English Wheel build

I started in by making what I thought was a simple little part for the English wheel, the anvil holder. It is simple but it took me a good part of the day with setups. I should be building 10 of these things at a time!

After welding it went back in the mill to remove a few thou from each flange so that the anvils are a push fit, no side to side slack. The inner bearing races on the anvils protrude about 10 thou out from the anvil ends, so they are the locator for the anvil. The circlular groove in the side flange is there so the outer bearing race can rotate without dragging on the anvil holder.

I cut slots into the bottom plate for the side flanges to fit into. The bottom side got machined away to leave a key. The tool holder will get matching sized keyways cut into it in a 90 degree cross, that way the anvil holder will be indexed to turn an exact 90 as will the upper yoke. This way the wheel & anvils can run crosswise of the Frame (normal setup) or turned parallel to the frame to allow more shapes to fit into the Ewheel.

Glen

I'm impressed, I know quality work when I see it, are you working from a plan or just eye balling the design for a proto type. You are right about being able to build ten as easy as one when you factor in tool setups.

thanks Geezer. I'm building from information gathered on 3 internet metalshaping sites. One of the sites posted a diagram for a frame design which, from the consensus of the members, was the best allround frame shape. One of the other sites had an adjuster design that had been built, used and improved upon by numerous metalshapers.

My plan is to build something quite similar to the 26" Imperial. It sells for $2600 US and has most of the design ideas from these same sites. In fact, the owner of Imperial Wheeling machines was a frequent poster on one of the sites for years and now has his own site. He freely admits that he borrowed many of the ideas put forth by others when he designed his own machines for sale. There appears to have been some friction over that!

I was surprised at how angry some members got over this " intellectual property" and the use of it. Afterall, they aren't called English Wheels for nothing, the basic design originated in England about 150 or more years ago.

Anyway, all those newer design ideas are listed on the metalshaping sites for anyone to use. I think I might have a couple of my own ideas to add to the mix for this wheel, a backlash eliminator being the main one.

Glen

I never worry about such things as " intellectual property" and the use of it. too complicated for me. One thing, though, the recessed cuts on the bearing mounts , is there no way to shim out the shaft and eliminate that cut. ???

I see some anvil holders that don't have the recessed cuts, so presumably they work OK. The outside race is the same length as the inside race so it will tend to drag on the plate there though.
I suppose you could cut shims which were only as big in diameter as the inner race and place them on the axles at each end of each anvil.
Since you change anvils frequently mid job, the shims might be a bit cumbersome to work, they would have to be perfectly tight up to the bearing races as the anvil got dropped in each time or they would crumple. As I see it the anvil changes should be something that can be done in a few seconds without much fuss. I'm also building a Quick Release into the upper yoke to speed anvil changes.

It's fairly easy to cut the groove in there. I did it with a boring head on a mill , just cut a circle before halving the plate to make both flanges. Same with the half holes that the axle sits in, I bored the plate in the mill then cut it in half right thru the centre of the hole.
If a mill is not available, the groove for bearing clearance could be done with a die grinder or dremel . It just needs to be a few thou in depth and a little wider than the outer bearing race.

on edit- thought about it some more and there is no reason the shims couldn't be thick enough that they wouldn't crumple, just make the anvil holder wider. I think it is better to cut the groove in tho, the shims would be another thing to contend with each time you go to drop a new anvil in, the would have to be squeezed tight to the anvil as it pushes in. It's also easier to cut the one groove than to make the twelve shims!

Glen

A little more productive today, got the adjuster mostly built. The photo on the left shows it from the bottom side. A piece of 3/8" or 1/2" plate about 4" square will get welded to the 1-1/2"x 1/4" wall square tube(this is the quill) that is protruding. The yoke will bolt up to this flat plate. I haven't quite figured out the yoke yet.

The white uhmw you can see is screwed onto 1/4" by 1-1/2" wide steel backer plates. These form the gibs which can be adjusted to remove all fore and aft and side to side slack from the assembly but still allow the wheel to be raised and lowered.

The top view shows the adjuster screw. I made this from a piece of 1" cold rolled mild steel. I threaded it on the lathe , fine thread 14tpi. at the bottom end (inside the adjuster) it shoulders down to 1/2" dia fine thread for the last 3/4" of an inch. I should have taken a photo of this part of the adjuster. It is quite involved with little needle bearing thrust washers set in recessed seats on each side of the attachment. This keeps the thread easy to turn even when under load.


The shoulder on the threaded piece butts up to a short piece of the quill turned sideways and welded to the main guill. This short piece has a 1/2" hole drilled in it for the end of the threaded piece to slide into. The thrust washers sit above and below this hole. A 1/2" fine thread nut nylock goes on the bottom and gets tightened just enough to preload the little needle bearings.

I bored the screw out for a cable which I intend to run thru the entire assembly. The cable will be the backlash eliminator.

Gotta love those socket head screws, I use them on just about everything (metric for me) those things are addictive once you start employing them you just cannot seem to stop using them, gives everything a pro look.

Yes those socket heads do look tidy, don't they?

Today I used the little multifunction Everlast to plasma cut some 1/2" thick plates needed for mounting the adjuster and for mounting the tool arm, which will be removeable or "modular" as described in the Imperial sales brochure.

I cut these out of some old material I had on hand. After cutting them I realized they were not quite a match when laid together, so I spent a bit of time with a big cutter on the mill flushing them up.
This wasn't really necessary but the end product will look a little better for it.

The photo shows the adjuster welded to one of the plates. A matching plate will be welded to the end of the horizontal upper 3x5 frame member, then the plate on the adjuster will get bolted to that.

