Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter weekend

This weekend I logged some hours on the grist mill. Finishing cross drilling at the posts and installing structural fasteners for the wooden frame. Also I continued painting and polishing various components. One of which is the burnishing of the runners stone and shaft.

I used a technique of working a wire brush driven by a die grinder and then followed by an application of olive oil and then more burnishing with the die grinder and wire brush. This result in a food grade finish that will prevent rust. It removed significant quantities of dust and debris from the runner stone assembly.

Furthermore,  I found lead balance weights on the backside of the runner stone. In a earlier operation, performed by Roger and Jeff the front side of this wheel was filled with hydraulic concrete or mortar to fill voids between the banding and the stone there by increasing the reliability and rigidity of the runner stone assembly. Next week, I will push for completion by the time of the open house April 27th at Anderson Mill and Muesum. I will probably bring it to the open house regardless, for show and tell.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

The pour

On March 27th 2014 Jeff Campbell, Roger Shull and Julia Land met in my garage for the babbit bearing pour. Jeff loaned us his turkey frying propane stove and Roger loaned us his cast iron pot to melt the babbit. This set up worked very well for melting the babbit. It only took about 15 minutes for it to be completely molten. Meanwhile, I used a torch to heat the frame of the gristmill in the region of the bearing journal.




I did the pour and the bearing filled up. I used a clay for damming up the ends of the journal to keep the babbit from running out. The clay and babbit did have an undesirable interaction but the effect was minimal and limited to some minor bubbling at each end of the bearing.