Vintage Woodworking Machinery
Volume Two
by Dana M. Batory

Here is the
second volume in Dana Batory’s series of guides to the major woodworking
machinery manufacturers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Covered
in this volume are Parks Machine Co., the Boice-Crane Co., Baxter
D. Whitney & Son, and Crescent Machine Co. All these manufacturers
built a full line of woodworking machines, but most became especially
known for a particular group, e.g., Boice-Crane produced medium
size and capacity machines that were ideal for home shops, school
shops and small business woodworkers; Whitney was famous for its
thickness planers and spindle shapers, as well as for a large collection
of cooperage machines; and Crescent won renown for its bandsaws
and table saws, and for its Universal Wood-Worker, a combination
machine. As in his first volume, the author provides a history of
each manufacturer, as well as a description of the evolution of
its product lines over the years. Accompanying the histories are
many illustrations taken from the catalogs of the period. This is
a mine of information about old woodworking machines and the companies
that made them.