It leaked...and I fixed it

"SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media" (silentbutnotreallydeadly) 05/18/2020 at 08:20 • Filed to: Toolopnik, Baitlopnik

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15

The incontinent tool...

This is our 15" thicknesser. Some heathens call it a planer but, to me, it’s a thicknesser. It makes thick wood thin.

It arrived in our lives nearly 15 years ago and, like a little puppy, it quickly began to leave little patches of fluid everywhere it went around the workshop. I tolerated this for a while ( maybe 7 years?) until I found it sitting one afternoon in a puddle of its own excrement.

No joke...cleaning up gearbox oil on a sawdust covered concrete floor is not for the faint of heart or someone lacking attention to detail. Slippery shenanigans can be had.

The gearbox is the heart of this thing and is a sand cast iron heart of two halves seperated by a wafer of cardboard...ok, gasket material that looks like cardboard. The original gasket was neither robust nor effective. So I cut another one from actual gasket paper, fitted it and moved on.

It continued to weep in its inimical fashion.

Fast forward a few years and upgrade to a new shed and sure enough...little puddles of gearbox oil.

The gearbox is behind those sprockets. It directs the drive off the motor via the cutter bar to both the in and out feed rollers behind the bigger sprockets. The rod at the bottom left corner is the gearstick.

Time for more open heart surgery and the inclusion of modern chemistry...

C ue a much bigger puddle on the floor as the sump plug goes fully Ford...

A small amount of fiddling about with bolts, sockets, hex spanners and muttered complaints about early Noughties Chinese manufacturing standards when coupled with cheapskate Western purchasing guidelines and low levels of quality assurance giveashits saw the various extraneous parts disintegrated off the machine. Now I could open the box...

And the box was opened. It’s all good in there...clean and tidy.

Pristine surgical standards were used throughout...

A clean rag to mop up the last of the oil plus another one to sit the gutted box on whilst I clean it up sufficiently to go with silicon gasket goo. But that will have to wait for another time...home schooling got in the way today...

However, it is fixed. It’s no longer leaking all over the shed floor...so that has to be some sort of win, eh?

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 08:34

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well done.

how’s the home schooling going?

CalzoneGolem > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 08:35

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So what you’re saying is that it no longer leaks because it has been completely drained?

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > CalzoneGolem 05/18/2020 at 08:44

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Yes...I'm not sure why this solution isn't as common as I think it should be. Think of the savings in labour costs!!!

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > pip bip - choose Corrour 05/18/2020 at 08:46

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A bit like my welding...

Fortunately, I have heard tonight that I'm getting the sack on Friday!!!!

Nom De Plume > pip bip - choose Corrour 05/18/2020 at 08:49

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I hope the answer is like gear oil on a sawdust filled concrete floor. Other thicknesser related warped humor would also be acceptable

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 08:52

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win!

66P1800inpieces > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 09:03

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Take a look at Hylomar Blue or Permatex equivalent so you can remove and reseal later on. It is a gasket for close fitting metal flanges or a gasket dressing. Silicone is harder to remove on the next go round and is usually a straight up gasket, and not gasket dressing. 

CalzoneGolem > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 09:19

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Let’s not forget the savings in gearbox oil

shop-teacher > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 09:23

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Thicknesser, eh? I like it 

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 12:07

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I was using my wood thinner yesterday. I have a DeWalt jobsite unit that I can keep in the shed when I’m not using it. Darn sight better than no such tool at all. And Missus uses the shavings in her compost heap.

just-a-scratch > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 12:52

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Why not just use a liquid-only wood thinner?

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > just-a-scratch 05/18/2020 at 17:39

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It’s a useful solution. However, I’ve found that it takes a comparatively long time to get a result and it can be a bit inconsistent if you are looking for millimetre precision rather the she’ll be right standard of inches.

Also...our dog at the time really liked the stuff and given it was a basset hound....

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > 66P1800inpieces 05/18/2020 at 17:45

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I have used the Hylomar in the past to try and keep oily liquids inside old Land Rovers. In this case, I wouldn’t expect to ever be looking at the inside the gearbox again...if it stays sealed. Hence the use of a silicon gasket former rather than another paper gasket with dressing. I’m also not convinced that the two halves of the box are entirely flat with respect to each other so the silicon should give me some wriggle room.

I will only be applying it to one side of the case too and leaving it to go off for a bit. That should make it easier one day down the track if we find ourselves on that road again...

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/18/2020 at 17:53

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This unit has been pushed pretty hard over the years. Many River Red G um sleepers, posts and sticks, Tasmanian Oak floorboards and other potential sources of wood shavings have been through it.

Now we've got a stack of Australian White Cypress and Red Ironbark (one of Oz' densest commercial timbers) to go through it...reminds me that I should swap out the blades...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 05/18/2020 at 18:02

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https://oppositelock.kinja.com/thicknesser-i-fixed-it-1843521998