Thanks Chris,
I appreciate your response as well as the information. It appears as though the community is growing beyond trailer axles and crashing blades against towers, although I have enjoyed the pictures and the sense of camaraderie evidenced by same over the years. Your pictures are great, but for many of us, putting it all together needs to begin somewhere. I am not a mechanical engineer, but an applied math grad of Madison, with some machining under my belt as well as a complete machine shop. I can hold my own. Thus, it seemed like a good starting point to place some basic plans out, have others build off of them, see what modifications need to be made and grow as a community. Probably naive. I greatly appreciate what you share, understand the learning curve we all go through and I will go through.
Forums are great, enjoyable, but they seem to drift off topic and become enjoyably anecdotal. It might be an interesting idea to have a base off of which to build wherein various contributor state, "I have used these bearings and they are great, or they fail in this application." You are taking this endeavor to a new level with great engineering, machining, and fabrication skills.
There are so many mistakes to make, I am grateful you have shared your efforts to reduce ours. Thanks also for the clarification on the main shaft including length. Looking at the pictures, it appeared as though it had been ground, and I was wondering whether or not it was heat treated in a vacuum furnace so as to avoid this issue.
I don't have a crankshaft grinder, now I have a hint of what a tool post grinder might be used for on my lathe.
Again, looking at your pictures and the hints in the kind reply to my quesitons, I assume the bearings being dual races self align to correct for any issues in bearing alignment.
Thanks again, I look forward to your posts.
Dennis
