A One-Motor Shop

[crokett]

I realize this is one of those ideas where if it made sense somebody would be doing it already, but just as an intellectual exercise, what about a one-motor shop? Not a Shopsmith or similar but rather separate tables that are driven by a single motor? You hook up a series of belts or gears to drive whatever tool you want.

[schloff]

The local Amish wood shops are doing this. They buy a (relatively) new farm tractor, remove the rear wheels, and attach a belt to the axle which drives the series of belts in the shop. Each machine is on it's own "clutch".

It's very impressive to see. The ones I've seen have a web of belts that are mostly spinning under the raised wooden floor, and the clutch handles are about 36" tall pieces of 6/4 x 6 white oak sticking out of localized holes in the floor. A lot of thought and experience has gome into the layout of these shops.

BTW, the shops that I've seen all feature brand new Grizzly machinery (largest avialable at teh time), with the original motor sitting behind the shop, rotting in the weather.

[MikeR]

Old mills

I realize this is one of those ideas where if it made sense somebody would be doing it already, but just as an intellectual exercise, what about a one-motor shop? Not a Shopsmith or similar but rather separate tables that are driven by a single motor? You hook up a series of belts or gears to drive whatever tool you want.

If you look at some of the old mills in New England, that is exactly how they drove different pieces of machinery. Everything driven off the water wheel.

David Macaulay's book "Mill" which described the Slater Mill in Rhode Island goes into great detail about the power distribution network.

Cheers,

MikeR

[dkerfoot]

I've seen old factories that were set up that way. Pretty scary to think of working among all those whirling belts. Definitely pre-OSHA. Sounds like the Amish keep it mostly below the floor which sounds like a much better plan.

[Stytooner]

Cool until your one motor burns out. Then you have nothing you can do without hand tools.
This type thing has been done many times in the old work and some are still using the approach as mentioned.
Perhaps still practical in a one or two man production line, but not very practical in a hobby shop.

[docrowan]

This Old House once visited an old mill that still produced shutters with the old waterwheel driven machinery. It was fascinating to watch the guy run all the machinery by shifting belts around with a stick.

[gwyneth]

One of the museums in Conway, NH shows a line pulley gun makers shop.

There is a Yahoo group for people interested in line pulley machinery.

Coincidentally, last year someone on Freecycle in central Wisconsin was giving away an old line pulley shaft--apparently it had consumed space in his garage for a long, long time and either he finally realized he wasn't going to get around to restoring it or his wife was exerting some influence.

Scott Landis's Workshop book also looks at a couple of line pulley shops, one water powered and one really old Philadelphia manufacturer that was still using its electric setup (for chairs, I think) when the book came out in the late '80s.

On a much smaller scale, many lapidary setups run several belts off the same shaft (saws, grinders, polishers).

[crokett]

Lee,

That is why you keep a spare motor on hand.

[gwyneth]

Lee,

That is why you keep a spare motor on hand.

Next thing you know, someone will get the bright idea to try a motor for each tool...

[Hellrazor]

Next thing you know, someone will get the bright idea to try a motor for each tool...

Utter Blasphemy!!

[eezlock]

A one motor shop?

I don't think so....not too practical in this day and time in my opinion.
Way too many pulleys, shafts, gears, gearboxes and miles of flat belt type
stuff to be mounted everywhere to be of any use to a home shop woodworker. There used to be factories and machine shops everywhere that were set up this way...a hundred or more years ago...but they have fallen out of favor it seems with all this OSHA stuff in place.

I would not want all those headaches of that type machinery to worry with
just to be able to do a few simple tasks in my shop, would you? eezlock

[crokett]

I agree with you ezlock - I was just cleaning out the jointer last night and thought it would be cool if I could get that big motor powering my tablesaw somehow.

[gwyneth]

I agree with you ezlock - I was just cleaning out the jointer last night and thought it would be cool if I could get that big motor powering my tablesaw somehow.

Little tablesaw/jointer combinations were really popular about 40 years ago.

I noticed in the new issue of Woodworking Journal that Jet has introduced a 12" jointer/planer combo--I saw it first in a photo in a story, had no idea what it was--it looked like an enormous black ironing mangle/press.

[Daryl]

I once was given a less deluxe version of one of these, I never hooked it up and life intervened before I could convert it to a motor, I passed it to the next fellow.

[tedkitch]

My grandfather worked with metal and his shop was setup this way. The belts were overhead and are still there. He built the entire thing himself, it was wild watching it work as a little one.