MTFCA Forum

Does anyone remember a post from several years ago about a machine that made joints to put wood pieces together to make larger pieces of wood?

The touring body I disassembled when I was originally restoring my Touring had wood structure pieces that were made using a machine that created interlocking joints to create the finished piece.

My Centerdoor's original floor sills were made this same way.

Please help as I would like to write a blog article about it on my website.

Thanks.

The discussion centered around whether or not a Linderman glue jointing machine was used to create double dovetail joints in Model T's. One poster said they had one in their Model A, while others suggested that there was never such a part used in a T.

Myself, I have found glued finger joints in the LENGTH of non-structural wood, Lap Joints in the belt rail, and splined endgrain on floorboards, but never a Linderman Dovetail Joint of any kind much less than making up wider boards like is shown here: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/25 ... 1354038016

Scott_Conger wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:35 pm

The discussion centered around whether or not a Linderman glue jointing machine was used to create double dovetail joints in Model T's. One poster said they had one in their Model A, while others suggested that there was never such a part used in a T.

Myself, I have found glued finger joints in the LENGTH of non-structural wood, Lap Joints in the belt rail, and splined endgrain on floorboards, but never a Linderman Dovetail Joint of any kind much less than making up wider boards like is shown here: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/25 ... 1354038016

Scott,

Here's part of my original Sills on my Centerdoor. If you look just beyond the screw, you can see the joinery used to put the wood pieces together.

Here is a small ford wood part with the linderman joint. You can see why they haven’t been seen much from this specimen. My speculation that wood boards were made from scrap, and machined into smaller parts. Too small for this operation , it was charcoal time, baby. Note the angled, counterbore hole on the original jointed hood block. Two different hole diameters, also.

My 1926 Franklin 11-A Rumbleseat Coupe has Linderman machine joints all over it.
I am lucky enough to have most of the blueprints for the car as I have worked on it, and many parts are designed to be made from
"Linderman Machine Stock"

You are correct. If it was too small to be put through the Linderman machine, then it either went into the Franklin Factory furnaces, or was sold as scrap. H. H. Franklin had a policy that any scrap material was first offered to employees of the company, and then if there were no buyers, it actually went to the scrapyard. In the Franklin literature, there are many articles from Franklin employees who bought "out of style" leather and upholstery fabric, and did their furniture at home, or upgraded their cars to more stylish trimmings. They sold a lot of paint and trim hardware to employees as well.

I worked for the Learjet Corp for many years, and for most of that time, they held annual "employee sales" where you could buy leather, fabric, equipment and machine tools that were obsolete. I still have rolls of leather, and burled walnut veneers, and even some liquor decanters that they sold because they changed interior designs, and they were no longer useable. I bought 2 of the original drafting tables on which the original Learjets were designed, when the guy who helped unload them and assemble them for the engineering department in 1963 told me what they were and that they were for sale.