Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

Since things are slow around here and no one really posts up project threads anymore I figured I'd prime the pump a little bit. Before the trade fair in Nebraska a couple years ago, I had purchased a couple of IXL windmills. I bought a backgeared mill from Balsick's (that they originally bought from Ivan at Kendallville), the other is a direct stroke IXL (and I believe it might be a 9') that I had purchased from Ivan.
Loaded up and heading for home: A shot of the backside of the back geared mill. Mostly complete, very rust ridden, and a bit fragile: And the front side: And the direct stroke mill. Much better overall condition, but missing a bunch of parts and some cobbling had been done on it: Its missing all of the upper guide mechanism, the fulcrum arm for the pull out:

Fast forward nearly 2 years exactly (I don't do anything fast).

Some new parts cast from the original parts on the back geared mill. Drilling holes in the new parts (that iron had chilled during the pour, it was even eating carbide drill bits): A little more work needed on these upper guides: Bearing caps for the upper guides. top one is new cast (all drilled and bored), bottom one is the original that I gas welded the egged out pump rod hole with cast iron filler rod and re-bored. Test fitting new with old, looks good to me:

I'm not seeing any pictures. I've got an I.X.L. Vane like on the I.X.L. steel hanging in my shop. .

Well son of a gun. Trying to link the photos with google photo (from my PC), they show up for me obviously. Maybe I'll have to do it from my phone.

mr ed

no pics in canada EH!!!

paul

OK, can you see them now?

MR ED

i can c them now EH!!!!!!!!!!
looks nice
where do you get your castings done EH!!!!!

Paul in Canada EH

Nice job, as always. I know what you mean about not being in a hurry any more.

The pictures are great now. Thanks.

Any idea on the original color of them?

I have heard of one of those around these parts, but no luck on ever finding one. I do have mostly a wheel for one though. The head must have been really deep in the sand on that hill as I never saw a trace of it.

Paul - I had a guy out in Washington do the castings. He is just a high level backyard hobbyist (same guy did the Star 12 pinions). I did a bunch of prep work on the castings, filler sand-able primer, etc. There were some spots that he did have to add some extra draft to overcome negative draft situation (that bell crank for instance).

Wnidy - The only thing I can say on color is I have only ever seen them re-done in black. there is absolutely no color on my BG mill other than rust red. The DS mill was painted silver with light blue wheel and vane, LOL. I think Ivan said this came from the far east side of Mich or across the river in Paul's world ... so the joke was it was Lions colors.

Windy - I was just blasting the main casting on the BG mill. I did in fact find some black colored something. I think it was paint remnants, but hard to tell.