Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

I purchased and took down a Butler double gear a few days ago. It was on its original tower and in the same place over a water well for likely 110yrs+. I have posted several photos of it over the last few years, but was fortunate to only recently acquire it. It is the only Butler I’ve ever seen in the wild in Texas and it happened to be about 10 minutes from my house. Neighbors said they remember it pumping when they moved there in the 1960s. It probably pumped for years afterwards too.

The wheel had been chained to the tower, which damaged the wheel and tower angle at the top. However, that seemingly mitigated wear that might have occurred to the gear head. Most everything was double nutted on the gear head. The hub/head spins freely. It is damn heavy like others have mentioned in prior threads involving the Butler double gear.

The tower is 30’ overall with a 20’ top section and a 10’ bottom section. I’ll shorten it to 20’ by removing the bottom 10’ section. A pull out winch, which I presume is Butler, is attached to the tower.

I’ve removed the wheel, wheel arms and tail and then straighten them out as well as attended to the bullet holes in the sheet metal. I have a few others ahead of it in the rebuild line, so I’m letting it soak with penetrating oil. It will need a new mast pipe as its current one has some years on it, plus need 5 blades and some other things TBD.

Mike Hage’s various threads on his rebuilding efforts on his Butler double gear are very informative and should help in my rebuild efforts.

I’ve attached some photos, but as usual they load out of order selected or I can’t figure it out.

If anyone has any literature, outside of the windmill bible, I’d be interested. Thank you.

Few more photos

You're not kidding they are heavy. Took down an 8 ft with tower years ago, was all my poor winch could handle. A couple years ago I got a 6 footer. It's all apart in the shop, but put it on the back burner for a while.

At least you have most of the complete sails. The wheels I see are all broken or missing sails. That's a nice catch you have. I bet the wear factor is minor, like you said.

Very nice find Micheal it looks in pretty good shape for how old it is.You gotta love open gear windmills they all have different characteristics to them.

It's amazing the amount of engineering into such a complicated motor .
This will keep you out of trouble for a while .

Great Find!

Thanks

Looks great Michael! I look forward to seeing the restoration as it progresses!

Nice

I started disassembly of my Butler Double Gear this past weekend. It seemed like everything was double nutted.

The gears/shafts are in decent shape for their age. Of the three sets of bearings (i.e. top/bottom = one set by my logic), only the bottom bearings of two need attention/replaced. So basically 4 of the 6 bearings are good. I noted what looks like leather around the bearing assemblies where the top and bottom bearings bolt together. I surmise this leather, once oiled, would retain the oil and repeal water, potentially prolonging a bearing (or not).

The pitman arms appear to contain a hard wood as the bearing material. At first I thought Babbitt, but the more I looked and touched it, it looks like wood. Some literature says they were a Babbitt, while others said you could get them with a bronze bushing. I’m sure it’s possible the original owner and or a subsequent owner used wood as opposed to Babbitt.

I’ll need to replace the mast pipe as it has seen some ware. I noted a carriage bolt within the mast pipe that was affixed to the head as additional security to hold the head on the mast pipe.