On Monday, January 16, 2017 at 12:52:06 PM UTC-5, Christopher Tidy wrote:
Am Montag, 16. Januar 2017 15:56:40 UTC+1 schrieb :
Baloney. Look at that Sears bandsaw. It's a frail skeleton of a frame that probably couldn't deliver 1/2 hp -- if it had a motor, which it doesn't.. It even has a wooden table.
The Jet has a 3 hp motor and the rigidity to deliver it. Its NET weight is 550 lb. The Sears saw has a SHIPPING weight of 300 lb -- of which 100 lb probably was a wooden crate.
If you want to make a fair comparison, compare the Sears saw with this:
http://tinyurl.com/z47rd7b
Then take off the motor and put bigger pulley wheels on it.
Ed, this is interesting. Maybe I'm not comparing like with like. Does anyone know where I could find prices for the best machine tools from the same era?
Chris
Hmmm. Try this one:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/WEN-10-Tw...light/47348845
Or, for a closer size, try this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/WEN-9-5-A...3966/206926978
These are low-end woodworking bandsaws, Chris. But they're probably better than the Sears machine in that catalog.
The Sears machine is framed with decorative but flimsy castings. Consider the resolution of forces from the wheels and the blade guide; they're transmitted through a circuitous and flexible route. A lot of machines were engineered like that in those days. They were crap in comparison with what we have today.
Individual on-machine motors were a novelty in 1902. A one-half horsepower motor was huge. I have a GE Century motor from the late 1920s or early '30s on my home made bench sander; one horsepower, and as big as a small microwave oven. Lifting it would give you a hernia. g).
Two years ago I scrapped my 1917 Taylor & Fenn C-frame knee mill. The scrap yard said it weighed 840 lb. It had a really massive C-frame, which was rigid as hell. But the knee was not. It was more flexible than a Series I Bridgeport.
When I tried to gift my knee mill to the American Precision Museum in VT, they politely refused it, telling me there probably were between 100 and 200 milling machine builders at the time. Many of them were poorly engineered. All of the Sears machines on that catalog page look flexible as hell. Some were foot-powered; others ran from overhead belts or, in today's terms, feeble sub-horsepower motors. They could get away with it when they had little power and weak tools, which is what they had. Today's machines can hardly be compared with them.
As for the prices for good commercial machine tools of the 1900 era, look for online copies of old issues of _American Machinist_. They're available online. FWIW, I was an editor at _AM_ once upon a time, but I don't go back quire that far. d8-)
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Ed Huntress