A week ago, on Friday, I was out in the driveway sanding down the big jigsaw frame in preparation for a coat of blue paint.  A pickup stopped in the street, rolling down his window, a man asked if I liked old power tools. I admitted that I did. He said"Good, come over to my shop on Monday and I will give you a couple of old machines". He told me where his shop was and that if I did not want them, they were going to be pushed out in the alley and left for the junkman. Needless to say, I was there Monday and as it turned out, the guy ran an auction company. He had tried to auction them, got no takers and the owner said to scrap them. One was a Heston and Anderson 6 inch joiner that looked old. The other was a Hussey and Williams Planer/Molder. It took two trips, but I got them loaded on my little trailer and home they went.

They were not in bad shape. A little surface rust on the platens, but not major.

The H & W Model W-7 is a serious cabinet shop molder planer. It was a new product in 1947. This one dates to about 1980. The company makes a newer version that came out a few years ago, but is essentially the same machine, but looking more current in design. The new one lists for $2795.00 including the motor.They still make over 100 different molding blades for it. It currently has planer blades in it and that is just fine with me. It will plane a 7 inch thick and 7 1/4 wide piece of wood and it is powered infeed and outfeed. Motor is a Baldor 1HP. The blades can be changed in about 2 minutes.

The Hesston & Anderson joiner is a Model 6 Serial 117.  The company started making joiners in 1922. If the guys on Old Wood Working Machines are correct, most companies started with serial 100 and that makes this number 17. The machine is in good working order. The blade is on babbitt bearings. Fired up, it sounds great. While I was painting the Craftsman Jigsaw, I was wishing that I could replace the old GE motor that came with it. The H&A joiner is powered by a pre war blue and black Craftsman 1/2 HP motor with the underlined prewar logo, just like the jig saw. It will go on the saw and I will find something else for the joiner. H&A went under in the early fifties, but everyone that has one would never part with it.

Not a bad haul and the price was right!

Cool score!  The universe liked you that day!

Free is almost always good!

Wow, You are blessed!! and you have room for them!!!

Well, now that you bring it up, this is something of a room problem. My wife, somewhat grudgingly, has agreed to let me have her half of the garage in the summer. Right now, with those two inside, you can't walk through to the kitchen door. Come winter, something is gonna have to give.

I see a shed in your future....

I can't believe someone didn't at least big on the one with the baldor motor, the motor is worth $75 all day long..

Very nice machines, from the pinnacle of woodworking machine design, after that most of the improvements involved how to make them cheaper...

That is one righteous haul!!  Come winter, you can just send them to my place.  My shop building is just getting finished, and there is definitely space, especially for the jointer. 

Ye Gods!  They were just going to  dump these in an alley?!  Astounding!

Most of the people that haunt the weekly or monthly consignment auctions are pickers trying to buy wholesale for a flea market booth.  300 pound tools are not very good flea material because, first, you have to get it there at 4 AM, then if you don't sell it, you have to load it and take it home. The reason that it doesn't sell is that it weighs 300 pounds and the buyer has to haul it a half a mile to his truck. Moose, lostmind, wvtools and others will probably confirm my theory.

Sorry Mike, I think it's a keeper. If I change my mind, I'll let you know. We need photos of your shed construction project and a complete list of the zoning and building code violations.

Must have been a damn poor auctioneer if he couldn't get at least $200 for each of those machines.

Quote from: johnsironsanctuary on July 22, 2013, 11:45:47 AM
We need photos of your shed construction project and a complete list of the zoning and building code violations.

Photos you'll get.  It'll be water tight by the end of today.   The process to get the permit for the building took almost a year, so there better not be any code violations!  I live in a "design review" area so the first months were devoted to making sure the esthetics of the building were compatible with my house.  Quite a few fights there.  I still have to get the front stuccoed and build and install the craftsman corbels/brackets to match those on my house.  While the contractor was trenching for the footings of the pad, we found two pipes about 6 inches below the surface, so everything stopped until we could get rid of the pipes.  But then it was discovered that the gas line didn't come in straight from the main (as shown in the PG&E map), but angled immediately from the meter and ran under the full length of the pad.  I've got a 2 foot deep trench from the back wall of the house to the back fence now, because it was also determined that the existing meter violated code, being installed under a window. 

Electricity is somewhere in the future, but I found a used Lufkin fish line (five bucks) to draw the wires through the old electrical conduit we found and drew up into the building.   

I found online the shop layout used for the old program, "Walt's Workshop," that has all the tools/machines I have laid out nicely.  It'll save me a lot of thinking.  His shop was 12 X 24, while mine is 16 X 20. 

If I'd had this two years ago, I would have bought the Faye and Egan 6 foot jointer that showed up at the dump in Sebastapol!