OT a little belated B-day gift

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2012: OT a little belated B-day gift
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By jack daron-Brownsburg,In. on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 11:28 pm:

For my B-day(Sept 5) my wife and kids gave me a 40 foot Windmill. It is a U.S. Wind Engine&Pump Company,model F. It is missing a few parts,but otherwise complete. Now if this 70 year old man can get it restored and erected,that will be nice.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ricks - Surf City on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 12:08 am:

Hurry, it works best in election year with all the hot air blowing. :-)

Congrats. There used to be an original on our street, but the neighbor gave it away to the city without me knowing.

You gonna' pump water, or hook up an alternator to it?

rdr


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Hal Schedler, Sacramento on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 01:14 am:

Pictures...It sounds interesting


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 01:15 am:

I'm not going to make the first joke about getting it erected. I will NOT. I will not. Well, maybe I will. Nah, I will not.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Craig Anderson, central Wisconsin on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 02:15 am:

If you don't Stan I will........


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Evan Mason on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 02:23 am:

Yea Stan,

Suppose that you were going to suggest a couple Viagra tablets down the ole draw pipe! Trouble is that it might only stay erected for 4 hours.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Cascisa - Poulsbo, Washington on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 02:45 am:

Uncle Jack,

Happy Birthday :-) May it rise to fair winds !!

Be_Zero_Be


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By jack daron-Brownsburg,In. on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 09:10 am:

I may have to enlist and army to get the darn thing up,it is ten foot square at bottom and has an 8 foot fan. First I have to sand blast and paint it.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Robert G. Hester Jr., Riverview, FL on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 09:43 am:

Hey, Uncle Jack. Watch the movie, "The Good Old Boys." That'll show you how to stand a wind mill up. You'll need a few men and a few horses or maybe a couple tractors.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John P. Steele, Montana on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 11:05 am:

Happy Birthday Jack!!!!!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By jack daron-Brownsburg,In. on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 02:29 pm:

Thanks for the B-day wishes.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Wayne Sheldon, Grass Valley, CA on Saturday, September 08, 2012 - 02:45 pm:

Happy birthday, Jack. If you were closer to me, I might even offer to help with it. I used to put up communication towers and still have the belt and gym pole. A wind mill could be fun.
Drive carefully, and enjoy, W2


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By mike bartlett Oviedo,Fl on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 12:36 pm:

How about a picture this Friday,when it's up and running. Happy Birthday and many more


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Keith Gumbinger, Kenosha, WI on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 12:55 pm:

Jack - Happy Birthday!

Stan - You're all heart, and a real gentleman for not bringing that sensitive topic up (pun intended). :-)

Keith


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roar Sand on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 05:19 pm:

Happy Birthday, Jack, and congratulations on your windpump.
This place, that we bought late last fall, came with one, but it needs a lot of work.
The tower is about 35 feet tall to the center of the 8 foot wheel. It is supposed to have 18 sails in it , but seven are missing and some of the rest have been used for target practice. The gearbox says "AERMOTOR CHICAGO" on it. The handpump is missing and the casing is cracked near the top. Pumprod is rotted away.
There is standing water in it, so that means the drain is plugged. These things are supposed to automatically drain down to below frost level when they are not working, I was told.
We had a seasoned well guy look at it to get an estimate of what it would cost to get it operational again. Not cheap, but we hope he'll get to it this fall. He said they'll lay it down to work on it. It will be interesting to see how they do that and get it back up again (no Viagra jokes, please!).
Roar


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By jack daron-Brownsburg,In. on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 05:29 pm:

Roar,I would like to see some pictures of your pump. Aermoters are the most common ones and new parts are available for them.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 05:48 pm:

As you may or may not recall, I was in the water well drilling business for several years with a partner in Billings, Montana. We had three drilling rigs and all the water trucks and pipe trucks, service trucks etc., that went with it. Was a good business for awhile, why we eventually sold it is a story of banks, women, money, women, alcohol, women, drought, women, etc.

Fortunately, the guy I owned it with and I are still good friends, he quit drinking and finally stayed with one woman for awhile so we quit having to pay off the latest one and came out of several years of the water business only a couple hundred thousand in the hole. Considering how much we took out of it when business was good it all worked out.

One of the best parts of the business was that we were the Aermotor dealers for all of eastern Montana and sold and serviced windmills all over Montana and northern Wyoming. There were then still thousands of Aermotors pumping and they all needed service, repair, parts, etc. We had one guy who pretty much did nothing else. They need to be oiled at least once a year, they have plain bearings in them and tend to dry out and squeal and over a hundred years or so the gears will wear out. The biggest one we ever serviced had a 16 foot fan on a 75 foot tower and was pulling water from about 400 feet, most of them were 8 or 10 foot fans pulling water less than 100 feet.

When we had an auction and sold it all we had three new ones in stock as well as a lot of parts. One of the new ones was a 60 foot tower with a 12 foot fan and series two head -- the newer style with the ball bearings in it instead of the plain type. It was up on a well in a couple weeks and I see it once in awhile when I go down that road. We had been going to put it up as a sign for the business. Didn't happen.

