Repairing the Tumbler Gear Motor

Thursday, July 16, 2015

I turned on the tumbler as I left at 1600.  About a minute later a heard a thump and the tumbler stopped turning.  I went back in and found the exhaust fan and the tumbler motor were still running.  I turned off the fan and the timer switch.  A quick inspection revealed a small ring of steel had fallen onto the chain and the shaft of the gear box broke off.  Big trouble.  I pulled the service cord to the motor and left for the night.

A neighbor friend, Tom, is an engineer retired from the army reserve.  He seems to know about everything there is to know about engineering and some other things too so I consulted him.  He agreed to help me take apart the gear motor and see what would be required to get the tumbler running again.

The next morning, Saturday, we took the gear-motor off the tumbler and disassembled the gearbox.  It is a right angle worm gear design. The damage was clearly visible.  The 1” shaft to the roller chain sprocket was broken and the brass gear had a number of sheared off teeth.  We did a lot of degreasing and put all the relevant parts in the vehicle but had to wait until Monday to consult with an industrial bearing company.

On Monday we learned that they don’t rebuild anything but would try to find parts for us but ultimately weren’t successful.  Tom did some further checking and gave me a number to call.  I called and found that a brand new synchrogear motor would cost $960 + freight.  The E435 gearbox alone would cost $480 + freight and that is what I ordered.

2 HP E435 Synchrogear motor.

Tom came over at about 1000 and we started working on the rebuild.  With one trip to a farm and ranch store we found all the additional parts we needed.  Finished at 1630.  A hard day with Tom doing most of the work. We added an idler sprocket to take up chain slack.  And we also made some changes in the guards so at the end I’m in better mechanical shape than before the break-down.

A painful experience like this should provoke some thinking about ways it might have been prevented or mitigated.  Considering that it took the two of us over six hours to complete the job I may well have been better off just buying a new motor.

It occurred to me that If I had built the tumbler in a manner similar to my hydraulic press and the reversing bar twister I may have been better off.  In those cases the motor connects to the driven component through a Lovejoy coupler.  That makes them modular so either component can be dealt with independently.

Motor-Coupler-Pump linkage.

Motor-Coupler-Reduction Gearbox linkage.

One last point.  Tom suggested a better way to control the alignment of the 2” shafts turning the cylinder - mount them with paired pillow block bearings on both ends.

Gorilla Tape Bumpers

On 7/28/11 I wrote a piece about vise handle bumpers.  

http://persimmonforge.blogspot.com/2011/07/vise-handle-bumpers.html

Since then I’ve changed my method a bit.  Now I just use Gorilla tape.  I pull off about 8” or so of the two-inch wide tape and rip it down the middle to get two 1” strips.  These easily wrap adjacent to the handle end-stop.  Over time they compress and make a very effective and durable pinch-preventing bumper.

Coal Trip 7/29/15

My friend Wayne and I exchanged email for about three months trying to work out a date to make a trip to the coal mine.  Fortunately it has been too hot to forge for a while so I haven’t been needing it to stay busy.  My bin probably didn’t have 50 pounds left in it when we set off for Oklahoma Wednesday morning.

Wayne and Dianne arrived here about 0830 with a trailer which could carry 2 1/2 tons.  I drove my Pickup which could carry a ton and picked up my friend Tom to ride along for interesting conversation and driving help.

We stopped in Coffeyville for lunch then proceeded to the mine.  Wayne had made arrangement for us to get a tour of the strip mine so we did that before loading.  When I made my first trip to the mine some years ago they were working a seam about eight miles north of the grinding/screening site where the scale house is located.  They have finished working there and it is reclaimed and back in grass. The site we got to see is a mile or so southwest of the pick-up site.

We followed the supervisor to the hole and walked around to spots where we could look down and watch the heavy machinery working.  The coal seam is 12”-18” thick and about 50 feet below the surface.  They use huge dozers to move away the overburden and create the sloping drive path down to the coal seam.  A thin cover is left over the seam until the actual coal removal process begins.

A mining shovel creates a high-wall and bites away at it and fills haul trucks which drive the overburden up to the surface and dump.  A high-dump coal loader scoops up the coal and fills the trucks which move the coal to the crusher site.  After the coal has been taken away the backfill process begins.

Removing the Overburden.  The coal seam is the flat area in the upper left corner.

Pushing overburden to backfill mined area.

Leveling the Top. 

Creating the high wall. 

Mining shovel loading the Haul Truck.

High Dump Coal Loader.

After the tour we drove back to the scale house and weighed in and drove to where the stoker coal was piled.  The operator of the high-dump loader was very patient and accommodating, as usual.  His bucket holds close to three tons and we only need to load a fraction of that.  He cannot see my pickup bed from the cab so it takes some guiding to get loaded without getting buried.  I take rakes, shovel and broom so I can fill every bit of the bed and clean up.  It takes the operator three lifts to complete our fill as we work to rearrange the coal between each drop.  It was hot and dry but not windy and the sprinkler trucks had been watering the roads so it was the cleanest trip I have experienced.

Filling my Tundra.

Filling Wayne's Trailer.

Tom drove us back to the scale and we weighed out at exactly 2000 pounds.  Earlier I told the scale operator that was the amount I needed.  She seemed amazed that it was precisely what I got - to the pound.  The price was $68.00. Add on about $55.00 for gas and that isn’t bad for a fuel budget. At my current forging rate that should cary me for a couple of years.

Google Earth View of the Crush Site.

Google Earth View of the Mine.

We drove back to Coffeyville and filled up with gas for the trip home and got some cold drinks.  The air-conditioning didn’t quite keep up on the home trip but otherwise it was a great day.    Home again at 1830.

Filling My Coal Bin.

