Author Topic: water Mill restoration  (Read 10279 times)

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #25 on: December 04, 2018, 01:03:24 PM »
I took the gear to the mill today to measure it up for fitting and against the old gear
Also took the chance to get some photos of the stones and drive gear
We have had quiet a lot of rain over the last few days and the weir has plenty of water
I will weld the teeth onto the gear tomorrow and hopefully get it mounted later this week
It is called a wallower gear as it is difficult to get it running square in both directions and  it wallows about  as it turns

 I will have to lift and turn the stones over to dress them  , They are french burr stones set in plaster of paris
 After the stones are dressed flat and the groves are recut they have to be balanced and leveled so that the gap is equal all around between the 2 stones .
This is done by placing lead weights in pockets on the top of the stones  The last picture shows the  lead weights
The bottom stone is stationary and the top stone turns . I will get some pictures of how it is adjusted at my next visit
 
Mike

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #26 on: December 05, 2018, 03:42:31 PM »
After giving it some thought and coming up with all sorts of impractical solutions I decided that the easiest way would be to work out the circumference and divide by the no of teeth.

This sounds easy enough but in practice it takes a bit of juggling . The distance between the teeth was 56.81 mm and after  a couple of attempts at the marking out I tacked the teeth on . Final tolerance is + or - a gnats kneecap,

Tomorrow I will finish the welding
At last it is starting to look something like its supposed to.
Mike

Offline pycoed

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #27 on: December 05, 2018, 03:51:48 PM »
Now if that was me, half those teeth would have been welded the wrong way round  :bang:

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2018, 04:01:06 PM »
Now if that was me, half those teeth would have been welded the wrong way round  :bang:
I know exactly were you are coming from .I just hope I have them facing the right way
Mike

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #29 on: December 12, 2018, 02:47:01 PM »
 A bit delayed but finished welding the gear today . Hopefully will have a trial fitting next week \

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #30 on: December 13, 2018, 11:20:38 AM »
You're a braver man than I am.

I would have just left the teeth tacked on until after the trial fitting.

Don
Too many irons, not enough fire.

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #31 on: December 17, 2018, 07:32:23 AM »
I had 1 more job to do before taking the gear to the mill to fit . I drilled a hole in each of the 8 sections to allow water to escape as every few years the mill floods, some times to a depth of several feet .
I keep the slugs from the holes as they are easy to turn into thick washers  Always believe in   waste not want not

  Mike

Offline hanermo

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #32 on: December 17, 2018, 01:23:04 PM »
I am in awe.
How do You get the info/skills on what needs to be done ?

As for bearings ..
 the igus engineered plastic would probably be excellent, cheap, and they might comp You.
If You want, I could ask them.

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #33 on: December 18, 2018, 12:12:01 PM »
The proof of the pudding is in the eating .as the saying goes  so with no more ado  loaded the gear up and went to the mill
First photo shows how worn the original gear was . the next are of fitting it up  The original horizontal  axle tree shaft is long gone and has been replaced with a 9 inch square solid cast iron shaft .
 When this was done the center of the water wheel was reduced to 9 inches but the pit gear was replaced as this has a 9 inch square hole from new . I think this was carried out in about 1850 as far as i can ascertain.
It is very difficult to get details about work carried out and when  as so little was recorded
I know that in 1980 the wheel ,stone work  and sluice gate was rebuilt . They never went any further either due to lack of funds or interest.
Over the next week I will finish fitting the gear and to get a correct mesh I need to realine the wheel shaft . I will need to move the whole wheel, shaft and gear out about 40mm . This will not be a problem as the plummer block bearings have never been bolted down .

