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Miner Edger

Started by Rick Schmalzried, October 09, 2002, 09:19:57 PM

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Rick Schmalzried

Well I finally got down and picked up the edger from my Brother in Law.  8) I am hoping that I am not getting in too deep on the necessary restoration. ::) But more on that later.  Anyway I felt like one of the 3 stooges trying to unload it from the trailer.



But after much sweating by myself and laughing by my wife I finally got the trailer pulled out from under the edger and the edger setting on some logs.



So now comes the real work that I need help from the forum.  This is a miner edger, built in Meridian Miss, who knows when.




The blade shaft spins freely but the output feed roller needs new bearings.


I have no experience pouring babbet so I am wondering what you would do to get this to spin.  Would I be better to cut the bearing support off and replace it with a pillow block???  If I can get this working, I will have a bunch of working making guards as I am NOT going to risk myself running this as it exists now :-* :-*
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Paul_H

Rick,
I think you have a pretty cool project on your hands.I would love to have one to play with.

Try this link   http://www.soule-miner.com/mineredger.htm


Look forward to more on your project as it progresses.
Science isn't meant to be trusted it's to be tested

ADfields

Hi Rick
Well I would say dont waste your time with the babbet!   A pillow or a flange block is always the way to go on somthing you plan on working.   If I was rebilding it I would put all new pillow or a flange blocks on all the shafts first thing and be don with it, you would never need tinker with it after that!

It looks like you will have a blast with that thing, I know I would! :)
Andy

Bro. Noble

Rick,

Your edger looks about the same as ours.  Ours is a Corley.
If you are down this way sometime you can see how it operates and might get an idea for a guard.
Pouring babbit isn't too bad, just block the sides to contain the material and pour it in place, then use ink or carbon paper to identify high spots and scrape them off.  You may be able to buy new ones through the website Paul posted.

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

Fla._Deadheader

Hi guys. Just for the info, there is (was)? a magazine called Gas Engine Magazine, that is for collectors of old 1 cylinder Stationary,althought they were VERY portable, gas engines. Had water hoppers on top of the cylinder.

   Ennyhoo, there were ads in there where you could send your bearings off and have them re-poured. Then you could "fit" them, as Noble described. I had an old Fairbanks battery gen set in Arkansas, that I used for electricity, along with the 4000 watt windmill that I built. NO APL for us !! I re-poured the bearings myself. Not REALLY tough, but, a little tricky. Use the acy torch to "smoke" the shaft, so the Babbitt won't stick.  Harold
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Paul_H

Science isn't meant to be trusted it's to be tested

ADfields

WOW I have the same power hamer, 50 pound Little Giant!   Cool link but I put tapered wheel bearings in it when I got it in 1981.   I have not done forgeing in about 10 years now but hope to get it set in a shop this winter.
Andy


Paul_H

Andy,
What did you mainly make with it?
Science isn't meant to be trusted it's to be tested

Bro. Noble

Andy,

I used to mess with antique engines.  I needed a valve made onetime and was refered to an old fellow that lived fairly close to me (at Noble Mo.).  I made an appointment to go there.  His machinery ( lathe, milling machine, tripp hammer, drill press) was all ancient and was driven through a line shaft powered by an old hit and miss engine.  He did machining, blacksmithing and gunsmithing.  He had about a dozen old engines lined up in a row.  He would walk by them and spin the wheels.  Each one started the first turn.  He had used the trip hammer to sharpen tons of plow shares when that was the way things were done.  I came up with a lot of reasons to go see him between that first visit and his passing.  If he charged me anything at all, it was always very little.  Each time he would say,  "There's two things a blacksmith will go to hell for----beating cold metal, and not charging enough".

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

ADfields

Paul
Well I made all kinds of stuff.   I got hooked when I went with a welder frind of mine to a blacksmithing club meeting (AABA) in phoenix and watched a smith make a patern welded steel (damaskus) knife blade.   On the farm I lerned welding befor I lerned to walk good and my granddad was a smith so we had all the tools but he pased on 2 years befor I was hached.   So I got hooked and about lost my wife over all the time I spent lerning it and still working for a liveing but it was my love for a number of years and I ran a shop on the side.   I made forged steel (iron) gates, fancey brackets for poste and beams, door pulls, and all kinds of custom forgings and never the same thing twice, just whatever people would want made from metal.   My clame to fame was a 999%fine silver horse shooe for Gorge Bush Sr.   I had become the guy that would take the hard things that other smiths did not want and thay would send them my way.   I had a photo of Gorge holding it all framed up with the invoice ($83 labor, used ther silver) but it burned with my house in Arizona May first 2001.   I am in the proses of seting up a shop for metel work on one end and wood on the other compleet with sprinkelers and a roll up door in between as a forge and sawdust dont mix well and the wife and I have a bad feer of fire now.