I remain somewhat astonished and grateful for the friendly and patient attention we receive from every person I have encountered at the mine.  I feel sort of guilty for bothering them with our pitifully small purchases which cause them more trouble than their big customers.

This diagram does a pretty good job of illustrating the coal strip mining process. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oas/oas_htm_files/v57/p173frames.html

No Misspent Youth

In my late teen years I became reasonably accomplished at playing pool and snooker.  One summer some of my parents friends were visiting and we got to talking about pool and Frank, who was just a little younger than my father said we ought to go to the hall and play a game.  I was looking forward to getting the best of an adult.  Didn’t happen.  Frank ran the table.  I was dumbfounded and he just said, “The joys of a misspent youth.”  It was the first time I recall hearing the expression.  He proceeded to tell me stories about mischief he got into during the depression years.

Today I was poking around the web looking for some design inspiration and came across Alec Steele’s blog.  Lots of nice blacksmithing images.  He took up the craft at age 11 and stayed with it and is now quite good.  I’ve never met him but I enjoyed visiting his website.  He has spent quite a bit of time with Brian Brazeal as his mentor.  It looks to me like he’s finding a lot of joy in the work and not misspending his youth.

http://www.alecsteeleblacksmith.com/about

I was surprised to see this dictionary gave a pool playing reference as their second example.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Misspent+Youth

Brad Allen's Sculpture

Ten years ago I attended the CanIron V meeting in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.  We drove to Chicago and picked up our older son and enjoyed as many sights as we could work in along our way to Portland, Maine where we took The Cat ferry to Yarmouth and then drove the rest of the way to our bed and breakfast.   We stayed at the very comfortable King George Inn.

It was a wonderful trip and meeting.  Lots of great demonstrators and local places to visit.  Unfortunately we had to watch the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the TV news each evening.  The tail end of the storm even brought a little rain to our gathering.

What brought this back to my mind was finding the piece I got at the auction - a fine sculpture work b y Brad Allen.  It had become hidden by other things stacked in front of it in the studio.  This certainly was not the proper place for such a nice piece of blacksmith art.  I corrected that situation today and now it is displayed where I can see it every day.

I call it my Celtic cross.  I forget if Brad had titled it as such.

See some other examples of Brad’s sculptures here

http://www.dalzielbarn.com/pages/contact/blacksmith04.html

Too Scary to Read

Today, I read a book review in our local paper and then went online to skim some others.  This sentence caught my attention. “Ford offers little hope that emerging technologies will eventually generate new forms of employment, in the way that blacksmiths yielded to autoworkers in the early 20th century.”  The book referred to is RISE OF THE ROBOTS, Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future by Martin Ford.

I haven’t read it, but the subject is one which has troubled me for quite a few years.  Trying to find employment for an ever growing world population with all the complicating variables like, resources, culture and infrastructure is a lot more than I can wrap my mind around.

My first thought was to see if I could find a used copy of this book to read.  Then I had to admit that I really didn’t have the time now to do more reading.   Moreover, after going over a few reviews, I’m thinking it might just be too scary.

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Robots-Technology-Threat-Jobless/dp/1480574775

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/books/review/rise-of-the-robots-and-shadow-work.html?_r=0

More on Creativity

I have been in a clean-up and throw out mood for a while now and the studio is slowly gaining more work space.  One of the primary strategies is to see how much physical clutter can be digitalized.  If I can photograph or scan what I really need to real I can get rid of the book, file, model, etc.

One of the things I cam across was a small paperback book. “A Technique for Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young, 1939.  It only took a few minutes to skim it again and I recalled how much I felt the author was describing the process I have adopted for many years.

In April 2014 I posted some thoughts about the creative process. Those were more focused on specific blacksmithing projects and Young’s work is broader in scope yet simply described.

I copied the following paragraphs outlining his 5 steps from this site

http://www.globalcontent.marketing/a-5-step-technique-for-producing-ideas-by-james-webb-young/

Step 1: Gather Raw Materials

Gather both specific and general raw materials.  In advertising, the specific materials are related to your products and your target audience, while the general materials are about life and events.  You need to know how your products impact your audience’s day-to-day lives.

Constantly browse and gather information.  “Part of it, you will see, is a current job and part of it is a life-long job.”  Train your minds to observe, then store it away.

Step 2: Digest Materials

Start putting different pieces of information together.  Bring 2-3 facts together and see how they fit.  “What you are seeking is the relationship: a synthesis where everything will come together in a neat combination like a jig-saw puzzle.”

This is also a stage at which you get mentally exhausted and feel lost and hopeless without clear insight.  That’s OK!  Don’t give up.  This stage is overcome when you have a preliminary idea of how you fit your puzzle together.

Step 3: Internalize Materials Unconsciously

Drop everything and put the problem out of your mind as completely as you can!  Let your subconscious mind work on it.

“You remember how Sherlock Holmes used to stop right in the middle of a case, and drag Watson off to a concert?”  Yes, Sherlock is working through step 3 and is very close to solving his case.

Step 4: The Eureka Moment

Out of nowhere the Idea will appear!  I experience this all the time.  When I am thinking about the flow of a presentation, I usually struggle with the opening.  I’ve struggled for days, then, Bingo, a great opening will mysteriously pop in my mind from nowhere.

When a lady asked Sir Isaac Newton how he came to discover the law of gravitation, he is said to have replied: “By constantly thinking about it.”

Step 5: Bring Ideas to Life

“The stage might be called the cold, gray dawn of the morning after.”

More detail can be found here

http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05/04/a-technique-for-producing-ideas-young/

I was pleased to discover that everything I needed to remember about the little book was already available online so the book can go.  I’ll probably take it to the Prairie PastTimes gallery where we have set up a book nook in a back corner.  Visitors can have a seat and browse used books for sale. https://www.facebook.com/PrairiePastTimes