This machine is in pristine condition, having been completely stripped down and meticulously reassembled complete with new bearings and belts. It’s the later model 12 AGS with the much improved new style fence.
This is a step-by-step rebuild of a Wadkin Bursgreen 12 AGS table saw.
The machine was completely dismantled and every part was meticulously cleaned, de-rusted where necessary, and then either painted or polished.
New spindle bearings were fitted and also a new pinion assembly into the fence.
First step was to lay out the cast iron feet.
The next step was to bolt the steel cabinet base to the cast iron feet using eight 20mm x 10mm bolts and washers.
The next step was to bolt the main frame to the base. The main frame is constructed from cast iron and it’s a heavy beast to lift on. It’s fixed with six 20mm x 10mm bolts and washers.
The canting shaft had been removed and was cleaned and polished along with the canting shaft collars. Both oilite bushes were in perfect condition so did not need replacing.
Next the trunnion bracket was lifted into place on to the main frame, and secured with the trunnion trapping brackets.
The next couple of photos show the saw spindle assembly and riving knife bracket fitted, along with the motor platform.
I then fitted the spindle pulley and installed the 3hp three-phase motor along with two new drive belts.
The next job is to fit the main table and align it with the saw blade. Followed by the left and right extension tables. The first image shown is the underside of the main table. I also fitted the dol starter.
The main table is secured from underneath with four 10mm nuts & washers.
The extension tables are secured to the main table with three 10mm bolts & washers. Each extension table incorporates three 6mm grub-screws to assist alignment to the main table.
Now the hand-wheels are re-fitted
Fence rail, fence and fence support bracket are fitted
And the finger plate and riving knife
Finally, here is the refurbished machine completed and ready to give many, many years of service.
This is the later model 10 AGS with the much improved new-style fence and has both the left-hand and right-hand cast-iron table extensions to give the maximum table size.
The machine has been completely stripped down, with every part having been meticulously cleaned, polished or painted. New SFK spindle bearings fitted and three new V-belts. It’s in superb condition and will be sold complete with large steel extension table, new Freud blade, riving knife and blade guard.
Also available with this machine are numerous, very accurate shop-made jigs that were specifically made for this machine. They include:
This machine will be available with these options:
Alternatively, it could be fitted with a new Single-phase, 240 volt, 3hp motor.
More information about each jig along with photographs below.
With my version no clamps are required as the sandpaper strips glued to the base give excellent grip to the stock being cut.
Both of my cross-cut sleds were set up using the method demonstrated by William Ng in his video: 5 Cuts to a “Perfect” Cross-Cut Sled
At first it may seem like a lot of unnecessary faffing about but I can testify from experience that it’s well worth the effort, if you want to produce perfect right-angles.
A few photos below showing the stages of replacing the spindle bearings on a Wadkin Bursgreen 12 AGS table saw. I haven’t explained how to remove the spindle assembly from the machine because that’s all explained in the Wadkin manual.
Here’s the spindle assembly on the bench ready to remove the old bearings:
Earlier machines had slightly different spindle bearings with the inner width being wider than the outer width as shown below. These old bearings were the same as fitted in the Vauxhall Velox car.
Next photo shows the bearings being removed. This type of extractor make the job much easier.
Here are the bearings removed:
The spindle ready for the new bearings to be pressed on:
The first new bearing being pressed on:
Both new bearings now fitted along with the distance piece. I have yet to fit the spindle locking collar but will have to do so before installing into housing. In the photo you can see the temporary grubscrew which keeps the distance piece lined up with the trapping collar and makes it easy to replace the securing bolt when the assembly is refitted into the housing.
In the next photo you can see the spindle assembly has been pressed into the spindle housing, and the securing bolt (just finger tight for now) has replaced the temporary grubscrew.
Next the drive belt pulley is fitted.
The spindle assembly is then fiitted back into the machine
Next the drive belts are fitted
Now I’m aligning the blade to the riving knife:
At the same time as I’m fitting new bearings I’ve also just bought a new rip blade, which I’ve fitted now so that I can align it to the riving knife, and later to the mitre slot. One thing I noticed when using the dial indicator was just how true this new blade ran. I’ve started buying my blades from Cutting Solutions, run by a very helpful fella called Doug Perry. I’ve been very satisfied with the excellent quality of the blades and the courteous service. Very reasonable prices too.
For quite a long while I’d been looking for a ‘flat top grind’ blade to make box joints, but couldn’t find a supplier anywhere in the UK. Then I came across Cutting Solutions, who were able to provide just the exact blade I wanted. You can contact them via their website here or give Doug Perry a ring on telephone number 01353 968711.
