New Oliver machinery

Re: New Oliver machinery

Dick Coers

No experience. But I get a sour taste when a company buys a brand, refers to the history of the brand, but imports all the machinery. An early web site of the new Oliver used a picture of the last factory building in Grand Rapids. I thought that was in very poor taste. But when that building burnt to the ground, they dropped the picture. Feels too much like buying a Chinese hammer from Harbor Freight that is branded American Hickory. Edit; just checked, the old Grand Rapids factory building is back on the history of the brand. Misguided marketing in my opinion. If they aren't proud of the machinery on it's own, don't go back to the history of the word Oliver.

Re: New Oliver machinery

Larry Edinger

Is there any machinery Made in the US?

Machinery made in America

Michael van pelt

None that I know of. But it is our own fault. Save a buck .....save a buck is all most customers are interested in. Can you make it cheaper for I want to buy it cheaper? We have EPA , taxed, and regulated America out of the business of casting machinery..

Festool has proven customers will pay for quality....How come Machinery can not be made in the USA? Corporate greed and our own greed!

Northfield equipment

Bruce, a MN Galoot

Same company as always, still made in MN.

Re: Machinery made in America

Dick Coers

No offense Mike, but I’d just as soon not go back to when our rivers caught fire. We know what industries will do with waste without the EPA. They already proved that in our history. And about that tax thing? When was the last time GE paid taxes? I retired from Caterpillar. They built a sham company in Europe to reduce the taxes they paid on parts sales.

Re: Machinery made in America

John in NM

Can't compare Festool to the heavy machines that used to be made here. They are expensive hand tools, but still orders of magnitude less expensive than quality US made machinery was. They are also geared more to finish carpenters than cabinet shops, though there is some overlap between the two.

When I worked for a shop that had a big Oliver jointer in the late 1990's I called the factory to find out how to adjust the beds. They no longer made woodworking machines at that point, and were instead making bread slicing machines and machinery for sterile packaging processes (still had some old timers around who could help with questions like mine though). The point is that they had moved on - woodworking machinery was not paying the bills.

Call it corporate greed if you like. I call it staying afloat and keeping your employees employed as long as you can. The real story is that Asia produces machines of acceptable quality at a lower price and people buy them. Much of the market has moved to hobbyists (no idea what proportion) and hobbyists make purchasing decisions differently than do businesses.

I too am sorry to have seen the big US manufacturers go, but I don't really think there is blame to be handed around. Markets change.

Re: Northfield equipment

Michael van pelt

Wow! Did you look at the price list 10grand is the starting point. A little out of my income level!

Re: Northfield equipment

Bruce, a MN Galoot

It ain’t cheap, for sure. Very, very good, though.

You said it's proven that people will pay quality

Re: Northfield equipment

Walt

Somewhat ironically building very durable machines limits that market. Once the number of machines produced equals demand, the demand for new machines declines. Excellent quality and durability can mean that one machine may change hands several times so no need for many new machines. A lower quality machine may be scrapped after one or two owners, a high quality machine will live on so less demand for new machines.

Re: You said it's proven that people will pay qual

Michael van pelt

Paying for affordable quality .........perhaps I can afford $500 for a Sander but 25grand for a bandsaw is out of my reach.

Re: New Oliver machinery

Michael van pelt

Hey Dick

I asked a question about if anyone had any experience with the new Oliver, did not need a scolding thanks anyway!

No experience...

John in NM

Going from looks the jointers appear to be similar to the Invicta stuff Delta used to market. That was made in Brazil I believe and seemed to have a good rep.

Drill presses look like the usual Asian stuff. Bandsaws impossible to say, everyone is making them out of steel tubing these days. Only ones of those I've used were too flexible compared to the cast iron C frame saws (all small, like 15") I'm more accustomed to.

Planers also look like the old Delta imports, but I don't know where those were made, Taiwan maybe. They were decent machines as I recall, though I only used a couple of them.

Why not call them up and ask? You can find out a lot doing that, even if the rep is dodgy that tells you something. Since Oliver was recently in business, it may not be someone cashing in on the name, might be the same company trying a different marketing line for their WW'ing stuff.

Re: New Oliver machinery

E Phillip Smith

Don't have any experience with the new stuff. I saw it at IWF when introduced several years ago. Looked to be made heavier than the typical JET/Powermatic/Delta stuff, but not as heavy as the original Oliver.

If you are looking at industrial woodworking tools why not look at used tools. Northfield is still in business and you can by repair parts if needed. I have Northfield table saw and Jointer and have bought repair parts from Northfield.

Eagle Machinery has repair parts for Oliver machines and history of every Oliver machine made. I have an Oliver Mortise machine and Pattern Makers lathe and have purchase parts for both from Rich at Eagle Machinery. Eagle also sells the New Oliver line.

http://www.eaglemachinery-repair.com/

If you are looking for planer Newman is still in business, and should be able to get repair parts for their machines but they will not be cheap. I'm spending the afternoon putting a new set of knives in a 24 inch Newman finish planer. It is an very good piece of machinery. To give you and idea this machine weighs about 3500 lbs, which is typical of all of the vintage machinery.

When I was looking for a vintage planer I plotted the weights of various planers to figure out how much weight we would need to haul. For vintage planers the following equation will give you a good estimate of expected weight.

Weight = 0.252(cutter head width^2.98)

The new stuff has been valued engineered to half or less of the weight vintage American made industrial wood working machines.

Re: Castings not necessarly better!

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

When I started designing / building machinery for my employer as an Engineer in the 1970's, cast iron machine stands were quite economical, much cheaper than fabricated steel stands that were welded.

The good vendors made many standard designs at a time and left them outside on the sunny side of the facility for a year or so to stabilize, yeah they moved, some even cracked. When allowed to be heated by the sun and cooled at night the castings would stabilize.

Then the EPA began and almost all the shops that cast iron in the USA were closed - casting is a dirty, somewhat dangerous business. At that time it became difficult to even find suppliers and those that remained were extreme expensive due to EPA / OSHA regulations.

So it became more economical to produce welded steel fabrications. The cast iron units did have more weight but the steel were just as rigid and did the job quite well. Often the foreign equipment manufactures continued to use castings BUT most were not stabilized and would move after being in use.

My Mini-Max 16" band saw is constructed with thick stamped steel and is completely satisfactory as it will not move with an 1-1/4 wide blade tightened to the max. It has the capacity to cut 16" high as well as deep.

Just posting this to let people know the only reason castings were used was for economy - not that it is superior to properly designed welded or stamped construction used today.

Re: 1970's -Should have been 1960's.

I like iron for bandsaws

John in NM

The only saws I have used that tracked well have had cast iron frames. Two General bandsaws - a 490 and a 590, and an old Powermatic 141.

The couple of steel tube frame saws I've used did not track well - one was much bigger than those cast frame machines, 20" I think, the other was just a little bigger, the smallest Laguna sold at the time (16"?). I suspect the steel saws were less rigid and more prone to twisting under load from tensioning the blade.

There were differences other than material that could account for it, even just that the newer machines were capable of good tracking if setup well. My General 590 required no setup beyond uncrating however - so I still like cast iron (maybe "shell" is a better word than frame?) for small bandsaws.

For other machines? Who knows, definitely not me. The rest of my machinery is older than me.

What you say about stabilizing rings true, and I think that has a lot to do with the reputation of older machines - the manufacturers took the time to stabilize. I've used some very good stuff from Grizzly & others, and some utter junk from a various nameless importers. There is nothing magical about old machines, just that some of the processes employed may have been better.

As always, YMMV.