water Mill restoration

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smiffy:
The turbine was installed in 1907 to to power a generator to provide electricity to a local house for a set number of hours each week . There were also 2 electric bread ovens installed in the mill . Unfortunately both generator and ovens are long gone .
Before the turbine was installed there had been a small undershot wheel driving one set of stones .
At the other end of the mill is the larger wheel driving 2 sets of stones .

The turbine runner is the most fantastic casting , all the other runners I have seen have pressed steel buckets but this is all one casting.

The other pictures show the bearing housing which sits on top of the spider frame . The whole weight of the shaft and runner is carried on the wooden thrust bearing This housing also houses 3 radial bearings The reason why the turbine stopped working is probably because this housing was broken .
I repaired it with strong backs to secure the 3 radial bearing
The original bearing retaining plates had been held in by 4 3/8 bolts on each of the bearings . these had all sheared and the whole assembly tied together with a thin steel strap

The other photo is of the operating gear . This turns the spider to open or shut the input vanes The original was missing so I cut the ew gear out of 15 mm plate a welded 3 pieces together

charadam:
Smiffy,

Maybe the bearings could be made in this fashion, rather than a solid sizeable lump of LV?

https://lignumvitaesolutions.com/products/marine/stern-tube-bearings/

vintageandclassicrepairs:
Hi Smiffy,
I'm really enjoying seeing the progress on the mill :clap:

From what I can see in the photo of the turbine wheel, the end of the shaft (bottom end?)
looks to be worn down to approx half its original size?
If there was that much play in the rotating shaft and wheel was there any contact wear between the turbine
blades and housing?
The inlet guide vane mechanism design is very similar in principal to the Gas turbines I worked on !!

John

smiffy:
The spigot on the end of the rotor shaft is not a bearing ,it locates in light cast iron cross piece in the output tube and once the main bearings are set it should not make contact with anything . I have not got any pictures of the support cross piece as it was always under water
At some time the bearings had got out of order and that is possible when the shaft became worn
As I have mentioned before the main shaft is supported on 1 main thrust bearing and 3 radial bears on the turbine .

The main shaft is 2 pieces of 3 inch sold bar joined in the middle . The top of the shaft is supported in a plain bronze pillow block bearing
The photos show the bearing housing and the retaining plate which had come adrift because the bolt had sheared.

I have also started to make a new gear to replace the cast bevel gear which is called a wallower
To make the gear I am going to fabricate it and started by making the teeth by sawing at 30 degrees 5 inch lengths of 45 mm x 45 mm
solid bar I did it in my old power hacksaw as it gave a better finish than my friends all singing and dancing cnc band saw
It took 10 hours to cut 44 teeth

smiffy:
Started work on the new gear , the original is all 25mm thick cast iron . I could have made the new gear from steel of the same thickness but on refection that would be overkill and the cost of 25mm is a bit pricey ,plus bending it is more than I can handle .
So I settled on making the whole thing from 12 mm plate mainly because I had a 2 x 1 meter sheet to hand

Profiled out the main hex section on a cnc machine and folded a piece of 130 x 12 mm plate into a hex to make the center section tomorrow I shall weld it together
Then I will have to roll a cone at a 20 drg angle to weld the teeth to , That could be a bit of a problem as I have not formulated a plan of action yet
I might do it in 2 sections in my press

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