Today I did take off of work so that I could get something done on the clock. The day started with some basic tool maintenance such as cleaning, sharpening and reshaping. Then I turned my attention to the crown wheel. After looking at things I decided that the best thing to work on was the small gear that is on the same arbor as the Crown Wheel. This gear contacts the main drive gear. The reason I decided that I should work on this piece is that the width of this gear directly impacts the placement of the crown wheel.
I needed this gear to be a little thicker, around 3/4" thick. Unfortunately I did have the right sized stock for it. So I started by folding a piece of stock to the correct thickness and welding this together.
After that, a hole was punched, drifted a little larger round and then drifted square to match the arbor.
Next, I marked a rough circle to cut away some of the waste.
This shows the piece close to a circle shape. The tool to the right is a hold down tool that held the piece stable while I was cutting it. 
Finally the piece on the arbor to show its placement. I used the old crown wheel to show how they relate.
I will hold off shaping too much of the small gear. Since it directly relies on the size of the drive gear I will not make it into a circle or cut the gears until the main wheel is done. It doesn't make sense to put a lot of work into something that may need to change anyways.
I did some test filing and there was no evidence of the welding. If the welding had been done improperly, there would have been a seam line that could have potentially failed.
I would have gotten more done but a typical Florida summer storm came along in the afternoon and cut the day short. It felt really good to work on the clock again.
1 comment:
Yayy!
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