"Irish" English Wheel or Wheeling Machine?

[Dcal]

I've made 3 over the years, only for small pieces but the principle is the same. The first was using a frame from an old tyre vulcanizer (bought for £1 at a Beaulieu auction) that used old forklift truck wheels. It worked well but was very heavy and not used much so sold off.
Recently made one using a G clamp and a few shaped bearings and another that uses the drill press. I've
had success with mine but only for small pieces View attachment 218808 View attachment 218809 View attachment 218810
The underlying principle seems to be to make things so tough and heavy to prevent flexing in the frame that the machine ends up massive and takes up loads space. I did come across this on the net an idea that answers this problem and seems to be a very good solution. This uses a cheap ready made frame and rollers wedged between the roof and floor of his workshop.

That's a brilliant bit of lateral thinking @truckdoctor
Love the way you just knock up a wheel to suit what your doing.

I take your point on the amount of room a wheel can take up.
I'm thinking of bolting legs / channel for a pallet truck to to the frame so I can move mine about and as it's steel it would be easy to weld on a couple of hinges to bolt it to a wall so it would only take up 200mm when not in us (unbolt the legs first) but where do I find a bit of unused wall?

 

[Dcal]

I've started making one. This is out of 100x100×6 SHS
View attachment 218772 View attachment 218773 View attachment 218775 View attachment 218776 View attachment 218777

I'm going to make my own anvils and quick release mechanism.
Got a nice lump of bright bar for the top wheel 150mm diameter.
View attachment 218778

@Fazerruss that looks like a very nice build, are you any further on with it?

I'd be really interested in seeing how you get on making your top wheel and anvils.
I'm thinking of trying to make anvils, I've steel tie bar that I think will do.
I've only a Boxford so don't think I can machine a 200mm x 100mm wheel in it, even though I'd like to try.
It has the swing but the cross slide won't fit under it so I would have a massive stick out on the tool, but someone might know a workaround.
I've 8" pipe so I could fabricate a top wheel, but in all honesty it's probably beyond me to machine it.
Most of the fun's in the trying.

 

[Fazerruss]

@Fazerruss that looks like a very nice build, are you any further on with it?

I'd be really interested in seeing how you get on making your top wheel and anvils.
I'm thinking of trying to make anvils, I've steel tie bar that I think will do.
I've only a Boxford so don't think I can machine a 200mm x 100mm wheel in it, even though I'd like to try.
It has the swing but the cross slide won't fit under it so I would have a massive stick out on the tool, but someone might know a workaround.
I've 8" pipe so I could fabricate a top wheel, but in all honesty it's probably beyond me to machine it.
Most of the fun's in the trying.

It's been on the back burner for a while until I got my Colchester up and running to turn the the wheel. At 150 mm diameter it's too big for the Myford so I bought an eight inch 4 jaw. I'm now on with machining the D1-3 back plate to suit.



And I've got some old hydraulic rams behind the Myford ideal for the anvils.

 

[Dcal]

@Fazerruss please keep the updates coming when you get back to it, I know there's always something else that needs doing.

I've started on the frame.
I don't have a welding table so I just used a sheet of ply on a couple of trestles.
Started on the section that holds the bottom anvil.
I decided this should taper for the 200 x 150 to 100 x100

This meant taking a couple of wedges out of all 4 sides of the box and welding it back together again.
Used the plasma for the cuts.
I did it in two stages, I cut and welded the 200 side and then the 150 side as I thought it might give me abetter chance of keeping it square.





Beveled the edges with the grinder and tried my hand at open root tig.

It wasn't entirely successful, because I didn't v it out enough and the welder didn't seem to have enough power. I have a Jasic 200P and was running it flat out.
I filled the welds out with stick and then split and welded it the other way to get both sides tapering.

 

[Dcal]

Continuing on with cutting and welding the frame.
I've made this a lot harder than it need to be and I've discovered my imagination is better developed than my fabrication skills.
I was going to use my big power hacksaw to cut these sections but I broke yet another blade so gave up and got the 9 inch grinder out.

Thought I'd try stick for some of the joints to see if I could get my eye in.
A couple of the joints will need to be welded in position and thought I had a better chance with stick so need to practice. It's all well and good on the bench it's another thing upside down in position but we have to start somewhere.

These bits are bad enough for me but I've decided it'd not hard enough and that the arch needs to taper down to the top wheel from the third segment (both ways) so I have to split and weld all 4 side of each section of box.