Time to refit the main table
Now aligning the mitre slot to the blade
Finally, with the left-hand and right-hand table extensions fitted, and the complete fence assembly.
This is a later model Wadkin Bursgreen 12 AGS that I have completely stripped, cleaned, polished and reassembled. I’ve listed a few photos below of the various stages, which hopefully may interest/help others doing something similar.
Various components in the process of being prepared.
Cast iron feet for base
Sheet metal base prepared and primed
Cast iron mainframe ready for preparation. Can just about lift this weighty thing.
Cast iron mainframe prepared, primed and undercoated.
Slide bracket
Base Bolted to feet:
Photo showing worm and canting shaft:
Mainframe bolted to base:
Trunnion bracket fitted:
Canting racked quadrant and trunnion bracket:
Slide bracket fitted:
Motor bracket trapping piece:
Slide bracket viewed from other side:
Saw spindle assembly:
Motor platform:
Three-phase motor fitted:
Twin Vee belts:
Riving knife bracket:
DOL starter:
Dust chute:
Main table fitted:
Extension tables fitted:
Fence and fence rail:
Mitre gauge:
Rear view of machine:
Finally finished:
I built this tenon jig, which is the design by Matthias Wandel and you can view a video of him demonstrating it here:
An extremely accurate jig which cuts perfect tenons.
Wadkin Bursgreen 12 AGS Table Saw
The Wadkin Bursgreen AGS table saw is renowned for its build quality and reliability, and will last forever. This rise & fall and tilt table saw has a blade size of 12″ (305mm) and can make 4″ vertical cuts.
The machine is in excellent condition throughout and with its original 3hp Brook motor can be used on a standard 3-phase supply or on a 240v single-phase supply in conjunction with an inverter (which is how I currently use it). The big advantage of using an inverter of course is having the benefit of soft-start and electric brake.
SOLD
Sometime around 1896 Joseph William Wadkin started his Company, along with his sister’s husband, Denzil John Jarvis, who already had his own shop-fitting business, Messrs JD Jarvis & Company, Midland shop fitting works. The two men had an idea for a ‘pattern milling machine’ that would carry out processes that had traditionally been done by hand. Thus Wadkin & Co began in the London Street, Leicester factory with a workforce of just seven men.
By 1904, as well as supplying their pattern milling machine they were making a range of single purpose machines with the main intention of equipping pattern shops, but this of course led to an even wider marketplace.
The Wadkin & Co machine was supplied with attachments for numerous and varied operations, and was almost exclusively sold to pattern shops and shipbuilders. So consequently their customers were not predominantly woodworkers, but engineers with a generally regarded greater understanding of machinery. Thus, probably for the first time, woodworking machinery had to be manufactured to exacting standards to satisfy engineers. This was the real beginning of woodworking machinery built to machine-tool standards.
In 1901 they took out a U.K. patent and in 1907 a U.S. patent for a machine which they described as a ‘Mechanical Woodworker’ that could do any operation in ‘Pattern Work also Joinery and cabinet work’ outside of conventional ripping, planing and thicknessing, due to its universal spindle and table movement.
Wadkin was the first U.K woodworking machinery manufacturer to actively promote sales of U.K woodworking machinery in Russia, Europe and the United States. In fact Wadkin & Co. promoted their ‘mechanical woodworker’ over a vast area of Europe and the USA. The Oliver Machinery Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan was given the American franchise in 1908. In the May 1909 issue of the American Journal ‘In the Foundry’ there is an illustrated article describing the machine in great detail. The concludes with “this machine is made by Wadkin & Co., Evington Engineering Works, Leicester, England, and is sold by the Oliver Machinery Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A.”
It proved to be a difficult business relationship though and Joseph Wadkin left the Company and by 1908 the partnership had been dissolved.
Joseph Wadkin went into Partnership with Thomas Scott-King and set up a new Company in Nottingham called Wadkin Mills. (This firm was subsequently sold to the original Wadkin concern following the death of Joseph Wadkin from pneumonia in 1919) they patented together a new machine to ‘produce irregular forms which will stand relative to all other single function wood working machines as the universal milling machine stands to all other metal working machines’.
Mr Jarvis remained with the original Company and being determined to expand the business he enlisted the assistance of a friend, Mr Wallace Goddard who was a manufacturing chemist in Leicester and owned the manufacturing firm ‘Plate Powders’.
