How to use lathe back gears

[Greg_Lewis]

This 15-second video is a very complete tutorial on using lathe back gears :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHWtY0a ... e=youtu.be

[Bill Shields]

Need a bigger lathe at Thanksgiving

[Harold_V]

Thanks, Gregg.
I can attest---back gear is an extremely valuable feature to have. Mine serves duty to grind wheat for whole wheat bread. Takes the effort right out of gringing 8 cups of wheat and yields excellent bread (if you like coarse bread, that is, and I do!).

H

[Bill Shields]

Cant you then put the wheat on the surface grinder to create a fiber powder?

[GlennW]

I have a very large flour mill near my shop. I asked the guy that ran it if they still grind the wheat, and he said "no, we mill it". I guess I need to go check it out some day and see what they do!

There was also a coal fired steam power plant next door that I was invited to go see and didn't get there. It has recently been torn down.

[Harold_V]

Cant you then put the wheat on the surface grinder to create a fiber powder?

Not on mine. It isn't operational. Otherwise-----who knows?

H

[Harold_V]

Glenn,
Story of my life!
When I was born my folks lived in West Jordan, Utah. There was an operational steam powered sugar mill there, which had been in operation for eons. This mill processed sugar beets, which was a common crop those days in the Salt Lake Valley (much of Northern Utah and Southern Idaho, in fact). High school kids were hired to top the beets when it was harvest time. The high school I attended (Jordan High) was known as the Beetdiggers.

Fast forward to the early 60's when a friend worked there during the harvest season. He described the operation to me so I had to take a look. Huge cells that cooked the shredded beets in preparation for extracting the sugar, but the thing that really caught my attention was the large Corliss steam engine that drove most of the plant via lineshaft. Imagine----a steam powered operation when steam was chiefly long gone.

My visit was during the nighttime hours, so it was too dark to get a decent picture. No hurry, says I. I'll get there eventually. The following year it was all gone. Only the building remained, which become nothing more than a storage facility (U&I Sugar Company).

Time has a way of marching on. I experienced something similar when I visited the Cardiff Mine in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It, too, was steam powered, but it was for the two steam engine powered generators that made the needed electricity that was fed to the mine. Blacksmith shop was still there, including all the tools. Too disinterested (I was a young teenager) to take pictures---then it was gone. Including the buildings.

H

[GlennW]

I didn't tell you the worst part...

The guy that ran the power plant was in my shop one day and told me they had a DoAll band saw that they never used, and I could have it if I came and got it out of their way. I was pretty busy at the time and missed that opportunity. Unfortunately, Florida Power & Light has a big plant just up the highway and they bought the steam plant just to shut it down.

The guy that was running the flour mill lived in my neighborhood. He was transferred somewhere else and I don't know the new guy.

Wheat and coal arrived by rail.

Now there is an ammunition manufacturer setting up a 30,000 ft facility, so I promise I won't miss that one.

There are supposedly some remains of a locomotive round house from the twenties, so I need to investigate that as well. The turn bridge over the canal is still operational.

'Kinda weird for a one traffic light town to have such diversity.

Work always seems to be in the way any more!

[Greg_Lewis]

What's sad about all this is that machinery probably went to scrap. I remember a machine shop near me that had been in business since the 1920s. There were remnants of the line shaft in the rafters. They shut down and had an auction and the 48-inch lathe went for $300 and the 2-head vertical boring mill that stood at least 15-feet tall with a 60-inch rotary table drew no bids on the first try and then sold for $140. Someone restoring steam locos could have used both of these. I'm positive the boring mill went to a scrapper.

[liveaboard]

In my village in Portugal, we have a fully functional wheat milling windmill. It was built quite late, in the 50's, rebuilt on the site of an older one.
At that time fuel was expensive, there was no mains electricity here, and labor was still by man and beast.

Until a few years ago, an old man looked after the mill who had been working there when it was still a commercial enterprise; he demonstrated the workings for tourists, and I saw him using it grinding corn into flour. He gave an explanation in Portuguese only, but he made himself understood.

The cap and axle can be turned to face the wind. The gears are handmade of wood. grain is crushed against a horizontal stone by a wheel like vertical stone rolling on it.
Today they've replaced the old man with a big video screen. really a shame, but I guess there was no one to replace him.

There are many of these structures standing around, but very few with an authentic original working mechanism.

windmill odeceixe.jpg (92.65 KiB) Viewed 2305 times

[NP317]

Quite iInteresting, both technically and historically.

I wonder what I will be replaced with?...
RussN

[Bill Shields]

doorstop in my case....