979-551-5865
VINTAGE MACHINERY
Life is short, you need to enjoy your tools!
In my humble opinion, Oliver Wood Working Machinery, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is simply the highest grade equipment ever made for woodworking. I like them and they like me. We invite you to come see us and this collection of wonderful wood working equipment.
For original Oliver Machinery replacement parts contact: Jon, sales@straitoplane.com
One of my favorite sites for Old Wood Working Machines is: www.vintagemachinery.org
And the OWWM discussion forum is: www.owwm.org
Only a few machines in my shop are ever available for purchase, while the rest of them are my production machinery, and not for sale. If you are interested in a machine, or have an Oliver for sale, please call Chuck @ 979-551-5865 with details.
The following machines are my production equipment and they are not for sale, sorry.
OLIVER 115-RD RESAW & SCROLL SAW
Oliver Model #115-RD, 38″ Combination Resaw & Scroll saw, 1955 vintage. 10 HP direct drive, 570 RPM saw motor. Feeder Motor 2 HP, 2 Speed 1140/575 RPMs. Okay, this is the rarest bandsaw of them all; I looked for one of these for a long time and the first one I found didn’t work out. Then this beauty found me a few years ago. I think you can see from the photos how the whole resaw feeder swings out of the way on that giant hinge, for using as a scroll saw. What a tremendous design! One of the things that I love about this is the fact that both sides of my feeder rolls are powered and that’s a hard thing to get on any other feeder setup.
We were starting to strip her down for a complete restro and then I needed to put it back together to use for a millwork job. So in this photo she needs a new paint job, but we did tires, crowns and mechanical cleanup, and she is running so very well that I sort of hate to take it apart again. But fear not, we will get around to painting her someday!
OLIVER 217 BAND SAW
Oliver Model #217-D 30″ Band Saw, 1955 vintage. We finally scored one of these to keep ourselves. This one is a beauty with rare and awesome 690 RPM motor. We are an all Oliver Band Saw shop again!
Oliver #66-AC Patternmaker’s
Heavy Gap Bed Lathe
Oliver #66-AC Patternmaker’s Heavy Gap Bed Lathe, 1950. Swing is 30″ w/gap closed and 48″ w/gap open. Between centers is 6’6″ w/gap closed and 8’6″ w/gap opened. Got this from a foundry up north that was going to scrap it! The lathe hasn’t been used at all for 17 years, and looks like it wasn’t used much before that. I also had somewhat of a rare opportunity to speak with the retired patternmaker that used this lathe, that was really cool. We replaced headstock bearings and converted to oil bath bearing while we were at it.
What a great call that was- it was well worth the effort because now it runs unbelievably smoothly! I am listening to my son and we are keeping this one for the big gun in our shop. Yes, that is a pen mandrel; he had to be the first to turn a pen on an Oliver #66.
Oliver #159 Patternmaker’s Carriage Speed Lathe
Oliver #159 Patternmaker’s Carriage Speed Lathe, 1942 vintage. This 12″ swing lathe has the very rare 7′ bed. It is a factory 7′ bed and we have never seen or heard about one that size before. With Olivers they were made one at a time so you never know what you will run into. This one is a venerable WWII vet that was sold to Tinker Air Force base in Oklahoma City in 1942 to help defend this great country! This was my son’s first restoration in which he did most of the work himself (with a little motor help from daddy). It is now complete and beautiful and is his go to lathe. Better pics coming soon!
Oliver #260-D Dual Arbor
Table Saw
Oliver #260-D Dual Arbor Table Saw, 1942. This was another WWII vet - this one came from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and was probably at Pearl Harbor. I found it on the island of Maui. These are such cool saws- they can do about anything but especially nice for compound angle chair parts using the slider and the quadrant gauge. We usually leave a combo blade and a dado stack set up on this, I don’t like to change blades.
Oliver #232 Table Saw
Oliver #232 Table Saw, 1968. This is a sweet little 12″ saw! Since we have several saws in the shop, we primarily use this one for cutting angle rips.
Oliver #191 Table Saw
Oliver #191 Table Saw, 1937. Very heavy contractor’s type table saw. They must have had some burly contractors to move this from job to job, back in the day! It’s a somewhat scarce machine and I’m glad to have it in our collec….er, inventory. This is another Oliver that we passed on to a new owner. We got a lot of pleasure from owning and restoring this one. We just don't have room to keep them all.
Oliver #299-D 24″ Planer
with Insert Tooth Cutter Head
Oliver #299-D 24″ Planer with Insert Tooth Cutter Head, 1942. This WWII vet has a 7 1/2 HP motor. It was originally sold to the submarine base in Guam, and I found it in Maui. The Oliver ITCH (inserted tooth cutter head) is an awesome design, those boys in Grand Rapids had it together on this one! I love the spiral head for difficult grain or tropical hardwoods. Fantastic planer design on a very small footprint for a 24″ planer!