Noble
That forge smoke will get you hooked as bad as dope!   The shop I'm seting up will be a line shed but powered by a Ford 2.8 V6 not a hit and miss.   But if I had the hit and miss I would be runing it for the power.   The old smith you knew sounds like a fun sort to spend some time with.   I have knon a lot of that sort over the years but I think thay are all gone now.   The one I wish I could have knon is my Grandad as all who did know him say that I am just like him and his 3 childern gave me all his old tools and say thay belong with me working not rusting in ther sheds.   My Mom wont let me bring the anvil to Alaska till she's gone even thow it's mine, thinks that to far away from her or somthing.   Your old smith was right it is a sin to beat cold metal (makes it "work hardened" and week) and I never had the hart to charge for the real number of hours it took to do something, but I shure had lots of fun.
Andy

mitch

 I rebuilt an old 30 inch Tower Edger that had babbitt bearings. On the main saw mandrel I used 1 15/16 inch pillow block bearings and for the feed rolls I knocked out the babbitt and bored out bearing bronze stock as a replacement. Some images are at URL
 
http://shagbarkfarms.com/Edger

Meadows Mills bought out Miner. The URL is

http://www.meadowsmills.com/miner-edger.htm

mitch

 Lindsay Publications Inc.  at URL

     http://www.lindsaybks.com/

has a book No. 1524 entitled "How I Pour Babbitt Bearings" by Vince Gingery. He lists sources for needed supplies and uses as his example pouring babbitt for an old sawmill mandrel.

FeltzE

Don't pour new babbits, buy an insert from a local bearing company just need the dimensions and you can put an oil impregnated bushing in that, or new bearings if you are lucky they may have something with needle bearings that will do the trick

Good Luck

Eric

D._Frederick

Rick,
The problem you may run into is alignment. The machines with babbit bearing were mostly all cast iron. The feed and pressure rolls, and arbor were all aligned together and then the babbit was poured. If you loose this alignment, your edger may not cut straight. From the photo, it appears the cast part of the bearing  is broken and missing. It may be less work to brazes a piece of pipe to complete the bearing and then re-pore the bearing. Babbit is not that hard to work with, if you got a plumber friend, they may have the tools your need.

DanG

Andy, I've always had a hankering to try blacksmithing.  I have my great-great-grandaddy's anvil, a 110 pounder. It has more life in it than any I've ever tried. You have to stand to the side, or yer hammer will hit you in the face! :o  GG-Grandpa was a cooper, and made barrels for the cane syrup industry in Cairo, Ga.  The Cairo HS football team is still called "The Syrupmakers."
The anvil is known to be in the family since 1859, but may go back another generation or two.
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

ADfields

Hi DanG
Blacksmithing will get in your skin just as bad as sawmilling!   Your old anvil is a forged anvil with a carbon steel (tool steel) slab forgewelded (fused togather with heat, flux and a big hamer) to it's face, thay are no longer made!   The forged anvil will ring true and bounce your hammer back as hard as it hit the anvil if you miss the iron.   If you watch a smith working he will tap the iron 2 or 3 times then ring the anvil once (tap tap ring tap tap ring) that is so the heat that the hammer just picked up from the iron will go into the anvil and save the temper on the hammer, bet ya did not know that.   Forged anvils also will have a divet under the horn and under the heel that the tongs put in it as IT was forged, also one under the bottom and top but the top is covered by the carbon steel face.   Thay would put a charge of black powder in that bottom hole and "blow the anvil" up in the air on the 4th of July.   I have a bunch of anvils from very old to very new but my Grandad's anvil is the one I love the best, it's a USA made 1892 122 pounder.    Now all thay make is cast steel anvils and thay are not neer as good to work on.   Well I should stop runing on about anvils.     ::)
Andy

Bro. Noble

Andy,

I love that kind of stuff------tell us more------you didn't even get to the hardy hole.  And that round one, the pritchel isn't it?

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

ADfields

Yup the pritchel (if thats how you spell it) hole is for the pritchel to pass into when forging horse shooes.   Well it's just for drifting a hole with a small drift punch but for the most part all drifted holes were made with a pritchel witch is just a squre punch made with low carbon steel.   Back in the day of the blacksmith it was a lot of work to drill a hole and it made the iron week becous iron (unlike steel) has a grane in it just like wood.   So thay would take a heat on the iron and put it over the pritchel hole and drive the pritchel right thrue it to make a hole, this would shape the grane around the hole like a knot hole in wood grane.  

