Sounds awesome. I've only ever used 8" jointers. Does it take a long time to spin up? Bet that needs a lot of dust collection power, too. By sheer coincidence, in the editor's note of the current issue of Popular Woodworking, the editor is talking about his work restoring a Towsley 24" jointer, and will be publishing articles about the restoration process over the next year.
It only takes a few seconds to spin up with the larger motor on it. As far as dust collection - the tables are open, so I had originally fit a wedge underneath with a 4" port on the outfeed side, but according to my friend, it's not necessary and he just has a 4" open pipe on the floor near the outfeed side that he sweeps up once a month or so.
That's a wild coincidence! Was that the October edition? I would like to see those articles. This was a project, and I can tell you that learning from someone else would've been super helpful when moving that much cast iron around.
The hardest part was re-leveling and ensuring the tables were co-planar when re-assembling it. You have 8 level screws, and something like 60 set screws for the blades. It was a fiddly process!