I'm grinding the welds off the sides so it will lay flat on the bench, don't know if I should grind them all or leave some.
My welds aren't consistent enough so will probably annoy me so my instincts are to grind them all down.

 

[Dcal]

Working my way through the segments.
I'm stepping them down roughly (because that's as close as I can get) 25mm on the long side and 12.5mm on the short side.
So for easy counting in inches, going from 8" x 6" to 7" x 5.5" to 6" x 5" to 5" x 4.5" to 4" x 4".

Next problem I have is I've run out of 200 x 150 box.
I knew this would happen when I decided to make a full size wheel, but I do have some 100 x 100 x 10mm box and I can weld in a wedges to make the remaining 3 segments.
This means even more cutting, grinding and welding.

Cut the box oversized and split it long ways with the plasma.
I hope you like the no expense spared water table.

Plasma started playing up so I changed the consumables.

I then used one of the earlier off-cuts to make a wedge.

I got a roll of 1mm wire for the Rtec so I'm having a go with mig.
I ran a bead on the inside which wasn't easy to access as it's only 80mm wide.

and then back grind from the front to get a good weld.

Ran a weld with 2.5mm 7018 to try and put in as good a root as I'm capable of

And finished it off with my first attempts at spray transfer. (Never had a mig capable of it before the Rtech)

I have a 36 mig torch but no 1mm tips for it so had to use a 25 series torch.
I ran the Rtec almost flat out and it worked surprisingly well, I thought, but every now and again I would get a lump of porosity.
Anyone know why?
Always seems to be at the end of a run and the torch is certainly getting it tight.

With that done I split it the other way - plasma is cutting better with the new tip.

Ground the rubbish welds on the inside and ran a bead over the top in 4mm 7018 .

 

[Burdekin]

She’s going to be lovely and stiff. Keep up the good work.

 

[Tom O]

Well I couldn’t get my old 1990 computer to download the pics so here are some pics I took with my phone.

Both the upper and lower was adjustable for operator height.

The quick release was a piece of round with a flat on it to lower the anvil letting you fit the part and return to the same settings.

This is the smaller size we did there is a 18 inch crank on the rear.

This is a kit we sold.

 

[Dcal]

She’s going to be lovely and stiff. Keep up the good work.

Should be pretty stiff Burdekin,
I wonder how stiff it needs to be?
The Americans seem to like hugely strong wheels, but at the end of the day it's still a hand tool. How much pressure can you apply and still be able to push /pull the metal you are shaping?
You certainly don't want it to flip flop sideways but I look at it and know I haven't the strength to move this no matter how hard I try.

There was a fair amount of flex in Geoff's wheels at MPH and he did not want or need high pressure and work he does is second to none.
During the course he told us to be careful as if you cranked the pressure up and pulled the metal out the anvils would come together with enough force to damage them.
My gut instinct is there should be a bit of spring in it but I know nothing and will have to wait until it's finished before I find out if my instincts are correct.

@Tom O thanks for sharing the photos of your work, they look fantastic and nice workshop.
Are you still making and selling the kits / wheels?
How did they preform?
Did you post on any of the other forums on your build or other work?

Also do you mind if I steal your quick release idea?
I haven't anything like your machining skills or capability so I will probably fabricate the adjusters to Kerry's design, but I could manage your quick release.

On my frame I've finished all but the last of the segments.
I'm leaving that one because I'm not sure what way I'm mounting the top wheel or even if I'm making it adjustable now.

I do like @Tom O idea of having both the top and bottom adjustable but is there any need?
The great thing about fabricating this is it easy to change / modify at a later date. (I've got a 9" grinder.)

I'll get the frame assembled and leave the bottom strut and top connections as I can tweak the height and throat depth easily by changing the angles.
I also need to sort out a top wheel and anvils and then stew on it for a while.
Once I get it upright I'll see what level suits me best to work at.

I left the segments long so I could miter them to size but that meant, working out where the miter needed to be and the amount of taper required was tricky for me, but I think I ended up with a fair approximation.

The fit up is terrible.
The 200 x 150 joints were bad enough but with nothing being square this is truly awful.
Also instead of fitting backing strips, I tacked it up and filled the huge gaps with the mig. This was because I need to align everything in two plains and it's frankly beyond me and I'm starting to take shortcuts.
The mig stopped feeding half way through and it turns out I'm out of wire! The Rtech only takes 5kg rolls and I'd used a full roll of 1mm in a couple of evenings. I was surprised how quickly I went through it but it's certainly far quicker at laying metal down than with stick or tig, especially in spray.
I went back to 0.8mm wire and finished gluing it together

With it together I took it outside (nice day here yesterday) ground out most of the crappy mig out and stick welded it up.