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #34 on: December 18, 2018, 12:27:14 PM »
The shaft is supported on a steel shaft fitted into the end of the axle tree shaft  This sits in a bronze bearing which is held in a cast iron block with 4 adjustment screws  This is completely worn out . I have some suitable bronze but not a lump big enough so will make a steel housing with a replaceable insert
The wheel shaft bearings are ok   Mike

Offline awemawson

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #35 on: December 18, 2018, 12:39:34 PM »
Mike the bronze bearing block looks very brassy - perhaps they did it the cheap way before  :clap:
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #36 on: December 18, 2018, 12:55:08 PM »
Yes Andrew I agree from the photo but in real life it looks more like bronze but anyway its run out of newness . This bearing takes a fair amount of pressure so would welcome ideas on using a modern bearing
    Mike

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #37 on: December 18, 2018, 01:44:00 PM »
Does the bronze block take the end load of the steel shaft too, or just the side to side loads?

Don
Too many irons, not enough fire.

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #38 on: December 18, 2018, 02:17:02 PM »
Yes both radial and thrust  Total shaft weight is about 1 ton    I will probably replace like for like as that bearing will have done 50 years of running .so the design has stood the test of time  and all the other mills I know have the same design   Mike

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #39 on: December 20, 2018, 10:58:08 AM »
I  realigning   the water wheel shaft by pushing it over with a 20 ton hydraulic ram until the gear mesh was correct from the pit wheel to spur wheel .
 The next gear on the vertical shaft drives 2 diagonally opposed gears that drive the stones which are directly above  them .
 Its important that the meshing of both of these gears is correct
 
As the bearing block that I posted a photo of yesterday wears the main gear will drop . Over the life of the bearing this is about 3 inches . This will cause the stones drive gears to come out of mesh

To compensate for this the gears are adjustable on there shafts.
The drive shafts are square and onto this is mounted a casting with a square hole in it which is a sliding fit onto the shaft

The out side of this casting is a tapered square which fits into a tapered square hole in the stone drive gear . The outer piece is held at the correct height  by 2 pieces of wood which are bolted to the inner shaft .
All that is needed to do is saw a equal amount of each piece of wood and the gear will drop down on its square.
Its not possible to alter the mesh by moving the drive shaft itself as this would alter the clearance between the grind stones which is critical to the correct operation of the mill
The top stone is mounted directly onto the shaft

If it is required to take one of  the stone out of used the gear is simply lifted of the tapered square  and tied up out of the way.
 
This probably sounds a lot more complicated than it is in practice . Sometimes it is not easy to describe a simple design
 The next major step will Get the top floor cleaned up and the sack hoist working
Photos show the stone drive gear and the correct mesh , jacking the main shaft and the top floor and sack hoist
  Mike

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #40 on: December 21, 2018, 02:14:04 PM »
 I carried on with getting the shafts   into order  The vertical shaft was still a bit out of line which I did not realise until I came to replace the floor boards. I moved it until the gap was even  ,
 The main wheel shaft has proved  a bit of pain . The wheel runs in a bearing block on each side and the pit wheel runs in 1 bearing with a coupling to the the wheel part .
This coupling is made of 2 flanges bolted together with a squared hole in each to accommodate  the shafts . the square on the pit side has worn badly and the shaft is a slack fit in the hole  This makes it very difficult to work out when its in the correct position.
 This is a crude form of uj so I need to leave some movement in it.
This is not something which is easy to push about as it weights several tons and every movement requires the jacks to be moved to a different position
 Although there looks to be plenty of room to move about the space is actually quite restricted.
I was going to run the wheel and let it settle in to a position where it was happy but the water is very high today which causes problems.
The weir was up by about 18 inches but  the down stream water level was up by over 3 feet . This always happens after short periods of heavy rain due to restriction about 3 miles down stream. This means that the tail race is backed up and the water can not get away from the paddles .
There is also a grid above  the sluice gate to stop large pieces of wood getting stuck in the sluice gate or wheel . This has become blocked and is restricting water to the wheel .
I just did not fancy putting my waders on a getting into 5 feet of fast flowing water to clear it.
Hopefully in a day or 2 the level will have dropped a bit
Photos show the Level of water , The main shaft coupling and the vertical shaft with floor boards refitted
 

Offline philf

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #41 on: December 22, 2018, 06:23:13 AM »
.......
The weir was up by about 18 inches but  the down stream water level was up by over 3 feet . This always happens after short periods of heavy rain due to restriction about 3 miles down stream. This means that the tail race is backed up and the water can not get away from the paddles ...........

