Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest English Wheel-Heavy Duty Version?

I've got a bunch of 1/4" wall 4x4" square tubing, an
upper wheel, a set of rollers. So I've got the major
portion of an English wheel. I know how I want to
design a floor model roll about frame. Now all I need
are some ideas for the lower tube, lower yoke, kick
wheel adjuster and a quick release setup.
Anybody got one of them in their shop or have access
to one that they can shoot some pictures of or make
a drawing of or have plans of or just take some
measurements of that lower tube????

Denny Graham
Room for one more tool, in Sandwich, IL

Denny;

I "subscribe" to Homemade Tools. Here are a few examples of English Wheels. Might give you some ideas.

Homemade English Wheels

SimS

tks Sim, got a little more about the quick release. Think I can
figure that out. Need to know more about the adjuster and how
it is machined. I've been thinking about an acme threaded rod
and nut in the bottom of the tube. Just let it push against a
keyed stem on the yoke. Having been around welding fabrication
and machine work all my life, I have some real concerns about
alignment of the two wheels after it's all welded together.
Leveling the lower roller is clear enough but keeping both
wheels tracking in the same line concerns me. I think it would
be a good idea to make the yoke for the upper wheel a bolt on
part so it could be aligned with the lower roller and shimmed if
need be.

Been lookin' at John Glover's wheel as a pattern for
a frame. It's simple, has a large capacity and is
rigidly braced, that's the key word here, 'rigidly
braced. That's the biggest problem with home made or
cheap (HF) English wheels, they really need to be
immovable to function properly.

Keeping the upper and lower legs
perfectly parallel would be the challenge. Don't have any idea
how you would pull 1/4" wall 4x4 tube back in alignment once it
was welded. I suppose you could run some blind weld along the
side you needed to pull in but I'd rather not do it that way.
One could always weld some sort of attachment to the
side that need tweaking, that would pull it in some
depending on the size of the bead and it would look
like it was planned that way.
Denny Graham
Just one more tool takin' up space, in Sandwich, IL

Denny, typically if you alternate from one side to the other you can keep the forces equal that the frame shouldn't pull that much. If it does move on you, some torch "contraction" will pull things back in line....


http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/contraction/contraction.html

Hey Denny, if I start mowing your lawn for the next 27.9 years, will you put me in your will?

Yeah Robert, I'm somewhat familiar with welding. Learned the
trade from me pop when I was just a sprout. Made my living
at it for most of my adult life between running the family's
welding fabrication shop when younger then working at a
government accelerator as an instrument welder for many years
toward the end. That's exactly why I'm concerned about the
alignment. With that large of a weldment it's orful easy to get
a slight misalignment of the two legs. Gonna have to make sure
I've got adequate adjustment designed in to the anvil mounts for
the tracking after the frame is welded. You know that, no
matter how much care and technique you put into it, it's still
gonna warp some. Only way to combat locked up weld
stress is to weld it in a jig then stress relieve it
by heat treating it. But that of course is impractical
for a large structure.

Gonna need someone to leave everything to Carl. All the one and
only daughter is interested in is politics and shoes, as is her
significant other. They're no doubt gonna have a grand two day
auction the weekend after I'm gone, then head for a warmer
climate.

I'm starting to zero in on a design for the quick release cam.
Think a lower tube from telescoping square tubing might be the
best choice. I did find, on my shelf, a handful of 3/4" acme
threaded rod, so I've also got the up down adjustment somewhat
figured out.

I guess it's about time to stop the train and get the power over
to my mill. Been putting off running the power to the other end
of the building for my machine tools because I know it's gonna
tie me up for a week or two. First I have to finish insulating
a 12 foot wall then sheeting it with steel before I can run the
electric, it's going on the outside of the sheeting. Kind of a
domino effect goin' on here at the new homestead. Can't do this
till that's done and can't do that till this is done and on and
on.
Better get to work, sun's gonna be up soon and I'll have to
crawl back into the coffin.
Denny Graham
night stalkin' in Sandwich, IL

If you look at some of the parts made by Joe Andrews of Hoosier Profiles, they are about the finest wheeling components around. He does have the quick release made into the upper wheel cradle, and has a real nice upper adjuster. May give you some ideas.

http://hoosierprofiles.com/Adjusters___Lifters.html


The parts I used on the wheel I made were from used MetalAce components bought off Craigslist, a bad economy and the closing of a motorcycle shop, he didn't have the storage for the complete wheel and cut off the major components. Hindsight I should have bought all new parts from Joe, I would have a much nicer machine. My adjuster had already been welded in once, so after the second installation the outer tube had shrunk quite a bit from the heat where the Acme screw didn't perform as well as one would expect. The Hoosier Profiles adjuster that I used to replace it was comparatively like a fine clock mechanism.

Here's a link to my build thread, frame was based on the Imperial Wheeling Machine by Kerry Pinkerton. There are plans on allmetalshaping. This design uses a bolt on lower arm to give you a bit of fudge factor in alignment of the top to bottom, and the ability to change lower arms in the event of clearance issues on high crown panels. Not sure how adaptable that is to the Glover design, but may give you some ideas. The adjuster being on the top or a kick adjuster on the bottom is really a personal preference, I thought with wheeling larger panels in the machine that the upper adjuster may be more accessible.

http://www.metalmeet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6763


Metalmeet, allmetalshaping, and the home-built tools link above, all have quite a variety of designs that you could look at, and the HAMB also has one thread on "show your English Wheel".

MetalAce recently posted some details on a new frame design, I believe based on the John Glover, here is their "build" thread....

http://www.allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=11059

Thank Robert, got a busy day and a cruise night tonight but I'll
take a look at the links tonight. I've been to a few of them,
such as the HAMB, allmetalshaping and Metalmeet.
Not happy with the final design yet so I'm open for any new
ideas.
Thanks for the input.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Jon here from HomemadeTools.net.

I know this thread is an old one, but thanks for the mention

To celebrate our 20,000th homemade tool, we made a new ebook featuring our top 50 homemade tools. You're welcome to it for free:

http://download.homemadetools.net/50MustReadTools.pdf

Welcome to Stovebolt, Jon; thanks for the link to the book. Check out our swap meet forum...buy you a 'bolt...

You'll need 90% of those tools to fix it up right!

Brad