Woodmaster tools

It doesn’t look to far off of my old Belsaw planer-molder I bought back before Sears got involved.

It was a work horse, compared to my little lunchbox planer. I sold it for that reason. I didn’t need to do a thousand feet of lumber at a run. My little Delta does fine.

I never got enough wood to run the thing on a molding project and finally sold it to a buddy, for his water bed manufacturing business. As such, I cannot speak to its quality for that purpose.

One thing to look at would be head speed. Obviously, like a router or shaper, the speed of the blades need to run at a higher speed than needed for a saw blade. Otherwise, running it as a molder would be akin to running my table saw as one using the Sears molding heads – it works, but it’s not a one pass adventure.

These days, if I was going to go with a molder, I’d stay with the component approach. Rather than fight switching the unit over to molding mode, or back, I’d stay with my Dewalt and buy a dedicated molder.

The Williams and Hussey unit has intrigued me for a few decades, but that’s a lot of machine for hobbying around.

The Belsaw, the stock planer blades were steel, so had to be sharpened. Back then, a set of carbides were around $300.00, so their cost could probably get you a little country these days.

The same applied to the molding blades. Because they were just steel, you could get (3ea) custom blades fashioned for a fairly reasonable price.

Thanks Kelly !!
I’m thinking what you are suggesting.
I have a 12" planer but it’s not as nice as the Delta.
What I need right now is a wide drum sander.
I appreciate your input.

Thanks Whitacrebespoke,
I have decided to go with stand alones. I have enough room.
Woodmaster charges $9 per inch to sharpen their HSS moulder blades.

Thanks for your insight and advise

On the stand alone, that was a point I intended to make more clear – swapping over functions is one major reason so many Shop Smiths go on the market.

Buying woodworking equipment is like buying stereos. If you’re really into music, you would buy a component system, rather than a console.

Going that route, you can add devices, or upgrade existing ones. Not so with a console. Then there is the matter of everything being down if part of it fails.

Jay,

I do have a Woodmaster 4-in-1, just the 18" width. I purchased it used and it sits in my shop still not in working order. You are wise to heed the others’ advice!

The cover is very heavy and awkward so I use a ceiling hoist to remove it to work on it. (Each time you want to switch functions, you need to remove the cover.)

I still plan to fix it up so I can use it for planing wider glue-ups, but I have a SuperMax 25×2 drum sander so I would never use the sanding function. I might (some day) use the molder but I built a horizontal router table and it has sufficed for my molding projects thus far. As far as the gang saw is concerned, I’m not into mass production so I don’t see a use for it. (That’s what the previous owner seemed to use the most.)

L/W

Thank you L/W for your first hand info. about the woodmaster
I will have to look Moore into the horizontal shaper.
I have been needing a drum sander for a while, I will start there first.

Thanks to all for taking the time to share your equipment wisdom.

Jay,
drop Mike 40 a line I know he has a combo unit and I am sure he will provide any feedback/advice you may be wanting to find out about.

RobsCastle, thank you for the information.
I have a stand alone 26" Woodmaster sander on the way,
It was a little more money but it has a 5 yr warranty .