Matt, the owner/proprietor of Master Cobblit in Haywards Heath had a dream. It wasn’t an outlandishly big dream, but it was a dream of sufficient size that it showed no signs of becoming a reality.
Matt, for his sins, is a big fan of the old Power machinery, and the Power Master Finisher in particular. So much so that he ran his 3-phase Power Master through a converter because he didn’t have a 3-phase supply. This was OK. It did the job. He could get by.
But Matt’s dream was to have a single-phase Power Master as the centrepiece of a larger Power Unit with a multitude of scouring bands along with a twin station press. Unfortunately for Matt, single-phase Power Masters are incredibly uncommon these days. We estimate that barely a dozen were ever brought into the country back in the 70’s and 80’s when Standard sold the Power range of machinery. Consequently the chances of one of these being made available to Matt were slim to say the least. Particularly in anything approaching reasonable condition.
Undeterred, Matt kept in touch with Standard on the off chance that a single phase Power Master in salvageable condition fell into our hands. We had refurbished one of the few in this country for another customer a couple of years earlier, and weren’t hopeful of finding another one so quickly as this was the only one we’d seen in the best part of a decade.
Fast forward a couple of years, and during one of our periodic conversations with Matt we made the following suggestion –
“You could wait forever for a single-phase Power Master Finisher to appear, why don’t we fully recondition the machine you’ve got and re-engineer it to run through your single phase supply?”
Matt liked the idea. A lot. After a bit of back-and-forth he dared to believe again in his “dream machine”. A single-phase Power Master with a working bench, incorporating a flash activator and jackstand, alongside the left hand, scouring and press section of a Power Unit, all under a great big canopy with lights!
Matt’s dream sounded great. All except a few minor, niggling details such as how would Matt continue to work when his machinery was back at our factory? And how could we securely convert Matt’s machine to give single-phase performance?
We cracked the first problem by refurbishing a Lynx Finisher and Tiger Press combination, and one evening swapping out his Power Master for these machines to enable him to continue working whilst his own machinery was refurbished.
Our head electrician Dave Waugh examined the options for creating a safe, convenient and secure single-phase conversion method for the Power Master Finisher. He decided upon fitting the finisher with the latest digital converter, which would fit neatly to the machine, as opposed to the current huge rotary converter box and motor Matt was using.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!
Upon arrival at our factory Matt’s machinery was stripped and shotblasted to remove the decades worth of paint and debris and give us the original tin work. Our “tin-man” recreated the Canopy to fit over the new, extended machinery.
Here, the shotblasted machinery, along with new canopy section and 50cm bench unit was assembled to ensure the complete unit worked, and fitted together. From here, the machinery was broken down again for the purpose of painting.
Matt’s choice of colour was most singular – RAL 5005 Blue. A very specific colour. Of course, it represented no problem to us, with our paintshop and oven ready to produce the machinery exactly as was required.
Whilst the shotblasting, building and painting was going on we set about sourcing all the parts required for such old machinery. Some of the parts were salvaged from Matt’s original machine, whilst others were bought in or manufactured on site.
We soon had the painted tinwork, the tooling and the electrics to commence the rebuilding of Matt’s machinery. Of course, the build didn’t run as smooth as we’d have hoped. With old machinery, sometimes parts you think are good fail under testing, whilst other issues are raised as the machinery is being assembled.
Nevertheless, very soon the newly restored machinery was taking shape. The finisher actually looked like a finisher again, and not just a pile of curiously shaped steel!
The Press Section was completed to give single-phase operation. The canopy was finished, with specially created signage. The flash activator was completed and slotted into the Unit.
Of course, during this time, Matt had been waiting patiently for his Baby to be returned. He barely called us more than 10 times a day to see how we were getting on!
As soon as the machinery was complete and Dave was happy with the finished product, including the newly fitted digital converter, we arranged a Sunday delivery to finally put Matt out of his misery and uplift the machinery we had lent him (free of charge!) and install his dream machine.
And was it worth the wait? Matt sure thinks so!