rod mill new mech. & wheels for

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

I expect he needs to put the word out that he's looking for lathe, mill etc and see what comes back. I know a guy in his locality that has picked up his machine tools, a Colchester Student, German toolroom lathe, and a mill in the area. IIRC the Colchester was from an older guy that decided it was time to give his tools a new home. A mate got a Colchester Student from his late uncle's estate and it went in the back of a Transit van minus the base as my crane couldn't lift high enough to get it in with the base on, I took the base down to his place a week later about 120 miles away. It's a small country.

Doesn't that risk if at any moment it doesn't roll it will be carried off the assembly by belt friction? With wheels or rollers if for some reason it doesn't roll, because maybe mass got stuck on one side for example, it should just slide or scoot. Am I missing something? Bob La Londe

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Intuitively a belt would seem to help, but the physics of friction isn't intuitive. Friction depends on contact pressure and a fixed coefficient that depends on the materials, though there are complications like ice melting under pressure. Very cold ice isn't as slippery.

Here "normal" means perpendicular to a surface.

For several years after the locomotive was invented it depended on a gear and rack for traction, because the assumption was that wrought on cast iron was too slippery. Someone finally measured and found that the tractive pull was about 1/4 of the weight of the engine. For ordinary car tires it's around 2/3 to 3/4 of the vehicle weight. Wheel speed deceleration exceeding that triggers the ABS to assume slippage and limit braking.

------------------------------- What urethane molding compounds do you suggest?

In the mid 60's I was a lab tech testing Adiprene molding, but I haven't kept up since.

One part of the testing was dissolving it in toluene, in large open vats that spools of nylon webbing were dipped in to make a leather alternative for industry. I discovered that I don't get high on glue solvent and don't want to breathe much of it ever again.

Jaw-crusher. More specifically - a single-toggle jaw crusher. On granite (hard, abrasive), apparently has about 13X the jaw wear of a double-toggle jaw-crusher. Motion of single-toggle jaw-crusher (eccentric at top on which jaw is directly mounted - as see in video) is mixture of crushing and shear. the jaw moves in an approximately elliptical motion. Productive for softer rocks, apparently. Double-toggle - the eccentric is behind the moving jaw, the top of the jaw pivots on a shaft, and the motion is pure compressive "in-and-out".

We have a miniature jaw crusher - a laboratory jaw-crusher - which we use to break-up what is readily produced by lump-hammers.

The rod-mill takes-over after the jaw-crusher and is considered "grinding" activity (crushing=>grinding - both are "comminution"). Taking the crushed chippings down to a uniform "sand".

Best wishes, Rich S.

Pardon me - deleted what was at that link, as

• always meant to be a "temp"
• put that image in the new page
  formatting link

Thanks everyone. Thanks for contributing and reaching out to me. It has been a long hard bruising journey and what is obvious to you is a big issue to re-find for me.

I was slowly getting the first embyonic realisations and you come in and "monster" it - go with what you are "re-realising".

Best wishes

Thanks everyone. Thanks for contributing and reaching out to me. It has been a long hard bruising journey and what is obvious to you is a big issue to re-find for me.

I was slowly getting the first embyonic realisations and you come in and "monster" it - go with what you are "re-realising".

Best wishes

-------------------------------- I haven't contributed much about drive shaft alignment because I'm still new at it, and largely self-taught, my machine building apprenticeship covered mostly the pre-computer electrical side and I researched the other parts later as necessary. I think you have to go through it and fix failures to realize how difficult it can be to do right. You are getting into millwright skills, the practical side of mechanical engineering.

Yes, it's been a long journey so far and I've only begun it. I could design and build simple things like the sawmill myself, more complex equipment only after an engineer had designed and calculated the critical parts. jsw

The engineer friend who helped me build the "Mark 1/2" rod-mill and wants to help me with the "Mark 1" built a magnificent sawmill at a place near where I was then living. Saw it before I got to know him. Commercial setup - place logs on an get planks out. So in that regard I am fortunate.

The engineer friend who helped me build the "Mark 1/2" rod-mill and wants to help me with the "Mark 1" built a magnificent sawmill at a place near where I was then living. Saw it before I got to know him. Commercial setup - place logs on an get planks out. So in that regard I am fortunate.

------------------- You are fortunate, my knowledge of Statics is slim, and of Dynamics negligible.

My sawmill was meant to get the best quality oak boards or beams obtainable from less than perfect trees, so it's very slow to operate since I may have to hoist, rotate and inspect the squared "cant" between cuts, then reposition and level or tilt it on the supports.

The overhead gantry crossing the saw bed at its center has been a good way to move logs on and cut lumber off the bed, and to hoist and rotate with a rope sling suspended by a snatch block pulley. A peavey or long pipe clamp will rotate smaller logs, a second chainfall hoist pulling a rope wound around the cant will turn the heaviest.

I think the gantry is an acceptable alternative to a forklift or bucket loader if you don't have one or the large maneuvering space they require with logs. I can lift over four times as much weight with my tripods and gantry as the neighbor's bucket loader, but he moves logs within its limit much faster.