Butler Double Gear

[CTXmiller]

Mike,

Thank you for the info on the mast pipe/bushings.

I was leaning towards oil-impregnated bronze bushings.

Thanks

[windybob]

Thanks for the great explanation and pictures.

[Mike Hage]

New West metals Inc. Winnipeg is the place for bearing bronze. They have a website that shows all their stuff

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

I believe you can still buy impregnated graphite stock i have a friend who is a machinist and he made these for me

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[windybob]

Those are nice!

[Wayne]

Machinist friends can be the best friends a person working on windmills can have. I have one he has made bearings and repaired several of my mills and won't take money as trade.

[CTXmiller]

I’ve worked a little on the Butler Double Gear.

Removing the mast pipe was a chore. I was hopefully it would go as smooth as Mike Hage relayed his did, but that wasn’t the case. The 1/2” carriage bolt that secures the mast pipe to the head came out easily. After a hour and half with a variety of tools (36” pipe wrench, sawzall, sledge hammer, smaller hammers, etc.) and lots of heat, the mast pipe was forced out of the head. That bugger was stuck.

I had been spraying the mast pipe and gear head with penetrating oil for a month plus to hopefully help out with the mast pipe removal. The gear case where the mast pipe inserts is threaded as was the top of the mast pipe threaded too.

I’ve made new pins where needed and straightened the tower.

The rod tensioners on the tower needed repaired as the threaded ends were in bad shape. Retreading the 5/16 part of the rods wouldn’t have left much meat for a nut to tighten the cross rods. Since I had the tower mostly disassembled, I cut off the threaded part of the cross rods and welded a similar length tap bolt to fix the aged/worm threaded ends.

Progress is slow, but progress nonetheless.

Best I could tell via research of the name on the vane, it was likely sold between 1907 - 1914 +/-.

I’m curious as to the original color of the head, although I’ll leave it with its current color.

[mtblah]

Michael , the photos of the pitman arms show slide covers over the oil cavities , impressive forward thinking in the 1800's .

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

Michael keep er going and keep us posted.thanks

[Mike Hage]

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Sounds like you had a time with that mast pipe. I thought mine was threaded into the casting. There was definitely marks where the treads had worn into the casting but there was still rough cast marks most of the way around. I believe these mills are forest green with the vane and sail tips done in red. I'm keeping my tower at 45 feet I wanna be able to see a ways when I climb up!