Oliver #12-B 20″ Patternmaker’s Jointer
Oliver #12-B 20″ 1956 Patternmaker’s Jointer with grinder. We are lucky to be the second owner of this 10 HP gem. I get a lot of e-mail about this machine for good reason- thanks for all the nice comments. This baby touches every piece of wood that goes through our shop. About 9′ bed length and 5′ roller extension make this a dream to use. The patternmaker’s feature on these #12’s a truly impressive design, what a sweet machine!
Oliver #125-D Single End Tenoner
Oliver #125-D Single End Tenoner, Tilting Bed, 1951. Many say this is one of Oliver’s finest designed machines. It sure is a joy to use. We use this for large tenons, mostly entry doors and such.
Oliver #92-D Power Feed
Hollow Chisel Mortiser
Oliver #92-D Power Feed Hollow Chisel Mortiser, 1956. I had searched for one of these for a long time. This is one of only two of my machines that I purchased already restored by someone else. The power feed on one of these will sure spoil the operator.
Rye H2 Double Slot Mortiser
Rye (English) H2 Double Slot Mortiser. Serial 337, 1962. This and the matching Rye T2 Round End Tenoner are two of my very favorite machines! We use these a lot for furniture sized mortise and tenon joints. Ryes are impressive, high quality machines and very accurate.
“Shaper Land”
Here is a shot of “Shaper Land” in our old shop. I like shapers and I like to have dedicated machines for repetitive operations. We put all the “little” shapers on mobile bases to be able to adapt to a wide variety of uses. We have one more Oliver shaper not in the photo, that is up on the mezzanine right now. I know; it's a sickness, but I’m OK with that…
Oliver #288-T Double Spindle Shaper
Oliver #288-T Double Spindle Shaper, 1958. This one is our shop’s “molder”, and we primarily make short runs of custom molding with it. The spindles are on 24″ centers and I love that nice big work surface.
Oliver #288-T Double Spindle Shaper
Oliver #288-T Double Spindle Shaper, 1957. It is our biggest, and heaviest, shaper. This one has a Holz 6 roll power feeder mounted on it and we mostly use it for cabinet edge profiling. The spindles are on 30″ centers and I really love that nice big boy work surface.
Oliver #287-T
Spindle Shaper
Oliver #287-T Spindle Shaper, 1970. 5 HP, 1 1/4″ spindle. This one is set up with a Forest City 4 roll power feeder and we use it to run our “stick” cut for cabinet doors. This one stays set up for that all the time.
Oliver #287-T Spindle Shaper
Oliver #287-T Spindle Shaper, 1965. 7 1/2 HP, 1 1/4″ spindle. This one has a 2 speed flat belt drive arrangement. Right now we have a Steff 6 roll power feeder mounted on it but mostly use this with our panel crafter for radius shaping.
Oliver #287-T Spindle Shaper
Oliver #287-T Spindle Shaper, 40’s vintage, no serial number present. This one has a 2 speed V belt arrangement; high speed 6654, low speed 4600 RPMs. We have this one set up for our cabinet door “cope” cuts. We leave it set up for copes all the time and it is fitted with a Pahans sliding table jig, fantastic coping sled by the way! This shaper found us from the Big Island of Hawaii.
Dodds Automatic Dovetailer
Dodds 15 spindle automatic dovetailer, 1962. These are nice little machines, and we use ours to make nearly every drawer box we produce.
Oliver #34-DD Double 30″ Disk Sander
Oliver #34-DD, Double 30″ Disk Sander. We had fun restoring this one in 2009, and she came out really nice. We even scored a correct vintage chain fall to complete what is now another one of my favorite machines. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, take my word for it. Update; this great machine wound up going to a new home, but it was sweet to own.
Oliver #381-D Tilting Oscillating Spindle Sander
Oliver #381-D Tilting Oscillating Spindle Sander, 2 Speed Motor, 1957. This is another that we are lucky to be the second owner of this machine. I got this sander as a package deal with my jointer, the owner would not split them up. My #12 Jointer and this big spindle sander were in his “model shop”. That must have been some “model shop”, and I wish I could have seen it. This is THE one to have!
Oliver #182-DB Disk and Belt Sander Combo
Oliver #182-DB Disk and Belt Sander Combo, 1968. These are such great combo machines! Kind of an intense restoration because there are a lot of parts for a small machine. We have since passed this on to a good home with friend of ours. Now he gets to love it like we did!