Machine Shop Tours: Vintage Machinery
Legendary Keith Rucker – VintageMachinery.org opened the doors of the machine shop he built by himself and showed us his vintage machines.
Keith Rucker is quite a celebrity in the machining community. He first approached the metalworking trade as an apprentice back in the eighties. At that time his goal was just to save up money for college and after three years of work in a machine shop, he moved on to new ventures. The machining passion, however, never left Keith, and over the years the need to make, fix and restore things became stronger and led him to build his own machine shop in South Georgia and take on restoration projects.
Keith’s shop is filled with incredible pieces of machinery that he restored by himself. His passion for vintage machinery also led him over the course of the years to start the vintagemachinery.org website, one of the most complete online repositories of information related to all kinds of old machinery, and build a successful YouTube channel featuring over 600 machinery and restoration videos.
Did you enjoy the tour of the shop? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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3 Comments
Keith is a class act. If you are interested in “old school” machining and restorations, Keith is a wealth of knowledge and content.
Kieth ….love watching your videos.
Here is a piece of starrett tooling I’m trying to ID, clearly labelled starrett, but no number or other markings.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/50655247927/in/dateposted-public/
28 1/8″ overall
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/50655155726/in/dateposted-public/
shows the clamps which do not swivel significantly
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/50654429193/in/dateposted-public/
shows the rusty underside
Initially I thought it would clamp a 24″ rule, but no. Checked what few old Starrett catalogs I have , on line searches, all drew blanks.
Does it ring any bells?
Any help appreciated. Thanks for looking Eric
Kieth I do watch your videos I am wondering If you could make a presser foot for a harness stitcher it would be a copy of the original just a different configuration the machine is no longer made and no parts are available I could text a picture Randy
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