Using arc meant it took a lot longer than the mig, but needs must and I'm happier with stick, although no great shakes at it.
I can lay down a simple bead, but have huge respect for welders (always have) that can work consistently all day every day and leave really tidy work.
Knowing how hard it is to work to that level gives you an understanding that most people don't have. They just think it happens and can't see the difference between OK and excellent work.
I need to spend lots of time with a big grinder to leave my work anything like tidy.

Spent a fair bit of time filling the scars and undercuts but it's starting to take shape.

 

[Dcal]

Getting near an end to the welding and grinding on the main frame.
Where the joints lined up, it's pretty straight forward to fettle.

Where it doesn't, less so and I had to apply some filler to smooth out the steps and misalignments.

After sanding the filler and applying some stopper it will do

No doubt I'll tidy it some more before painting, but at least there will be less to do.

To join the two main sections together, I made a couple of feet to keep it steady and welded in backing strips to the bottom section.

Then marry up the two sections, prop and weld a couple of tacks until I can see how it all lines up. Good job juniors a big fella, the top section is bloody heavy

It's starting to look like something, not sure what, but I like it.

 

[eddie49]

I also need to sort out a top wheel and anvils and then stew on it for a while

I have a large non-folding Epco engine crane. The two legs have huge solid wheels at the ends, I always considered they would make a good top wheel for a wheeling machine....

 

[Tom O]

Those pics are from when I threw in with another guy a long time ago he wanted to give them the look of being cast but are made out of plate. The anvils were cut on a Harrison lathe with a hydraulic tracer on it.
We had a old guy come in from another shop that needed a roof for a 32 and he was quite impressed with our wheel the only thing he could suggest was using 8 tpi thread rather than 4 tpi.
I don’t know who came up with that quick release so go ahead and use it, you will need a Keyway/grub screw or similar to keep the anvil holder in position.

 

[Dcal]

Fair bit more work done on this but not much to show for it.
The main two sections of the frame welded up.
I used a plumb bob to keep an eye on movement during welding but in all honesty it didn't move much.
Fit up was a couple of mm off so I welded the wide side expecting it to pull, it did, but nothing to worrying about.
Used a porta power to position and support it until it was tacked up.

Lower anvil support arm was next.
I messed up a bit on it, because I didn't take into account the miter cut when working out the taper so it didn't fit at all well.
The end of this member should have been 200 x 150 on the miter but i made it 200 x 150 on the square.
Because of the miter it ended up being slightly smaller more so on the 200mm sides.

I lined up the top as best I could which meant the bottom was a mess

Still it's only welding and I like welding.
I put a backing plate in

And filled it up with 7018s
Took my time to stop the joint overheating.

A tidy up with the grinder and it doesn't look too shabby

And back up on her feet again.

Anvils ordered from Justin Baker so I can finalise how the adjuster and top anvil mount are going to work.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Looking very good Damian, very fortunate "find" 3m length of scrap, Cant get a better price anywhere, Looking forward to seeing it in action,

 

[Wallace]

That does look the rovers gonads, very scorpion like too.

 

[Morris]

Good work there. Looking forward to seeing the finished item.

 

[Dcal]

Thanks all for the feed back and encouragement.

If I just followed an existing design It would have been all done and dusted but where the fun in that.
Every thing takes longer when you spend most of your time scratching your head and thinking how to make stuff end up the way you saw it in you head but that's the fun part for me.

Anvils have arrived and working on the adjuster so should have another update tonight.
Believe it or not I'm waiting on 6mm countersink setscrews which is holding me up but I've plenty to be getting on with.

 

[Dcal]

This is where I've got to with the lower anvil adjuster.

There's a lot of talk on the bodywork forums as to whether an lower or upper (or both) adjuster is better.
Both of Geoff's wheels at MPH, where I did the course, were lower so that's good enough for me.

The adjuster is my take on an idea from Kerry Pinkerton on the All Metal Shaping Forum, but as always based on what materials and tools I have kicking about.