About 45 years ago, my stepdad and I put up 5 new windmills on his ranch, he went to Fairbury, Nebraska and bought the heads, we built the towers out of 4 x 4's and set them up. He was only pulling water 25-35 feet so it didn't take too big a fan or too tall a tower out in flat country.

If I remember right, Aermotor only ever built two designs for heads, all the parts are still available including the blades for the fan, the head parts, gears, etc. They are built in Brazil and are still a big company.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By michael grady on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 05:58 pm:

hey Stan...do you still know a good bit about well drilling?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By grady l puryear on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 06:18 pm:

When I was young, working on ranches and at home, windmill repair was part of life. I think the worst part of it was taking the big cap off and find out it was full of yellow jackets or red wasps, and there you are 30' of more up in the air, hanging on with one hand at most, and nothing to do but take it and climb down as best you could. We pulled the pipe, rods and cylinders with a horse, most times a saddle horse with a lariat rope on the horn, an old horse can pull pretty hard if encouraged a bit. You did this every Spring, pulled the cylinder and replaced the cylinder leathers, checked the oil, and in general gave it a bit of a tune up for the coming year. Not what we thought of as Cowboying, but part of the job, and you were hired to work. Aermotor is the old standby, you can't go wrong with one, but if yours has a broken casting, you need to find someone that really knows cast iron. Parts are easy to come by, Aermotor is still in business, I buy parts all the time, they are on the Internet, just be sure you go to Aermotor. I honestly do not know how we did the work that we did on one without tools or heat (cutting torch) but we did, just "get a bigger hammer", and that is the truth, lots of the parts were shrunk fit. Getting one up and down gets easier as you do more of them, I would strongly suggest someone with a winch truck with gin poles to set it for you, they need to be level, and you don't want to drop one. I have set the legs on a cedar post, or on pipe or 4" angle that was cemented into the ground, depends on what you have and the prevailing winds, but I would suggest setting it on angle iron or pipe set in concrete, that way you are done with it. I still have a couple on my place that are working mills, they pump 24/7 and furnish water, I love to hear one run. I will go to my grave hearing one just before it quits turning, it will give a last "squawk" like an old hen just before it stops, that is the brake, lots of nostalgia there. A complete mill used to be fairly cheap, I have had them given to me, some I got for less than a $100 but those days are gone forever, Enjoy your mill, if you intend to ever get up there on the platform, have one made of steel, I have known several men crippled by the wooden one giving way, not worth it.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By George_Cherry Hill NJ on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 06:25 pm:

Stan and Jack,

There is this 'new' technology out of central China that the manufacturer is selling like hotcakes to the Chinese farmers and town governments!

Has a steel erector set frame, lot's of galvanized curved pieces that look like oversized jumbo T rear wheel shims, permanently sealed bearing gear head at the top or plain babbit on his little model...

Calls himself Iron Man Wind Mill and is an American ex-pat. I make all of his castings and he must be planning on many units as he just ordered metal pattern moulds for every part to run on the automatic pressurized drag and cope forming units, no more floor casting for him with wood patterns...and that surely 'ain't' cheap to do.

I'll have to ask him when I see him which USA 'old' model he mimics...:-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Stan Howe Helena, Montana on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 - 11:50 pm:

Michael, I'm not sure I ever did know much about water well drilling. I had a bunch (for me) of money invested and did some of the background work but didn't spend much time on the rigs. We drilled several hundred monitoring wells in the Colstrip development and did a series of cathodic protection "set holes" for Montana Power and some other pipelines; I was pretty involved in the bidding on those and contract negotiation, etc., but never did like being wet and cold and had too much oil field drilling time to think I wouldn't be wet and cold if I stayed around the rigs very long.

Cathodic protection is a system the pipeline companies use to keep steel pipe from corroding, especially in certain soils. Every few miles they drill "set holes" and drop copper rods down in them; surround them with granulated carbon and connect the wires from those to the pipe. This somehow stops the electrolysis that ruins the pipe. We did a bunch of them. They had semi loads of carbon in bags that they dumped down the holes we drilled. It is all underground, covered over and just has a marker above it to tell them where it is.

Grady, I just sold a 30 foot tower to a guy who is putting a mill up in his yard for an ornament. That is pretty common here. I was always going to put it up but I don't need the water since I have two creeks through my place that run all year and I want one that really pumps water, not just an ornament. I like to hear them run and like the sound of the sucker rod puling and creaking. I also like that ice cold surface water coming out of the cast iron pump head. Has a different flavor than the water that comes out of the faucet, doesn't it?

Old western saying: He's a lover, a fighter, a wild bull rider and a hell of a windmill man.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Roar Sand on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - 11:38 am:

Jack,
That would mean I have to figure out how to post a picture. I have done it successfully before, but it has been a while, and if I don't do it fairly regularly, I forget.
I'll see what I can do.
Alternatively, send me a PM with your e-mail.
I'll see what pictures I have, but I can walk down there and take more.
Roar


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