Star 12 Project

[Mister Ed]

I bought a Star 12 from Ivan at the last Kendallville trade fair and finally started puttering with it this spring. Most of you have seen me write this before ... but I am not fast about getting any project done, bit here are some pics to date (should have taken more pics early on).

Here it is all cleaned up, getting ready to pour new babbitt:

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New babbitt in the pitman arms and new pitman bolt turned on the lathe:

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Al that is the easy part, now ... what to do about the pinion gears?

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More to Come ....

[Mister Ed]

Well I could 3D print new ones from PLA (LOL):

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Well, at least it fits good:

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I could have turned one out on my vertical mill, but is is only about 3/4 Bridgeport size and that is a lot of meat to remove from these gears. So, I took the 3D file, enlarged it, split it in half and added some draft. Then I printed and sent patterns to some guys on a metal casting forum that I frequent to be cast in iron. Now these guys are all back yard metal casters and only a few of them are proficient with iron. It ended up being somewhat of a contest, everyone using different methods and/or techniques.
Here are a couple shots of the oversized gears being turned to size:

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Stay tuned for more ...

[Mister Ed]

Another shot:

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I cleaned up the first one on my vertical mill (no pic). And it went fairly well, basically just bringing the teeth down to size. At some point over the last couple of weeks a Rockwell horizontal mill kinda fell into my lap (well as soon as I shelled out some $$). So the last gear I ran on the horizontal.

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Well, since I have a new toy, I decided I wanted to cut keyseats on it (already had made shafts and cut the keyseats on the vertical). Man the horizontal does a much better job that the vertical mill.

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But wait ... there's more ...

[Mister Ed]

And a couple of up to date shots. Still waiting on upper and lower hinge castings to come back from the foundry.

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[Mister Ed]

Not sure why many of the pics turned sideways or upside down, sorry about that.

[wind fab]

mr ed

looks real good glad to see ur new machine shop tools

thks for the pics

Paul in canada

[windybob]

I think that color is more proper than hunter green for F/W mills. All looks really great.

If you poured your bearing boxes all at one time, how did you split top from bottom? And then you wound up with an out-of-round babbitt circle? Or did you pour upper and lower separate from each other?

[Mister Ed]

Windy, I did pour them separate ... just didn't have all the pics. I was pouring the tops here (probably for the second or third time ). I used gasket material for a barrier between the top and bottom. I poured through the oil holes, inside the oil cups you can see the funnels I made out of doggie-doo.

[Mister Ed]

mr ed

looks real good glad to see ur new machine shop tools

thks for the pics

Paul in canada

Thanks Paul. I actually sold a little South Bend Shaper that I hardly ever used. After 2 weeks, I have used the horizontal mill more than I used the shaper in 4 years.

[Wayne]

You mention a metal casting business. Could you share the name. My Son-in-Law bought a Silver King tractor. The rear rims are held on with cast clips. He needs at least 6 would take 8. So he is looking for someplace that would cast them. You can send info to my e-mail jjnfrasier@juno.com if you want to. Thanks