Interesting article
Clint Searl
After sitting nearly 40 years untouched in a farm field in rural Montana before being
refurbished and transported more than 2,000 miles across the country, a last-of-its-kind
vintage woodworking machine is finally settled in its permanent home at the National
Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem.
The 3-ton, fully restored Greenlee No. 576 Heavy 16-inch Variety Woodworker began its
journey to Bethlehem on May 18 and was delivered to the museum Thursday morning,
dropped off by Steve Williams of Kalispell, Montana, who spent two years painstakingly
restoring the machine.
Williams, who bought the machine in 2018, recognized how valuable it was and knew it
needed to be on public display, so he contacted the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
which put him in contact with the National Museum of Industrial History.
Thursday morning, an industrial forklift moved the machine off of a box truck, and pallet
jacks were used to bring it to its resting place in the museum’s temporary gallery.
Williams, the owner of Montana Handmade, has a passion for restoring and utilizing
vintage woodworking machines. He keeps a running ad on Craigslist that says “vintage
machinery wanted.”
That led him to cabinetmaker Norm Anderson, who in 2018 contacted Williams and told
him
he had the machine in his possession for nearly 40 years.
Williams said there were rumors on the online woodworking machine forums about a
Greenlee Variety Woodworker that was in a field somewhere, or perhaps in an old barn.
When Anderson contacted Williams, he immediately asked if the machine had the Greenlee
badge, which it did.
“I knew it was the holy grail of vintage woodworking machines,” Williams said.
He soon made the 200-mile trip to pick it up from a 5,000-acre farm just outside of
Canada.
The machine had been at the farm since 1979, when Anderson bought it during a
liquidation sale of the Anaconda Copper Co.
Anderson fell in love with the machine and its incredible condition, but when he arrived
home he realized it wouldn’t fit through the door of his shop.
He took it north to his brother-in-law’s farm, where it was covered in 10 gallons of lard to
help preserve it and packaged away in a custom wood crate. It was virtually forgotten for
the next 39 years until Williams bought it.
“It was shockingly beautiful in its complexity,” Williams said of the first time he saw the
machine. “It was incredibly well preserved.”
The machine was purchased new by the Anaconda Copper Co. in 1910 from Greenlee in
Rockford, Illinois, and was used for 70 years until Anaconda closed. The Greenlee Co. was
started in 1862 by identical twin brothers Ralph and Robert Greenlee, who were originally
from Crawford County in western Pennsylvania.
Williams said patternmakers only used the finest machinery and large manufacturing
companies like Anaconda Copper could afford the best, which meant a Greenlee was the
only choice.
The Greenlee was used for tasks like wood planing and cutting notches in wood. It could
also create patterns that would then be used to cast parts like cogs and gears out of metal.
Through his research at the Montana Historical Society, Williams surmised that this was
probably the last remaining example of a Greenlee No. 576 Heavy 16-inch Variety
Woodworker.
A query through the almost 50,000-member Old Wood Working Machines forum yielded
no other evidence of such a machine, Williams said.
When Williams contacted the Greenlee Co., now owned by Emerson Electric Co., the project
truly took off.
Once they found out what was going on, Emerson decided to fully fund the restoration
effort and contacted the National Museum of Industrial History to arrange to have the
machine put on display there.
Williams estimates he spent 1,500 hours on restoring the machine, a process that included
photographing and cataloging hundreds of parts, cleaning them and recalibrating them
after the machine was reassembled.
Glenn Koehler, director of marketing and public relations at the National Museum of
Industrial History, said the machine will be a perfect addition to the museum’s collection,
which includes foot-powered woodworking machines and line shafts.
The Greenlee shows the continued evolution of woodworking in that it can perform up to a
dozen functions, but as one machine takes up much less space.
“It’s really exciting because I don’t know if I’d ever find another one like this,” museum
historian Mike Pierasa said.