The frame is 100mm x 10mm box, the "quill" for want of a better words is 50mm box and the thrust pads or "gibs" are steel backed Polyethylene.
I've drilled and tapped the 100 box to take 8mm grub screws to adjust the gibs against the quill.
The polyethylene is from a lump of fender facing strip that was damaged and I liberated a piece instead of throwing in a skip.

it's 400mm wide and 70mm thick so a bit of work to get it to size.
You can cut it with wood working tools (even hand saws) but it's hard work
I used a 9 inch rip saw with progressively deeper cuts to get most of the way until the saw maxed out and finished it off with a hand saw.

I cut the 100m box to size with the band saw.
There is a dirty great weld from when the box was formed along the center line of one side which I had to remove for the adjuster to work.

I tried an air chisel but it barley marked it, do I had to resort to grinding and cutting discs in die grinders.
Ive a long die grinder that was able to get me more than halfway through so I could grind it all.

The outer box is 100 x 10 box, the quill is 50 so I have 30mm for the thrust pads or 15mm each side.
I cut some 5mm plate for backing strips with a grinder
Then cut the plastic to 12mm odd thick strips for the facings.
There are two wide and two narrow to keep them in place in the adjuster without the need for additional fixings.
Then drilled and tapped the steel and drilled and countersunk the plastics.

The intention was to stick the the plastic to the steel (letting the glue take out the lumps and bumps) and then flatten the front face off with a electric planer or even a hand plane, but I remembered I had bought a small Shaper that has been laying in a corner for a couple of years.
I dragged it out to see if it worked and after putting an inverter on the 3 phase motor and making a belt out of a couple of old link belts I had kicking around, it worked.
Because I could and to practice with the Shaper (never used one before) I decided to level the rear of the plastics before gluing.

This left the plastic remarkably smooth so I grit blasted to roughen it up again before gluing with polyurethane glue. (Epoxy would have been better but I have more polyurethane and with the screws it would be fine for the application.

Still waiting for the countersunk screws to arrive so used standard hex heads for now.

I let the glue cure then leveled the front faces.
In the middle of all this, the post arrived with the screws so I was able to finish them off with the correct screws installed.

The shaping worked but it now left a dull finish with tiny tracks.
I tried a few things that didn't work but when I polished the cutter with a bit of 600 in a 2inch sander, the finish improved markedly.

So I now have most of the bits for the adjuster, just need the adjusting screw and nut, a holder for the anvils and a quick release if I decide to make one.

 

[Dcal]

I made the remaining bits of the adjuster yesterday.

For the screw I'm using 20mm threadbar.
I should just drill and tap the bottom plate but I don't have a 20mm tap and my lathe is imperial (and I'm hopeless at cutting threads on the lathe anyway) but I do have a lathe and a 20mm coupler.

So I screwed the coupler into the threadbar and put the other end in the tail stock to center the thread and cut a shoulder.
Then faced and drilled the base plate to suit the shoulder.

Then welded them together in the lathe.

The holder for the lower anvils I made from some of the heavy 100 box, roughly cut and shaped with the plasma and grinder. This is probably a prototype, I might change it later, but will do to get me started.

I also plasmaed and fettled a cover plate for the top of the main box section to retain the thrust blocks, then drilled and tapped to fix it in place.
That's all the bits, well enough to see if it works.

I have some thrust bearings ordered for the adjuster screw but they haven't arrived so I bodged up the connection from the adjuster screw to the "quill" to try it out.
When the bearings arrive I'll make a better job of it.

It all seems to work as intended, which is nice.
I need to decide how much travel I want, but won't finalise that until it's fully built into the frame.

Thanks for staying with it so far, probably more detail than most of you want or need.

 

[Dcal]

Tonight's efforts was concentrated on the mounting for the top anvil.

The inner races in the bearings for the top anvil are 25mm.
I was thinking of using a 16 or 20mm bolt and making a sleeve to take up the difference.
However during my search for a suitable bolt, I discovered this special.

I don't know what it is, where it came form or why I kept it, but I'm glad I did.
Only markings it is 8.8 on the back of the square.
Anyway it has a M24 thread and plenty of meat to turn down to 25mm.

Also made a washer that was a reasonable fit on the shaft but doesn't catch the seals.
Put the big anvil on it and it spins away nicely. Note this isn't the washer I made, just a M24 one that showed me I needed to make a better one.

I leveled up the frame and started to check heights and setup.

I need to increase the throat by two or three inches to get everything to line up but I'm pleased with how it's turning out.