Soon after in 1910, Mr Jarvis got to know Mr Ionades an innovative Greek man who had invented an advanced carburettor. They received confirmation that General Motors in the US were interested in their Polyrhoe carburettor design and Denzil Jarvis was invited over for a meeting with Henry Ford to discuss a business deal. Consequently, as his means of travel he booked his passage on the ill-fated Titanic. He set sail on the 10 April 1912 and was travelling on a £13 ticket in second class, and was in a smokers’ lounge at the time the iceberg hit. Responding to a question about the iceberg from a fellow passenger, who survived, he is quoted as saying: ”Well I am accustomed to estimating distance and I put it at between 80 and 90 feet. His body was never recovered.
And so Wallace Goddard was left alone with the business in Leicester, but he was unable to run it single-handed, so he sought the help of his eldest son, Joseph Holland Goddard to run the Company. At this time J.H. Goddard was in the process of becoming an American citizen as he had emigrated to America, but he cancelled his plans and returned to manage the Wadkin Company with his father. Within two years of joining his father in the business the First World War broke out and straightaway J.H. Goddard joined up. He became a commissioned officer and served as a despatch rider in France for the whole length of the War.
During this period the business was managed by the senior employees, and during the 1914-1918 war, the Government commissioned Wadkin & Co to assist in the development of a machine that could produce, at high-speed, large numbers of wooden propellers for the R.A.F.
After the war ended J.H. Goddard returned to run the Company in 1919. After the war there was a tremendous demand for woodworking machinery and the Company’s order books were overflowing and well beyond their limited production capacity. To cope with the immediate demand sub-contractors were used.
Then Goddard and his Son designed and built a new factory at Green Lane Road, Leicester. This factory was well equipped with the latest single-purpose machine tools for high speed batch production.
The development of the integral electric drive in the 1920s led to the introduction of much more efficient brands of woodworking machines. And Wadkin, in particular, pioneered high-speed, high-production machines that produced quality finished woodwork.
A sub-section of the 1922 ‘Who’s Who in Engineering’ showed:
WADKIN & Co., Woodworking Machinery Engineers, North Evington, Leicester.
T.A. Woodworker, Leicester.
Telephone No: 3614 and 3615.
Established 1896.
Employees: 150.
Principals J. W. Goddard, J. H. Goddard.
Products: The new mechanical woodworker; saw benches, band-sawing machines, planing machines, spindle moulders, drilling machines, wood-turning lathes and sandpapering machines.
In 1923 J.H. Goddard was to make ‘selling history’ when he set off on a World tour of colossal duration that lasted two and a half years! His aim was to procure agents and build a substantial export business for their U.K machines; principally the Pattern Miller. Their range also included specialist machines, like the ‘wood-propeller shaper’ developed during the War. There was also a range of single-purpose basic woodworking machines.
The tour circled the world but the first country to be visited, in November 1923, was India. Further visits followed to Japan, Java, Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Canada and the U.S.A. And he visited Australia and New Zealand on more than one occasion.
His role was to set up agencies and then machines for stock were ordered from the U.K. Later the country would be revisited to make sure that the stock was suitable and satisfactory and that sales were being created. He eventually returned to the UK in January 1927 following the successful sale of many Pattern Millers during his final visit to the U.S.A.
His return was timely as his father passed away in 1927. Throughout this time the Wadkin business letter heading showed the father and son as partners.
Wadkin further extended their range throughout the 1930s and forged ahead in the high technology market and were soon making larger, high production woodworking machines such as double-ender machines, high capacity saws and moulders.
In 1935 they became a Private Company
Wadkin Bursgreen 12 AGS 240 volt table saw, single phase, with a brand new 3hp motor and D.O.L starter fitted. Very good condition and in full working order.
Also included with this machine is a genuine Wadkin sheet steel extension table assembly that provides a maximum between saw and fence of 50″ (1270mm).
This model has the 3hp dual-voltage motor 230/400 so it can of course be used on a 230/240 volt single-phase supply in conjunction with a VFD, which also provides soft-start and electric brake.
Although this machine weighs approximately 195kg, one man and a sack barrow can transport it in a small van or possibly a large estate car. Unbolt the fence rails and then just remove the four bolts that hold the cast iron top on. It’s then a fairly simple operation to move it.
This table saw also has a full set of the ‘stick mike’ table extensions which provide a wide variety of work size options. You can extend the table to the right using all the accessories to provide a cutting width, between blade and fence, of up to 1250mm.
Or you can place them all to the left, or any variation of the two. The photos below show some of the variations.
Included with the machine will be:
The tenon jig which is included with my Startrite 275 table saw is from the design by Matthias Wandel and you can view a video of him demonstrating it here
An extremely accurate jig which cuts perfect tenons.
The box joint jig which is included with my Startrite 275 table saw is from the design by Ed Stiles and you can view a video of him demonstrating it here
It really does work as well, and as easily, as he claims.
(click on any photo to enlarge)