This weld is a fillet between the 1/2" plate and the 1/4" wall adjuster tube. My Miller TIG calculator said this weld should be done at 310 amps. The little Everlast only goes to 200. I was tempted to rig up my old P+H 400 amp, but that requires a bit of effort.

Feeling a bit lazy, I gave the Everlast a try. How did it do?
Don't need no stinkin Miller calculator or big honkin welder, just floor the little Green thing and away you go, start melting rod.

Truth be told this was about max for the unit, but pretty amazing, this is kind of thickness I used to weld when fabbing Caterpillar D6 Clearing blades. Except those were done with a 500 amp Miller 3phase DC stick welder!

Glen

Nice welds, wish I could do that, I would have had to use the stick on that job, my TIG sucks although every now and then I end up with something decent.

looking forward to more of your build.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by worntorn

Yes those socket heads do look tidy, don't they?

Today I used the little multifunction Everlast to plasma cut some 1/2" thick plates needed for mounting the adjuster and for mounting the tool arm, which will be removeable or "modular" as described in the Imperial sales brochure.

I cut these out of some old material I had on hand. After cutting them I realized they were not quite a match when laid together, so I spent a bit of time with a big cutter on the mill flushing them up.
This wasn't really necessary but the end product will look a little better for it.

The photo shows the adjuster welded to one of the plates. A matching plate will be welded to the end of the horizontal upper 3x5 frame member, then the plate on the adjuster will get bolted to that.

This weld is a fillet between the 1/2" plate and the 1/4" wall adjuster tube. My Miller TIG calculator said this weld should be done at 310 amps. The little Everlast only goes to 200. I was tempted to rig up my old P+H 400 amp, but that requires a bit of effort.

Feeling a bit lazy, I gave the Everlast a try. How did it do?
Don't need no stinkin Miller calculator or big honkin welder, just floor the little Green thing and away you go, start melting rod.

Truth be told this was about max for the unit, but pretty amazing, this is kind of thickness I used to weld when fabbing Caterpillar D6 Clearing blades. Except those were done with a 500 amp Miller 3phase DC stick welder!

Glen

---

And don't forget that 500 amp miller weighed almost as much as the cat you were welding on. Danm, I need my coffee, Glen after your work on the Vincent nothing more to say on this thread except keep the finished product away from me. I need my hands more than ever now LOL

Here's the frame all welded up. 001 shows another one of those 1/2 plate to 1/4" wall tubing welds.

for the tube to tube welds I ran with the pedal about 3/4 or 7/8 of the way down, but never looked at the digital display. maybe 160-170amps? Worked fine anyhow.

Nice looking welds. Are you going to gusset the wheel to keep it from spreading?

Very nice work, I can picture it painted and it will look like a factory build.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by performance

Nice looking welds. Are you going to gusset the wheel to keep it from spreading?

---

Mark, the plans don't call for gussets. I think with the big tubing and reasonable throat depth it shouldn't be needed. I guess if I find it too springy then gussets could be added later. Apparently some spring is desirable, but not too much.

One thing that was pointed out to me before I started was that as the throat depth increases the tonnage pressure on the rear column increases exponentially.

Some of the oldtimers on the metalshaping site started by building huge, bulky 44 or 48 inch Ewheels. Several of them have since built wheels in around 32" and a couple of fellows are on their 3rd wheel, now down to 26", same as this one.

The reason is that it is nearly impossible to build a 48" wheel that is as stiff as a 26". On top of that the 48" throat never gets used. A 26" wheel will reach the centre of a 52" panel, which is larger than the largest thing most people will ever need to wheel . For example, a car hood can be wheeled on a 26" wheel.

So that was a great bit of advice to get from the oldtimers before starting in. Otherwise I would have probably gone the same route, start off building a giant Ewheel only to find it didn't work all that well and was cumbersome to move around, difficult to store.

Glen

what a great project.
i'd love to build one of my own someday.
awesome work man.
one thing i did notice, is that the metal dont look to be cleaned very well in the weld area. is that just the pics, or did you just not bother, or didnt feel the need to?
not at all trying to be rude, just curious, cause from the reading i've done, cleaning with tig seems to be a big deal.

no problem, when I looked at the welds after they were done, I thought, it looks like I didn't clean anything.

I V'd out the joints with an angle grinder right down to the bottom of the 1/4" thickness then filled the shiny silver ditch with weld (2 passes). The top of the V is the width of the weld you see.

I suppose it would not have hurt to do some cleaning on the top surface, but there is no weld there so it really doesn't matter or affect weld quality & strength. I thought the paint job might turn out a little better if I just left the top alone rather than do grinding or sanding just around the weld.
And I'm too lazy to sand or grind or sandblast the mill scale off the whole thing. It may sound crude but, it's never going outside, so I'm going to paint right over the mill scale. That mill scale is on there like white on rice, so I'm not worried about the paint ever flaking. This way I can get back to Egli building a little sooner!

Glen

as good as the welds looked, i figured you had done somthing like that, just wanted to make sure for my own head..lol

managed to sneak out after dinner yesterday and do a bit. This will be the removeable tool arm. It will get one of those 6"x6" x1/2" thick plates welded to the big end and a small 1/2" plate with keyways cut in a cross welded into small end at the appropriate angle.

I used the Wellsaw to slice the centre out of a chunk of the 3x5x1/4" tube.
The long seam will get v'd out before welding.

Glen

Wow Glen you never stop do ya, you slacking on the Vincent :D to get this done for the tin work on it? If so then I forgive ya LOL. I am just anxious to see that bike done :)

But anyway Superb work as usual on the EW. Looks great!!!

I love seeing your threads because your work is amzing and your building things that I actually would like to build in the near future also. My current project is a CNC mill that I hope to add the option of plasma to in case I want to use if for that some time and then an E-Wheel is something down the road but not too far away that I would like to get/make.