American LS440 Splitter Adjustments

[Rubicon04]

Just acquired a decent American LS440 splitter this week and out of the box will split leather, even before cleaning the blade up. My question is about the leather thickness adjustment at the top of the machine. I can’t get it to go past the 9 on the scale and if I go larger, it will go past the 15 marker. How do you adjust this? When set at 9, the split leather comes out at roughly 4 oz thickness. 

Additionally how to you level the rollers on it? they are fairly level now but the thinner you go the more you notice one side is thinner than the other. 

 

In the attached pictures, I have it set at the smallest I can get the adjustment lever to go. 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Rubicon04
Typo

[Rubicon04]

Update: I played around with the 2 screws on top on either side and now I have the full adjustment of the gauge back. 
 

But.... now the roller alignment is off. Any tips on roller adjustment? 

[Rubicon04]

Also does anyone know what the spring tension should be or how to set the spring tension properly on the two bottom springs? 

[MikeRock]

Looks like your adjusting lever top is broken off too.  Same as mine.  Does anyone have any spares for this American splitter? 

Top two screws adjust roller spacing.  The bottom square headed ones are for tension.

[Rubicon04]

11 hours ago, MikeRock said:

Looks like your adjusting lever top is broken off too.  Same as mine.  Does anyone have any spares for this American splitter? 

Top two screws adjust roller spacing.  The bottom square headed ones are for tension.

Thanks! After doing a bunch of adjustments it now stopped splitting all the way through, the last couple mm won’t split. I removed the blade and it is already notched to sit deeper. 
 

Any idea how much tension should be on the springs? 
 

I’ve been thinking of finding someone to cast a new handle in bronze for the adjustment. 

[sbrownn]

On 3/5/2020 at 6:18 AM, Rubicon04 said:

Thanks! After doing a bunch of adjustments it now stopped splitting all the way through, the last couple mm won’t split. I removed the blade and it is already notched to sit deeper. 
 

Any idea how much tension should be on the springs? 
 

I’ve been thinking of finding someone to cast a new handle in bronze for the adjustment. 

Seems to me that there should be just enough tension on the springs to feed the leather past the knife blade.  I think that the thicker the piece you are trying to split off the more tension you need.  I set mine fairly light and if I need to split a thicker piece down thin I do it in a number of passes.  You would think there would be some information out there on what a factory setting might be but I have never found any.  You might ask Cobra what the spring tension on their machine is.

[shoepatcher]

There is a place in Ohio that does bronze casting.  Trying to remember their name.  Bob Kovar knows at Toledo sewing .

glenn

[JHayek]

I have the same model splitter.  I had a friend at the local machine shop weld a handle on mine using roughly the same design as original.  Worked very  well and was fairly inexpensive. Fortunately the slot on the inside was still there on one side to get the radius right. As far as thickness adjustments go its mostly trial and error getting the blade level. A feeler gauge would be helpful.   This is a great machine though and should serve you well.  Congratulations on the find

[Silverd]

There are good set-up instructions for the Landis 30 splitter on the web.  The two machines share the same basic functionality.  Let me know if you can't dig them out and I will scan my copy for you.  

In the meantime:  Start by setting the blade gap above the bottom roller to about the thickness of a Credit card  (0.025" ???) or less.  Gap must be even all the way across.  Set the die spring tension (these are the big springs that support the lower roller) to provide enough pressure on the leather so that it doesn't slip on the pinch rollers as its being pushed / pulled through the blade.  The amount of pinch roller traction required is dependent on the temper of the leather and the sharpness of the blade.  if the leather you are splitting is thin to start with there will be a tendency for it to slip inn that case more spring tension may be required or thicker leather to start with.  I have also used an advanced technique of adding a 2nd layer of thick leather on top of the thin piece I'm splitting and run them both through at the same time.  This has the effect of splitting a thick piece and generates more pinch roller pressure for better results...sometimes!   It is important that the spring tensions on both sides be the same and that the lower blade carriage is free to slide.  Disassemble, clean and lubricate the lower slide blocks and journals. Ensure the blade is sharp across the entire width and don't expect 100% consistent results.  The gauge on top is not calibrated and is only used as a reference.  You will ruin some leather on this machine unless your work is shoe soul thick as this is what these machines were designed to handle.   That said, I've used mine successfully on many projects which I split 4mm thick leather for wallets down to 1mm.   Works great for in a pinch but you should not rely on it for projects that require a lot of material splitting.  Buying the right thickness is in the long run the better way to go.    Blade must be SHARP. 

 

Hope this helps!

Silverd

[maxdaddy]

1 hour ago, Silverd said:

In the meantime:

Thanks for sharing those details. I have that splitter and have needed to adjust it for a while now but didn't know where to start.