The hardy hole holds tools cald hardys.   A hardy is all tools that are made to fit that hole so you can hold the iron in one hand and a hammer in the other and the anvil holds the 3rd tool for you.   Ther are hundreds of kinds of hardys like cold cutoffs witch are cold chisels that fit in that hole and hot cutoffs to cut hot iron and all kinds of other things.   Smiths would often make ther own hardys for just a one time use on some job and toss it in the back of the shop so if thay ever needed it agen thay would have it, this is why I often find old hardys that I have no clue what thay were for.  

There is one other part to the good old blacksmiths anvil not meny people know what it's for and thats the chisel plate.   I talked about the steel face thay weld on it and if you look you will see it dont go all the way to the horn.   Ther is 2 or 3 inches of flat there that is just soft iron and thats so when you use a cold chisel on it the hi carbon steel of the chisel wont go flat or chip off but cut into the chisel block undamaged.   Smiths would often temper and sharpen tools for other trades people and to show thay were good thay would drive a newley reworked wood chisel or what have you right into the foot of ther anvil then pull it out and shave wood with it.   Thats why old blacksmith anvils are all cut and nicked on ther bace.   Thats also where the knife people came up with ther way to show off ther new "spaceage" metal knifes, form smiths doing even worse things to cuting tools a couple hundred years back!   Just think what we could do now if we had rembered what thay knew about things without computers in say 1902 people now cant even sharpen a kitchen knife! ::)
Andy

ADfields

Hay Noble I just rembered that you would know what a pritchel is in bull terms! ;)
Andy

Bro. Noble

Andy,

Nope, you got me there, but I'm hurtin to know.

I know what a 'bung' hole is though.  In fact, I've got a bung hole borer on my garage wall.

Thanks for the excellent lesson on anvils.  I think we'll all look at our anvils with a little more appreciation now.

I tried to describe 'shooting an anvil' on another forum before I found this one.  They chewed me out for promoting dangerous activities.  Come to think of it I remember getting hit in the head with a watermelon rind at a July 4th get to gether.  I used it to wash the thrower's head.  Could have been dangerous.  Maybe they should out-law watermelons.
Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

ADfields

Noble
It's kinda cool to me that so much refinment went into just a hunck of metal that is the anvil.   But a teacher I am not so it was not a "lesson" just me telling what I know.   If you like that kind of story telling you should read the Foxfire books, ther great!

Well a bull has 3 mane sex parts I'm shure you know, 2 oysters and 1 pritchel.   At least thats what thay call it in Arizona cow countrey after it's been cut off (in buchering a bull or steer) and dryed.   Thay are sold as walking sticks, dog treets and used to be used in coach whips as a core befor fiberglass.   People buy them up hear all the time at the pet store from a big tub marked "bull sticks" and have no clue what it is, thay think it's just a plain old rawhide treet.   I just knew you would know this, is it called some other name in MO?
Andy

The old time bottle opener!   No bung hole=no tap=no beer! :'(   It's good to know wher the important tools are at at ALL times! ;D

Bro. Noble

Andy,

I have all of the 'Foxfire'  Books.  You are right , I do enjoy them.

No we don't call the bull's part that.  In fact this is about the most lengthy conversation I ever remember being involved in on that particular subject.

DanG's G-Grandad would have had a bung hole borer.  It's used to make the hole in a wooden keg for the stopper or spigot.  You have probably seen old T shaped wood augers with wooden handles.  This is like that except it has just a short (about 1" diameter) auger and then a cone shaped cutter and then the handle.  The farther you went in, the bigger the tapered hole.  Of course the term
bung-hole is sometimes used to describe obnoxious people.

I think you did a good job teaching even if you didn't intend to.
 
On the anvil that is.  I could probably survive in the dairy business without the bull lesson.  I think I would rather use a walker as one of those canes.

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

D._Frederick

Rick,
Any thoughts on how you are going to repair your edger?

whitepe

It looks like the edger might have to wait.
Rick came into the cubicle at work this morning
mumbling something about stopping at the local dodge dealership yesterday,  crew cab, 8 foot bed and a hemi engine. Man he sure has a bad case of pickup truck
fever.  He can't fit his wife and three kids in his Dakota
and since the cold weather's coming the kids
complain about riding in the back.
I'll keep you guys posted


 :D

Whitepe
blue by day, orange by night and green in between

Rick Schmalzried

D.
I am not sure what I am going to do yet.  I haven't gotten too worried about it as I am still looking for a power plant or material to connect it to a PTO shaft.  

