Looks like a nice solid and compact machine. Built to last more than a couple years and will run quieter than a new brushed whiner. Knives sharpenable instead of throwaway. Nice find.
Got it from Facebook market place for 190$. A bit more than I wanted to pay but ultimately its better than most new crappy ones for twice the price so I'm not complaining too much. Still need to build a stand for it as I left the original wooden one with the owner. Its in pretty good shape overall just a little wear here and there. They used babbitt bearings to hold some of the rollers in place. Pretty interesting.
I own (and love) that very planer. It is a Parks made in USA. I bought mine new nearly 40 years ago. I may well have the owners manual with parts list. It is an excellent planer. I have used it to smooth a lot of lumber I milled and resurface or thin tons of boards. It is robustly constructed and should lend itself well to reconditioning to like-new status. I adapted mine to be both power fed and also to be hand fed (difficult grain) using a hand crank which I use occasionally. I use HSS knives in mine though it could be fitted with carbide I believe. http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/Parks Heavy Duty 12” x 4” Planer.ashx Denis
Nice. I have one of those 'brushed whiners' as SR calls them. Noisy. nicked blades, and a bit out of true, I only use it when nothing else will seem to do. I should take a cue from Zap and get the cast iron joiner looking pretty and running good on a stand. Current it lives on a furniture dolly with a homemade wooden motor mount and belt-tension gizmo I made. And then put that motor back on the pottery wheel where I got it, and then fix that, and then...
Yep Tops I have one, too, a Ridgid 12". Painful to run. I still have a 7" Williams and Hussey 7" belt driven planer, much quieter, but limited in capacity, bought in the late 70s. I built a bandsaw mill about 20 years ago, and my house with that, so both planers have seen a lot of timber. I like that Parks.
It has 3 blades that are 12 inches long by 1/8 by about 7/8" Yes! I'm happy to have it and am looking forward to getting it up and reconditioned. Its surprisingly simply made. And seems robust. Not much to repair. Just one bearing is kind of worn a bit which can be fixed fairly easily. And I put new bearings on it for good measure. Next project will be to take apart the motor and clean it out and repaint it.
is this show and tell? I've got an early 90's Delta 3 knife 12" Weighs a ton, works a treat and loud as F! I wheel it around on a little dolly cart out into the driveway and let the shit fly!
Great minds think alike. My dad put the wooden feet on it. Dont know why, bigger foot print I guess. That sucker has got to weigh 60lbs I bet, feels like 100!
I made some Parks name plates ten years ago for some guy in the USA restoring a Parks table saw, now I can see what the fuss was all about.
That process was one I wrote up here on the forum a while back. You buy a self adhesive light sensitive film online and apply it wet to some freshly sanded aluminium sheet, let it dry out for a while and then expose it using a mask printed on an inkjet transparency film (inkjets give a pretty solid, dense black) and then after exposure you wash away the unexposed film areas to give bare metal for the acid to etch. Photosensitive film: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/328...10318cf16568363018462572e598b!65586867598!sea https://forums.thehomefoundry.org/i...ched-data-plates-for-equipment.226/#post-3707
