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| smiffy:
For nearly a year I have been restoring a 1790 water mill that belongs to a friend . This is a 2 stone mill driven by a undershot wheel . There is also a turbine which I have reinstated All the work is being done single handed so progress is fairly slow and as this is a private project funds are limited. The pictures here are of the francis turbine which has a 24 inch runner and works at a head of 5 feet . All the bearings are lignum vitea and I have used all the original ones as new lignum vitea is almost unobtainable My objective is to be able to produce flour some time next year |
| charadam:
Where are you in the world? A location might well produce volunteers, cash, or lignum vitae bowls (bowling green type) that might do for replacement bearings. I would volunteer if you are not too far away from Wem, Shropshire. |
| WeldingRod:
There's a gent supplying lignum vitae bearings for engineering applications, and growing the next generation... ran across it in the ASME magazine a few years ago. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk |
| smiffy:
A few more pictures of the francis turbine . The first thing was to split the drive shaft and remove the coupling then remove the thrust pad and thrust bearing that is a block of lignum vitae Then I removed the spider which controls the opening of the vanes . This took some considerable time as everything was seized solid . Then it was possible to remove the top plate and expose the vanes and central runner . The years of water running through it had formed very hard limestone scale that made dismantling very difficult . Thanks for the idea of using bowling balls but unfortunately they are way too small as the main thrust bearing would require a cubic foot which would be available but at great cost |
| AdeV:
That's some proper old school engineering there! What are the cups made of in the turbine, they look like cast iron - if so, that would be absolute cutting edge technology for 1790? |
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