It appears my 2 best options are to see if I can fit flange bearings on the shaft.  If not, I probably will try to re-pour the babbet.  Next time I go back to my parents, I will look up a gentleman who has done this quite a few times (he restores old steam engines).  The other alternative I liked was using a bronze bushing.  I need to measure the shaft and see what I can do with that.

Several people have suggested pillow blocks but the only way I can see using them would be to cut out the existing cast iron supports which I don't really want to get into.  I can't move the shaft forward or backwards without lots of work due to the pressure roller above it.

Bottom line is I need to find time to work on it but I have too many irons in the fire now.  I am re-doing the kitchen (building the cabinets) and it is Christmas Gift time so the edger has gone to the back burner.  Hopefully it won't end up being a large lawn ornament. :D :D

--Rick
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Bro. Noble

Rick,

Got to looking at our edger and trying to remember what had to be done to it.  Seems like all the bronze bushings were out of the hold-down rolls.  It appeared to have been used this way for a long time.  We bought bushing stock and had them machined.  Ours has bronze in the feed rolls and roller bearings on the mandrel.  You won't have to be too particular about the hold down rolls,  they just gotta turn freely.  you could probably take a good babbit bearing to a machine shop and have one made from bronze.  When I taught school, I had the industrial arts class make a mold froma good babbit bearing and cast one like it. Had to do a lot of fitting and clean the oil grove.

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

whitepe

Noble,

Since you are coming up this way around Thanksgiving
maybe you, Rick and I can spend some time working on
his edger.  :D  That would be a lot better than spending
time in the apartment in Pekin wouldn't it?    ;D
Whadda ya think?
You gotta keep in mind that we've only got an LT15
upstream to keep an edger busy.  We've only sawed
about 40-50 logs this summer with it.  It's those 24 inch
diameter,  10+ foot long red oaks that are the real
killers to jockey around with cant hooks.  When
I retire, the wife says that I can buy a hydraulic mill.

Oh yea,  Rick drove that Dodge Hemi pickup truck
over lunch yesterday.  I told you he had a bad case
of pickup truck fever.  

Whitepe
blue by day, orange by night and green in between

Bro. Noble

I thought we were gonna EAT

Noble
milking and logging and sawing and milking

Rick Schmalzried

Don't worry Noble.  We will find plenty of time for that.;D

It's funny how some people are...Perry almost snorted in disgust when I brought the edger home and now he can't wait until I get it running :D  Besides, I think it would end up more you and I working on it.  Every time he needs something fixed at his place, he comes in and whines about it until I volunteer to go over and do it myself to keep him quiet. :-X :-X

Oh well, what are you gonna do... :-/

Catch you later. :)
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fishpharmer

I found this topic with a search.

I was driving through town( Meridian, MS ) last Saturday 4/11/09 and went by the old Miner Saw Inc. building.

I thought someone besides me would find interest in seeing it. So I took a couple of pics to share.

It was totally empty inside.

Front

Side
Built my own band mill with the help of Forestry Forum. 
Lucas 618 with 50" slabber
WoodmizerLT-40 Super Hydraulic
Deere 5065E mfwd w/553 loader

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work. --Tom A. Edison

Meadows Miller

Gday

Nice pics Fish  ;) I love pics off old industrial buildings Mate  ;D ;D 8) 8)

Miner is part of Meadows Mills now as they took over Miner edgers in May 01 and they sell them under the Miner trade name and still supply all the models and parts  ;) ;D for the A-53 ,B-53 and the 3-31  ;)

I wonder how ricks edger project is going  ??? he should have her going by now  ;) :D ;D 8) 8)

Reguards Chris
4TH Generation Timbergetter

bandmiller2

Rick theirs really nothing wrong with babbit especially in low speed ,like feed rollers.If the castings allow by all means use pillow blocks or flange bearings.Usally the bearing pockets are rough cast and most of us don't have the facilities to line bore for bronze bushings.If you can cast bullets you can pour babbit.As stated the tough part is shaft alignment.What I do is drill and tap two holes at 8 and 4 o'clock usally 10-24 wile it still has the origional babbit that gets you close to alignment make small adjustments with the screws.Melt out the babbit and your shaft sits on the screws and is aligned.Follow babitt instructions given being sure to heat shaft and casting before you pour.I have never had to scrape [never wanted to] just run a wile and take out a shim.When you melt out the babbit save it but you will never have enough to repour add bar solder with high tin content.I usally throw in a few wheel weights the antimony stiffens it up a bit.Frank C.

A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

StorminN

There's a good info section on Babbitts, including how to pour them, here: Babbitt info

-Norm.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

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