runs on a pulley on the electric motor and a much larger pulley half way up the machine. This should be crowned very slightly. Sometimes due to the bushes holding it becoming worn it has dipped and the belt is hanging off on one side, often causing a lip to be created on the larger pulley. If it has, and you don’t have a lathe or fairly deep pockets, walk away. This is the one of the hardest for people to get their heads around to fix. But you would need a new pulley, new bushes and align everything perfectly to get it to run properly.

 

[ndbrown]

This is the slightly longer table version of the one I covered the rebuild of in another thread. I also covered building an extraction hood as well in another thread as my one was missing. The one significant change I would make to the comments I made in my rebuild thread is relating to 3 phase versions. I would definitely recommend keeping the original Brook Crompton motor and run it off a VFD. This comment is only applicable if it is a 3 phase version.
Nigel

 

[Doug71]

As @Sideways and @deema correctly pointed out it is the PT model. I thought "That's the small one" then had a brain fart and typed CP instead of PT .

 

[Wilson joinery]

Amazing feedback and thoughts as always everyone, thank you kindly!!