Photo Index - Bentel, Margedant & Co. - Good Luck Hand Planer

Machinery Photo Index

Manufactured/Badged by:
Bentel, Margedant & Co.
Hamilton, OH

Machine Specifications
Machine Class:	Wood Working Machinery
Machine Type:	Jointer
Machine Size:	16"
Submitted By:	Jon Bitter

Machine Specifications
Description/Model:	Good Luck Hand Planer
Date of Manufacturer:	1909 (?)
Serial Number:	"0" is stamped on the outfeed table. No other mark
Last Updated	3/10/2017 12:37:46 PM

Comments:

I acquired this machine from Darcy Warner, who had put together a small collection of Bentel & Margedant machinery. He had purchased this jointer from a gentleman who stored it in his barn for 40+ years after purchasing it "from an old school that had shut down." That is as much history as I have, but it is entirely possible that the school was the original purchaser.

Darcy stored the jointer for a few years, hoping to restore it. Unfortunately he had outgrown his shop and needed to move the jointer along so that he had space for actual woodworking. It came to me fitted with a gibbed 4-knife Porter cutterhead, no knives, missing 1 gib, dirty and with some fairly violent-looking chunks taken out of the infeed table, but was otherwise in remarkably good shape. Tables and ways weren't really rusty, babbitt was in good shape with a lot of shim material, and a small non-vital piece of the base casting was the only break to be found.

After a year and a half it was beginning to seem that my shop was simply the next storage location, but I finally got around to working on this beauty in December 2016. It is now fully operational (cue Emperor Palpatine voice). I decided to leave it unpainted. The majority of the asphaltum coating is still in good shape. Unfortunately, none of my efforts to revive the painted emblem on the outfeed table were successful. It says "Hamilton Line Woodworking Machinery, Established 186[?]".

I picked 1909 for the estimated date of manufacture because this machine appears to have been drilled for the power feed mechanism that is depicted on the "Images" section of Bentel, Margedant, & Co.'s entry, here on VintageMachinery. The holes drilled through the horseshoe and outfeed seem to line up with the mechanisms in that image. The same image indicates that the power feed was new in 1909.

The only thing left to do now is to fabricate a dust collection hood under the cutterhead, then eventually make/find a suitable cutterhead guard and belt cover.

Photo 1:

Comments: After unloading it into my shop. Aug 2015
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Photo 2:

Comments: Finally beginning the teardown Dec 2016
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Photo 3:

Comments: "Fully Operational!" March 2017
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