Oliver "power filer"?

[redtom]

This tool is on a auction at a local auction house. It's listed as a power filer and clearly has a file chucked in it. Is that indeed what it is? I associate Oliver with woodworking tools

 

[rrlund]

Ya, they were a different Oliver from the plow company. The guy up at Suttons Bay who I bought my Oliver 600 tractor from had a wood working shop. He had a huge Oliver band saw. There was another Oliver that built rail road equipment. I'd read one time that he was a cousin or something, to James Oliver of the Oliver plow fame. At one time, that one had the contract to build the Panama Canal. He was going to use non union labor and when the Chicago politicians got wind of it, they put a stop to it. As a consolation prize, they built all of the rail road equipment that was used in the construction of the canal.

 

[kencombs]

More info here than I expected to find:

Photo Index - Oliver Instrument Co. - Type S-4 Die Making (Filing) | VintageMachinery.org

Oliver Instrument Co. - Publication Reprints - Operating Directions For Model S-4 & SP-2 Die Filer | VintageMachinery.org

 

[leroy in ne]

Oliver of Adrian also made a drill sharpener. The one I ran for 25 years had a capacity of 1/4 thru 3 inch with various jaws. Other metal working equipment may have been made by them also.

 

[redtom]

How and in what circumstances does one use an power filer?

 

[Janicholson]

How and in what circumstances does one use an power filer?

Filing straight and perpendicular to a surface is hard to teach and even then is rather crude. so a filer was a reasonable tool in the era when rocks were all hot. Jim

 

[old-9]

Went to a sale, long time ago ,had a home made "filer". He made it from an old Meyers piston water pump, maybe 1 to 2 inch stroke. He built model airplanes , needed to be exact over and over. joe

 

[glennster]

i have an oliver power file also. here are a couple pictures . i have an assortment of various files to fit the machine. works great

 

[RedMF40]

How and in what circumstances does one use a power filer?

They set it out at the beauty salon when one of the manicurists calls in sick

 

[Phil T]

I got one here somewhere that is an attachment for a Craftsman drill press. used it a few times years ago and it works fine but not fast.
probably would have to hunt a while to dig it out now.

 

[drsportster]

I believe it is called a Die Fie for tool and die mold smoothing .

 

[Mark-Ia]

My Grandparents had a Oliver typewriter.

 

[sandcastle1]

used to work in a foundry one of the products we made was filed powder. It ran a bank of 6 files and ran all the time, operator would check it every couple of hours.

 

[rio4000]

neat old machine. there were band filers too ... like a band saw but with 'files' as the blade. doall made one.

i needed to make some small parts with refined internal surfaces and shapes and some filed to size parts so i cobbled together a small filing machine. sits in a corner now ... used it a few times since then.

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

My Grandparents had a Oliver typewriter.

That's a really cool looking typewriter. Far sharper looking than the ubiquitous Underwood I learned on.

Mike

 

[drsportster]

Should not have read this It gave me a hankering to get one of these tools !

 

[Caryc]

neat old machine. there were band filers too ... like a band saw but with 'files' as the blade. doall made one.

i needed to make some small parts with refined internal surfaces and shapes and some filed to size parts so i cobbled together a small filing machine. sits in a corner now ... used it a few times since then.

One of the aircraft job shops that I worked in had a band filer. It had a flexible band with like 4" sections of steel files on it so when it ran across the face of the machine, it was like a continuous file. It was a pretty neat machine. That guy's shop had everything in it to make anything you ever wanted to make. He would just hand us a blue print and say make me 200 of these. We had to know flat pattern layout and how to make tooling and jigs and form blocks to make some of the stuff. I really got an education in that shop.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

One of the aircraft job shops that I worked in had a band filer. It had a flexible band with like 4" sections of steel files on it so when it ran across the face of the machine, it was like a continuous file. It was a pretty neat machine. That guy's shop had everything in it to make anything you ever wanted to make. He would just hand us a blue print and say make me 200 of these. We had to know flat pattern layout and how to make tooling and jigs and form blocks to make some of the stuff. I really got an education in that shop.

I served my apprenticeship at a GM Fisher Body plant. Had a filing machine and band filer, used quite a bit on trim steels. This was back in the early 70s before CNC and wire EDM.

 

[Caryc]

Should not have read this It gave me a hankering to get one of these tools !

Gotta gotta watch them hankerings, sometimes they can get very expensive.

 

[Mark-Mi]

This tool is on a auction at a local auction house. It's listed as a power filer and clearly has a file chucked in it. Is that indeed what it is? I associate Oliver with woodworking tools

Gotta gotta watch them hankerings, sometimes they can get very expensive.

This tool is on a auction at a local auction house. It's listed as a power filer and clearly has a file chucked in it. Is that indeed what it is? I associate Oliver with woodworking toolsView attachment 91002View attachment 91003

Oliver instrument built quality machines. They were located on the east side of Adrian Michigan. They relocated a number of years ago to a smaller newer building. But I don't know if they are still in business.

A good friend of mines, Dad worked there 45 or so years. Ran the same lathe all those years. He showed me where he had wore the wood floor down from walking back and forth along the lathe.