Photo Index - Williams & Orton; Orton Machine Co. - E-44 table router/shaper

Machinery Photo Index

Manufactured/Badged by:
Williams & Orton; Orton Machine Co.
San Francisco, CA

Machine Specifications
Machine Class:	Wood Working Machinery
Machine Type:	Shaper, Wood
Machine Size:	5 hp
Submitted By:	Doug Westlind

Machine Specifications
Description/Model:	E-44 table router/shaper
Date of Manufacturer:
Serial Number:	34957
Last Updated	7/21/2007 12:00:00 AM

Comments:

A while ago Chuck Hess and I were having a phone conversation about tilting shapers and how we would each really like to work with one sometime. A few weeks later around Christmas 2006 I got a call from Chuck and his first words were "I bought you a shaper". It turns out he found this on ebay and it went pretty cheap. It was an old Boeing machine. Boeing machines are notorious for being "bastardized". They drill holes and mount jigs and hold downs everywhere. This machine escape pretty well except for the top. I filled 72 holes with babbitt scraping each one level with the top. It was time consuming but worth it in the end. This really is a unique machine. I know of nothing else like it in North American OWWM. The Europeans seem to be the masters of tilting shapers. The Orton is a very heavily built machine it definitely runs vibration free. The table is 40" by 60" by 3" heavily ribbed. The head tilts to a full 45 degrees. The head has a #9 Brown and Sharpe female taper to which is fitted a ZZ collet spindle. Collets can be had in all sizes up to 1" for using router bits. This would definitely take the prize on the home shop forums for the best router table! Thanks Chuck!

Photo 1:

Comments: restored to its former glory
Source: Doug Westlind

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Photo 2:

Comments: tilt mechanism
Source: Doug Westlind

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Photo 3:

Comments: I can't figure out why the motor runs rough!
Source: Doug Westlind

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