Trying to help my retired joiner dad

[bazzabear]

Hi All

Thanks for the welcome to the forum. I have to admit at this point that I am terrible at all crafty and DIY type activities! I have joined your forum to try to help out my dad.

He is a joiner who retired a few years back, and still has a workshop at the back of his house with ancient and massive woodworking tools in it. I am trying to find out for him what is his best option to move these on. They are all phase 3 machines, and I would estimate they're from the 50's - maybe even earlier.

I have no idea whether they hold any interest as working machines, as museum pieces, or just as scrap at this point! So I was hoping people on this forum would be knowledgeable and well placed to advise us.

I hope this is OK, and thank you all in advance for any advice you can offer on what we should be trying to do with these.

 

[bazzabear]

Here's some more pictures. Sorry they're not great!

 

[Ollie78]

Pretty sure someone with specific knowledge will be along shortly, maybe @deema
Personally, I would love a bandsaw that size if I had any room for it. The morticer looks brilliant and the Wadkin planer will certainly be wanted (in fact I quite want it ! ) .
This is all "proper" machinery, not necessarily fitted with all modern safety requirements but brakes can be retro fitted to circular saws and bandsaw if they don`t have them.
Plenty of people swear by machines like this that are properly made and will last for ever if looked after.


Ollie

 

[bazzabear]

Thanks for the reply!
If nothing else, I'm chuffed to know it's interesting machinery, and I know he will be too when I can share this info with him.

That morticer is about the only one of the machines that I know quite well myself. Reasonably often when he was putting together window frames, he would mark them up and let me (as a pre-teen at the time) drill out the mortices. I used to have to use a step to reach up, and then hang off the end of the lever to use my whole weight to pull it down.

 

[TRITON]

Might try the boat building fraternity. Thats the size of stuff they go for, but moving it might be problematic, its going to be seriously heavy, especially that combined saw/planer. It's probably going to weigh about 2 tons.

Heres something on the big Dominion combination machine. At least worth a parooze.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/dominion-universal-machines/page2.html
Maybe join here too.
https://www.madmodder.net/index.php/board,46.0.htmlhttps://www.madmodder.net/index.php/topic,8997.0.html

 

[Jester129]

That's some serious gear in there, altogether worth £1,000's. Ollie is right, get @deema on the case. He might even be interested himself!
HTH.

 

[sawtooth-9]

That's some nice gear. Not for the average DIY , but wow - I hope you make sure it goes to a good home.

 

[Yorkieguy]

It would be a monumental task to try to list and sell what is basically industrial equipment yourself. My best advice would be to seek the advice of an auction house which has internet listing as well as ‘in the room’. They have experience in disposing of equipment when factories close down. Though obsolete, the equipment does have considerable value.

JMJ Woodworking Machinery Ltd buy, refurbish and sell Industrial woodworking machinery. It might be work asking if they’d be interested.

They’re at Main Street,
Skidby,
East Yorks,
HU16 5TX.
01482 840103.
https://jmjwood.co.uk/contact

 

[pe2dave]

I'd certainly ask a professional moving outfit what would be the cost to load it onto lorries, then cost per mile?
How on earth did your dad get it there? Lots of mates?

 

[Doug71]

I would agree with others that there are some lovely machines there but don't think the actual value will be that much.

It's the old problem of them being large industrial machines so no use to the average home woodworker but also they won't comply with any regulations so no use commercially, there is also the hassle of moving them plus spare parts won't be easy to come by.

I could be wrong but would guess you are only looking at a few hundred quid per machine. They might be worth more if you can find the right person but sometimes these old machines are only worth scrap value.

Think I would be happy if I just found someone who was actually going to use them and was willing to do all the moving.

 

[bazzabear]

I'd certainly ask a professional moving outfit what would be the cost to load it onto lorries, then cost per mile?
How on earth did your dad get it there? Lots of mates?

They got moved into the current workshop in about 1982. The workshop has a big double door at the side, so they just used a forklift.

I was a bit disappointed at that answer (which I didn't know myself until now) to be honest! He was an on-call fireman at the time too, so I had an image in my mind of a great big group of his colleagues all lifting them into place.

 

[pe2dave]

They got moved into the current workshop in about 1982. The workshop has a big double door at the side, so they just used a forklift.

I was a bit disappointed at that answer (which I didn't know myself until now) to be honest! He was an on-call fireman at the time too, so I had an image in my mind of a great big group of his colleagues all lifting them into place.

