Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

Having a heck of a time getting the seams sealed up with my propane solder torch. Thought about silver solder for a bit. Instead of trying a different solder, I put the smallest tip on my oxy/fuel torch and puddled it on, similar to Wes Lee fixing his brass instruments. Controlling the heat got the solder to stay where it was needed to plug the gaps and holes. It now holds water if you don't count the pop rivets.

mtblah wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:10 pm William , so have some serious skills !

Thank You.

A lot of my skill comes from being too cheap to hire it out. Comes from my dad and his dad. The other part of the equation? 5% inspiration, 95% perspiration.

An old girlfriend once said of my family that instead of going out and buying what we want, we, as a family, figured out how to make it ourselves.

Set up for cutting the pinion gears. Don't think I'll have time today and don't want to leave a half finished gear overnight. I can make enough mistakes by myself without adding attention deficit to the problem.

Forty revolutions of the handle makes one complete revolution of the chuck. The number of holes in the plate are 21, 23, 27, 29, 31 and 33.

So 40 x 21 = 840 holes.

840 / 14 teeth = 60 holes to travel.

60 - (2*21) = 18 holes, so I need to set the sector arms 3 holes apart and spin the handle 2 turns + 18 holes per cut.

Again boys , way toooo much math , still using an abacus , not yet to a slide rule .

I trust my math, it's the other things that bog me down, such as not keying the gears to the arbor before cutting.

That being said, first tooth, second full cut. Not taking the full depth per pass, I don't trust the rigidity of my setup. That is an awful tiny chuck on a fairly small dividing head. I split the cuts at .075", .150", .225" and finally full depth at .270".

One more cut to go.

Last cut nets two teeth.

Here is where the problem is. When the bull gear was cut I may have missed full depth on a couple of teeth as I noticed a couple of teeth were fatter than the others and when assembled they lock up. Tomorrow the bull gear will get set up and the cuts retraced in hopes of fixing the problem teeth. Cutting this gear was the actual kickoff of this endeavor back in October.

Does your helmet have an inner lip that is sealed to the helmet inside? Even with thin oil and furling, oil gets thrown against the helmet interior and has to be directed back in to the case. An inner lip isnt evident in your mockup or helmet exterior but if you have done it never mind...

Remember Aermotor can turn out a windmill in 60-70 manhours...

Ron Stauffer

Ron Stauffer wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:05 pm Does your helmet have an inner lip that is sealed to the helmet inside? Even with thin oil and furling, oil gets thrown against the helmet interior and has to be directed back in to the case. An inner lip isnt evident in your mockup or helmet exterior but if you have done it never mind...

Remember Aermotor can turn out a windmill in 60-70 manhours...

Ron Stauffer

Ron, that's a very good point. I haven't yet figured how to address this, maybe a lip soldered on.

As far as the Aermotor production time, they have had more than a century to figure this out. I'm just trying to make yard art that is pleasing to my eyes and will work as intended.

A chicago Aermotor has a U soldered in, I have seen some aftermarket that were just a crimped ductwork strip soldered in. Yours being square might be easier.

And the second will only take half as long, and the third half again.. Put me down for number 6 as it could be affordable...

Ron

Yard art ? really !
the difference between my 5 year old granddaughter & Picasso, what you are building is not my definition of " yard art "

Last cut.

After setting up the bull gears on the mill and retracing all the cuts, the gears still did not mesh correctly. Set everything back up and took another .008 cut for a total depth of 0.278. Lost my place a couple of times and had to go back to a known position and index forward. There are only two knowns for this gear, one at 0° and then again at 180°.

The gears mesh now in one position but do not play together when flipped around so that is all right for this project.

The real reason for this problem? My arbors are not concentric. I'm going to have to learn how to turn between centers if I cut any more gears.