English Wheel build

[worntorn]

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

[geezer]

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.

[worntorn]

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

[geezer]

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

[worntorn]

I didn't get much done today, read the nice comments and then got my swelled head stuck in the shop door for quite awhile

Fortunately my brother came along with a mallet and knocked it out, so I was able to put some legs on the Ewheel.
The fellows on the metalshaping site think it is best to bolt the legs on in case the machine ever has to be hauled to another location. It was tempting to weld them on, but in the end I followed their advice.
Someone also suggested that the Ewheel should not sit on wheels when in use as it will move around too much. On the other hand, it would be nice to have it on wheels so that it can be easily shoved out of the way when not in use. It weighs about 300 pounds, so it needs wheels or castors of some sort for moving.

There are some fairly expensive folding castor sets which others have used for this.
I have some used regular castors on hand, so I might just make the front one adjustable up and down. If the rear two castors are mounted a few inches outboard of the rear feet and just clear of the floor with the machine down on the three pads, then when the machine picks up three or four inches in the front the rear pads will lift clear of the floor and it should wheel around easily. I'll use a pivoting type castor at the front and fixed castors at the rear, then it will steer and get pushed around from the front.

That's the plan for now!

Glen

[worntorn]

The wheel works incredibly well. Maybe it's the heavy duty frame that helps.

It's not hard to use at all. I rented a couple of Metalshaping DVDs by Ron Fournier and watched them last weekend. They really helped show the way.

I pounded out a couple of the narrow Ossa front fenders this evening then spent a little over an hour on the English wheel smoothing the one rear and two front fenders. After doing some smoothing on the wheel I did some more mallet work to increase crown and adjust the arc, then back to the wheel and so on. The 2 narrow fenders (4") took less time to do than the one 5" rear.

The fenders for the Egli will be a challenge, front is 6.5" and the rear is 9.5"

These first three Fenders are not perfect, but they are a lot better than I first thought they would turn out. It's kind of a weird process, for the first while it looks as though you have destroyed the material, then it slowly starts to look like a bumpy fender, then a proper fender. These will be plenty good enough for the dirt bikes. I think with a little more practice some really nice fenders and other tinwork can be made in this way.

Glen

[geezer]

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. ???

[worntorn]

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

[worntorn]

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.

[geezer]

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.

[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

[aaxiss]

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

[worntorn]

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

[aaxiss]

Wow Glen you never stop do ya, you slacking on the Vincent 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!!!

[Jason]

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.

[geezer]

Looks good, like a store bought item, In the short time this thread has been going your progress on the build has been amazing, looking forward to your next project.

[Jason]

That looks really nice. Good Job!

[worntorn]

wruehl, I don't have a set of detailed plans. The basic frame dimensions came from one of the metalshaping sites I have been logging onto for the past month or so. Some of the general info for the adjuster dimension, ie , use a piece of inch and a half 1/4" wall square tube for the quill, use a 3" square tube for the outer, came from the same site.
If anyone wants to build one like this, my advice is get started, just PM me with any questions, or ask them here, I'll be glad to help. Since I just finished the build, I still have the dimensions in my head, maybe for another week or two at least!

Mike, the wheeling is not at all difficult to do. The biggest thing is probably what Don mentioned, keeping your fingers out of the way.

I'm thinking about building a powered bead roller soon. I made a little hand tool for folding or hemming the edges. It works OK, but what a tedious procedure that is!

Glen

[worntorn]

I put the castors on it, made a tray for the anvils, lined it with felt and finished making the Quick release handle. The bolt that the finger pull rotates on has a pen spring pushing on the little ball bearing ball in the end that is toward the yoke. I drilled out the end of the bolt just big enough for the ball, then put hte spring and ball down in there. While holding the ball down with a tiny screwdriver, I peened the bolt so that the ball would stay in it's socket. About 1/3 of the ball protrudes from the end of the bolt. This indexes into a small hole drilled part way into the yoke.

The castor setup does it's job OK. About four inches of lift on the front pivoting castor gets the rear pads clear of the floor, then it's easy to move around. I used part of an old acme thread house raising jack for the lift part of the front castor assembly.

The paint color is Hammerite Deep Green.

Time to have a go at making fenders!

[wruehl]

I'm guessing that you have drawn this up (it sure looks like a well thought out design). Any chance you will publish it? Either online for a fee of free? I can help model it in Solid Works if your interested, if the plans where offered up to the public I would donate my time.