"The Wizard" turning one of the 43" Leffel "F" Francis runners in the rebuilt Niles Boring Machine. We finally established an age on this machine tool. It left Hamilton, Ohio on April 17th, 1871. Can you imagine anything coming out of China today being used productively after 139 years. This wonderful, old machine tool has given us the capacity to rapidly rehabilitate our Indian River HEP. With a 10 foot swing, it is one of the few machines of its capacity left in the northeast today!!! I barely saved it from the cast iron maggots!! I adore this machine. After 18 months of rebuilding and $30,000 it is like one of my children!!!! You can see our 900 KW GE/ I.P. Morris T/G set in the background. Peter and Davis were concerned that the metal chips would fly into our generator. At 92 rpm, the chips lazily fall on to the giant chuck!!!! Of course, this machine would be useless without Warren, our "Wizard". Warren spans the world of computer aided machining and hand machines. He can program a CNC planer as easily as running a 139 year old boring mill!! I am so proud of him!!! http://frenchriverland.com/rebuilding_120_niles_boring_mill.htm
Hi , I came across your website of your project a while back, my nephew had found it and sent the link to me. Quite an undertaking you have there. I've always been interested in hydropower and am friends with Bill Munch who I see you are also aquainted with. Anyway good to see your machinery here. Steve
Hey Guys: Thanks for the great comments!!!!! So far we have machined two hydraulic turbine runners, two throat rings, two shift rings and two crown covers for our Indian River Hydraulic turbines. The "VTL" lol started making noises. We pulled up the turn table and found the threaded rod tensioning bolts that hold the giant upper cast iron bearing in place had backed out and fallen down into the drip pan. We had to wade through all that heavy grease to find them. We cleaned up the threads, reinstalled them with Locktite, lowered the table back down and went back into action!!! How did you like the way we re-installed the runners on the turbine shaft? I new how to do the first one with the runner stub being pressed flush with the end. It was my wonderful friends who suggested putting the I-beams across the top of the dumpster to allow room for the other end of the shaft to go down through the runner and stick out into the bottom of the dumpster!!! They are great guys!!! I am off today to do snow removal operations. If I have any extra time, I will try to get the runners and shaft back into the pressure casing.