My first E-Wheel!

Well, I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures on here. I started building an english wheel for myself a couple of weeks ago and here are some pictures of the adjuster I built and parts of the frame. I'm a lot further along than these pictures show, but I don't have any more recent ones-I'll try to take some tomorrow. I'm almost finished- I'm waiting on the top wheel and anvils to arrive from Hoosier Pattern right now- but I'll snap some shots tommorow before I leave the shop for the day; and I'll try to post them tomorrow night.

The adjuster is based on Kerry Pinkerton's (Imperial Wheeling Machines ) design- I think he makes the best E-wheels around and he's been an BIG help and an enormous source of inspiration for me! The telescoping inner tube is 3" square with 1/4" UHMW Plastic Gibs on all 4 sides and 'floating' 1/4" steel plates outside them- these plates disperse the pressure of the adjusting screws on 2 sides of the outer sleeve and the plastic gibs serve as a self-lubricating surface for the inner tube. The outside sleeve is also made of 1/4" plate.

Right now I'm just using regular 1" all-threaded rod but I'm planing to switch to acme threaded rod because I'm figuring out a way to use the same frame and adjuster for a planishing hammer. I'm working on a way to switch between the e-wheel and a planishing hammer in a matter of 1-2 minutes.

Instead of a "Lead Screw" I welded a bearing plate to the bottom of the telescoping inner tube and turned one end of the threaded rod down (on a lathe) to 3/4" to fit inside the collar on the bearing plate. This makes for a really smooth 'action' when turning the adjuster wheel.

The top plate (which doesn't yet have the side plates installed for the anvils) on the adjuster can be lifted off the 4 posts (2 of which are threaded) and turned 90 degrees so that I'll be able to work from either the side of the frame OR the front depending on what I'm working with. The top wheel will, of course, have the same ability.

I'm using 2" X 6" rectangular tubing with 1/4" wall and I'm Tig welding it together. I'm still learing Tig so I couldn't help but include a shot of one of my 'root' passes with the Tig torch- mostly as a future reminder of what my early Tig welds looked like, LOL. CONSTRUCTIVE criticism welcome, LOL

Nick

[jlrussell4]

Hi Nick,

Looking real nice! Don't know why you would want to change to acme threads though. You will get much better "feel" with the standard thread as it doesn't move the wheel as quickly as the acme thread does.
Nice job though, I just had to include my 2 cents on the thread - ignore if you want

Jim

[GTmike400]

Nice job. Very nice welds too, you have quite a few welders in the background.

Thanks for the kind words fellas! It's encouraging to hear- especially since I'm really new to the world of welding and metal working- I'm just getting started.

Jim-

The only reason I was thinking about switching to Acme threading was that I'm trying to figure out a way to use my adjuster for double duty- for the E-wheel AND as an adjuster for a planishing hammer set-up. I was afraid that the standard threading wouldn't take the abuse from a planishing hammer set-up. But I'm not going to switch it until, and IF, it breaks! It'd be easy enough to switch, but I figure I'll save my money for something else UNTIL it breaks.

Thanks for the advice!

Nick

Here are some pictures from today- as you can see I'm a little farther along now! I'm waiting for the anvils and upper wheel to arrive (hopefully Monday or Tuesday!) so that I can do some final fabricating and aligning- I'm dying to give it a try!

[ralph]

Nick,
The more I see our wheel the better I like it. It looks like you could swap the adjuster/anvil mounts without a lot of hassle and I like the pin and stud mounts for rotating the wheels 90 deg. Good Job!