Encouraging, a fork lift access.
Despite other comments, I think if you could find the market, these are worth a lot more than a few hundred. And built to last!
Bit of googling, there are firms that deal in second hand industrial kit. E.g. this outfit?

 

[johna.clements]

I googled Dominion last night and there are auction houses that list their machines for sale. There must be a market for them.

 

[Doug71]

When our old family joinery firm shut down we had JMJ round to look at the machinery, we had a lot of old Wadkin stuff but all they were willing to buy was the saw bench and they didn't offer a great price for that. We had a massive old Wadkin 5 head planer/moulder which went for scrap as nobody wanted it, the rest of the stuff got auctioned off and I was quite disappointed in how little some of it went for.

I think a lot of the second hand machinery that places like JMJ or Sott and Sargeant sell are what they have taken in part exchange, they don't really deal in it that much unless it's something like a Wadkin DM mortiser.

It's the usual story of how different the price of something is if you are trying to sell it privately compared to if you are trying to buy the same item from a proper retailer who has a showroom etc.

 

[bazzabear]

Encouraging, a fork lift access.
Despite other comments, I think if you could find the market, these are worth a lot more than a few hundred. And built to last!
Bit of googling, there are firms that deal in second hand industrial kit. E.g. this outfit?

Cheers - I've dropped them an email.

 

[Fitzroy]

In my opinion there is a sweet point in the sale of old machinery. Too small and flimsy and folks aren't interested as it's not worth the risk that it'll be in poor condition, too big and folks aren't interested as it is too hard to move and power. Looking at the tools you have I think the kit below sit close enough to that sweet spot that you should be able so sell them:
- Wadkin saw table (looks like an AGS 12 but could be an AGS 10) : £500 ->£1500
- Wadkin surface planer (looks like a BFT12 but could be a BFT16 which will make it too large for most folks) : £750 -> £1250
- Cooksley morticer : £350 - 500 will struggle to sell if you don't have tooling to go with it
- Wadkin spindle moulder (looks like a BER3) : £500 - 1000 will struggle to sell if you don't have tooling to go with it

The bandsaw and Dominion multi purpose unit are just too big to interest most individuals and they will likley fall short of HSE requirements to be of interest to a business with multiple workers.

Take a look at sold prices on ebay to give yourself an idea: If you can get them on a pallet and offer pallet delivery as part of the sale you will command a higher price as it is way less hassle for any buyer.

A photo of each of the machine plates will help positively identify them.

Fitz.

PS: Actually they are worth nothing, and I'll be round with a lorry in a few weeks to help you dispose of them. Kindness of my own heart, etc.

 

[bazzabear]

Thanks again all.

I definitely recognise the difficulty in finding the right audience to sell them as an individual.

I guess I was hoping to hear of a specialist auction for this kind of thing which they could be entered into.

Scott & Sargeant replied very quickly (credit to them), but unfortunately only to say that they weren't interested, and had no better suggestion than eBay.

 

[Sean33]

Thanks again all.

I definitely recognise the difficulty in finding the right audience to sell them as an individual.

I guess I was hoping to hear of a specialist auction for this kind of thing which they could be entered into.

Scott & Sargeant replied very quickly (credit to them), but unfortunately only to say that they weren't interested, and had no better suggestion than eBay.

Another avenue of auction house is BPI, they seem to always have machinery auctions so I am guessing they know there stuff

hth

 

[deema]

I think @Fitzroy has summarised it extremely well. Sideways and I have found that there are in the UK three main markets, the professional workshops employing a number of people, of which there are not many. They tend to be only interested in fairly modern machines, completely compliant with PUWR regs and certificates. The small say one or two man professionals and the very enthusiastic DIYers. They love the old machines, but there is a max size and power they look for. The table saw is about as big as they will be looking for. They tend to fall into two categories, those who want fully refurbished machines that work and work as they should of which there are number looking, and those who are interested in refurbishing their machines, of which there really are not many. We often get machines that people in the last category have attempted and got overwhelmed or faced problems their kit can’t resolve. Finally there is overseas, a lot of big old iron goes to Africa, needless to say, prices for this aren’t high.

Without tooling, and all the bits present they are not worth a lot of money in their present condition. The larger machines are probably as @Doug71 has also said, worth not much more than scrap value. @wallace restores large old Wadkin bits of kit, and I’m not sure if he tackles other brands. You tend to build up a stash of bits for a particular brand which tends to focus what you do. He has been kind enough to point a few of his customers to me when they have been after smaller machines, which is what we tend to work on.

 

[baldkev]

Industrial style tables seem to fetch high money, stick some glass over the combination machine and list it for 2k on ebay