Hi Smiffy,

We see the same effect on the weir at our hydroelectric system on the River Goyt (twin Archimedes screws). I was surprised that something 3 miles downstream would cause a problem. I'll try to have a walk down our river to see if there are any areas where we could perhaps do something to improve the flow. Unfortunately there isn't access via footpaths the whole way down so I may have to don my waders and paddle.

I'm in awe of what you're doing with the mill!

Cheers.

Phil.
Phil Fern
Location: Marple, Cheshire

Offline AdeV

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #42 on: December 22, 2018, 07:00:44 AM »
Smiffy,

This is truly a bonkers project - I'm absolutely loving it, and you've done some really cool work there.  :clap: :clap:

 :nrocks:

Can't wait to see the video of it all up and running as it would have been in the 1700s  :thumbup:
Cheers!
Ade.
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Location: Wallasey, Merseyside. A long way from anywhere.
Occasionally: Zhengzhou, China. An even longer way from anywhere...

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #43 on: December 22, 2018, 01:48:09 PM »
Thanks for your comments . The restrictions  down steam are several tributaries joining and road bridges so not munch  i can do about
that . Today I followed it for about 20 miles and the whole river down to where it joins the Severn is about 3 feet up . It does go down fairly quickly so if we do not  get any more rain by tomorrow the down steam levels should be quiet a lot lower
Ade  thanks for your words of encouragement .
The people who should take the praise are the original builders  The quality of there work amazes me and they did it without any power tools .
To understand the effort required some years ago with a few other like minded people we set to to build a traditional  timber building along the same lines as the traditional black and white houses that are a feature of our county side
 This entailed starting with green oak as felled of about 14 =20 inches  in diameter and 15 - 20 feet long and turning it into straight square timber This could either be used as it was for principle posts or cut on a pit saw into suitable size timber for studs etc .
Every thing had to be done traditionally with no use of modern power tools
The round timber is squared using a 7 lbs felling axe and a side axe . Every piece of timber produced before power saws was done using these 2 tools 
The method of doing this is  1 Place the tree on 2 other trees at 90 degrees to get it off the ground and orientate it  so the  the place that you want to start with is vertical 
      2. Mark 2 vertical lies  on each end using a wooden set square and plumb line [no spirit level allowed]
    Join the top of each vertical line along the length of the tree and mark with a string line
     3 Standing on top of the tree using the felling axe cut a series of birds mouths to the depth of the string line mark
  4 still standing on top of the tree and in line with it knock of the blocks between the birds mouths , this should leave a rough but straight vertically flat side to the tree
5 Using a side axe and standing on the ground and using the axe vertically you can produce  a very flat and straight piece of wood
6 Repeat for the other 3 sides
The adze is never used despite what many people think. its a  tool used for shaping  curved surfaces  and rarely used  in this type of work
Photos show all the tools required for basic framing  felling axe ,side axe mortise chisel and 2 bruzzes which are square chisels used to finish mortise corners
This how the vertical axle shaft was cut and it is totally parallel  a credit to the men who made it  Mike

Offline chipenter

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #44 on: December 22, 2018, 02:12:05 PM »
Your are out of luck if you are left handed .
Jeff

Offline awemawson

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #45 on: December 22, 2018, 02:15:00 PM »
Rules me out then being cack handed  :clap:
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline chipenter

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #46 on: December 22, 2018, 02:53:13 PM »
Snap us lefty's note is things like that .
Jeff

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #47 on: December 22, 2018, 03:02:12 PM »
Your are out of luck if you are left handed .
Afraid  not you can get both left and right handed  They are available but  from here as a special order  https://www.gransforsbruk.com/en/product/gransfors-broad-axe-model-1900/  Mike

Offline smiffy

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Re: water Mill restoration
« Reply #48 on: December 22, 2018, 04:07:07 PM »
Photos of timber hewing  in no particular order but shows whats involved . I think that its important to understand how something was made before you can begin to understand how to restore it .
The next thing I need to try my hand at is stone masonry  Mike