Fantastic Antique Butcher Block Wood Welded 24 1/4 Square 15 3/4 Thick HEAVY

  
Fantastic Antique Butcher Block Wood Welded 24 1/4" Square 15 3/4" Thick HEAVY! TOTAL HEIGHT with legs 33 3/4. The label on the last picture is not on the block but is a photo from the internet showing. What I believe the 2nd label would be if complete. Wood Welded brand blocks were made in two locations, one in Petoskey, MI and other PA. The MI plant closed down in 2020. This antique block is from Petoskey, MI. The legs are designed to be removeable and hence they can be turned and. Removed if wanted unless you choose to glue them in permanently. We would not have information regarding when this block was made if there is no date stamp.

Even days, I imagine, when a block did not get stamped. This was a hand process and different people would have been responsible for the stamp on any given day over the course of decades. And please realize these blocks were used in butcher shops and grocery stores. They were not the residential kitchen furniture some see them as today. Records simply were not kept, and people left the company and most are long since dead.

The company knowledge base died with them. Today there is literally no one with the company who could identify when a block was made. We know that label was used but we do not know when it was used..

Over those year we had a machine in the now close Michigan facility and one in the Bally PA facility. Somewhere we have 3 name plates for these machines, none of which are now operational. The Franken machine we still have(sitting ideal) is made up of 3 different machines and is at the Bally PA factory. Yes, the legs come off.

They will all come out, unless someone later glued them in. If you flip the block so the legs are straight up and work the legs back and forth while pulling up they generally will come out. They are often stubborn and cursing while doing this may help although some do not share this thinking. A flat pry bar can be used once a little gap is achieve to tease the leg free.

All the time rocking the leg back and forth and lifting. Rinse and repeat 4 times. Like children each leg will be loved differently, and each will be more or less stubborn, and each will frustrate you to different levels. The gentleman who has this museum in Muskegon MI has a salesman's model of the "Linderman" or Double Dovetail machine.

The true size of the machine is perhaps 14 16 long. He also has a movie of our machine in operation when it was running showing how it worked. The dovetails are clever because they are not just dovetails. They taper as they cut and so each one becomes a wedge.

That's the origin of the term "Wood Welded". Once those are pressed together it is essentially welded. It would be a monumental task to get the lamination apart. We took blocks to tradeshows for years and the Amish(a lot of cabinet people are Amish) would come by and stop and ponder those butcher blocks for a while trying to figure out how they were made. I was against halting operations of the Linderman but it does take 3 men and 2 mules to run.