Photo Index - Powermatic Machine Co. - 1200

Machinery Photo Index

Manufactured/Badged by:
Powermatic Machine Co.
McMinnville, TN; La Vergne, TN

Machine Specifications
Machine Class:	Wood Working Machinery
Machine Type:	Drill Press
Machine Size:	20" swing
Submitted By:	Cliff Sommers

Machine Specifications
Description/Model:	1200
Date of Manufacturer:	late fifties
Serial Number:	3-4235
Last Updated	9/9/2008 8:37:07 AM

Comments:

This early edition Model 1200 drill press was acquired off eBay for $255. It's history is unknown. The date of manufacture is sometime pre-1965; I'm guessing mid to late fifties. These early machines have a nice iron casting for the speed selector which was replaced by a stamped steel box affair on later models. The belt cowl is heavy stamped steel with aesthetically pleasing rounded contours. The beast weighs roughly 650 pounds.

The old girl was butt ugly when I got her sporting about five or six coats of various color paint glopped on and peeling off to reveal some of each! After complete disassembly, I stripped the beast to bare metal and refinished complete using a Sherwin-Williams industrial enamel custom mixed to approximate early Powermatic green. Bearings were all good and apparently replaced sometime recently. I replaced all the belts and wiring, and wire brush polished all exposed metal to cleanup surface rust. The table had several holes bored clean through it so this went to a local machine shop where they welded it up solid and reground the surface flat. The rear variable speed pulley also required repair as the alignment groove milled in the outer sheave casting was badly worn. A new slot was milled 90 degrees away from the worn original, and new aligning t-bolts and brass sleeve were made up to suit.

It was originally supplied with a 440 volt only, 2-speed consequent pole u-frame motor actuated through a pair of drum switches, one 12-pole for speed selection, and one six pole for reverse/stop/forward. Not having access to 440 volt power (I generate 3-phase via a rotary phase converter), I replaced this setup with a new Baldor 220 volt 1740 rpm motor, also acquired off eBay for $49, controlled via a Allen Bradley reversable magnetic starter, Furnas remote pushbutton station and A-B selector switch. The selector switch setting controls forward or reverse direction after stopping (stop, change selector setting, restart). The starter is located in the enclosure hung off the cast motor mount plate and braced to the motor. Given the smaller frame size of the replacement motor, an adaptor plate was required. I've lost 100 rpm on the low end by this conversion, not important except when boring very thick stock.

The last photo shows the mechanical variable speed mechanism. The rear variable sheave is spring loaded. The front sheave isn't; it's position is controlled by a pivot arm whose angle is determined by the speed selector at the front of the machine. This casting has a cam on the back side which moves the pivot arm up and down as the casting is rotated fore and back. As the front sheave opens to create a larger effective diameter, the rear sheave closes - and vise versa. This mechanism produces continuously variable spindle speeds ranging from approximately 200 rpm to 2000 rpm, a whole lot handier in operation than messing around changing belt position between step pulleys.

One of the intersting things about this machine is that it was designed for use as either a free standing floor model, or as a ganged multi-head production machine. Two or more heads were installed on one cast iron production table of various lengths for different numbers of heads; you could even join tables to increase the range of available configurations. The latter were optionally available with a head raising mechanism. Powermatic used the same mechanism for table and head raising, making it an easy conversion to add a head raising feature to a floor model machine. This is something I'm looking to do as soon as I can acquire a spare mechanism so I can easily reposition both head and table on the column.

Several people have asked for a drawing of the depth adjusting block assembly so I've included one of the images below. This alloy block goes on the grooved stop rod affixed to the quill to control maximum quill travel. The block castings is thin under the steel actuating lever and therefore easily broken. Few have survived whole.

I've also included two pictures of a vintage motor from another 1200 of the same era. This motor was manufactured by Valley Electric for Powermatic and is typical of the motors originally sold with these machines. The nameplate is brass with a black silk screened overlay image.

Photo 1:

Comments: Right side
Source: my camera

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Photo 2:

Comments: Left side
Source: my camera

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Photo 3:

Comments: variable speed mechanism
Source: my camera

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