Bit the bullet on the Cyclone upgrade today

[Jack Diemer]

I recently found a deal on a Jet 14" impeller for not a lot of money on the classified board here, so I made the decision to finally upgrade my motor/blower from 1000 CFM to 1600 CFM.

Last week, I found an ok deal on one of those Leeson 5 hp motors. I went to the machine shop today to have a custom built arbor collar when I got some bad news. The 1st place I went to said, it will probably be around 4 hours labor, so your looking at $250 (and that was basically just a hub with set screws in it). I said thank you but, no thank you. The next place I went looked over the impeller and basically came up with the design below without me doing or saying anything. They are going to tread the arbor of the motor so a bolt can go into the arbor preventing the impeller from ever flying off.

The bad part is that its going to cost me $100. Realizing that there was easily a couple hours of labor involved (as well as a ton of skill), I figured I wouldn't want any less if I did the work, so I told the man we had a deal. Its a far cry from the $35-$60 I have heard that people paid in the past, but I have a lot of confidence this guy knows what he is doing.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Congrats on the impellor find! It sure looks like the design you posted will hold it on securly!

[Terry Hatfield]

Shouldda bought a arbor when you had the chance. :D

Looks to me like the collar/bolt should work fine. Nice drawing BTW.

t

[Jack Diemer]

I tried to get one from you, but it was too late when I tried, and that drawing is courtesy of Bill Pentz' website.

I'll give credit where credit is due.

[Terry Hatfield]

I'll give credit where credit is due.

Works for me.

When you figger you'll have it all together? Is there a clearance problem at all with the bigger blower. I remember it being a pretty tight spot.

I wish I could be there for the initial fire up. It's gonna be WAY better than the old blower.

t

[Jack Diemer]

Gosh, I don't know, If the final setup is too thick, I might have to run it through my new planer a couple times. :D

[Terry Hatfield]

Gosh, I don't know, If the final setup is too thick, I might have to run it through my new planer a couple times. :D


A blower will fit in a Dewally planer??? ;) :D

t

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Somebody's leg is being pulled here? :confused:

[Jack Diemer]

Somebody's leg is being pulled here? :confused:

Your right, anybody ever used a plane on MDF before????

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Whew....what a relief.....I thought that blower was going through that 13" Dewault planer.... :confused: :rolleyes: :D

[Dev Emch]

Jack...
Glad you found a solution. Couple of quick observations.

1). IF this motor is spinning at 1750 ish RPM, the balance issue may not be a problem at all. Even at 3600 RPM, you still not going to need to get worried. One solution is to do the following. Do you have a drill press? Fabricate as accurate an angle bracket as you can with webs to keep it ridid. BOLT this to the table of your drill press. On the vertical side, drill holes to mount the motor. Take a rod of steel and mount it in your drill press and bring this along side your motor spindle which should be sticking straight up right now. Allow the two to kiss. Using a flash light, do you see any gaps? Adjust the motor to eliminate these gaps. Rotate the motor by hand and keep doing this until you see no more gaps. Do the same with the rod in the press.

If you have access to a cheap dial indicator, that may work better. Check to see how the shaft rotates and tap the motor lightly with a brass hammer or dead blow until you can turn the motor shaft with very little runout. Also run the indicator down the spindle and check to see if you have any taper albeit the motor shaft is rather short.

Once done, tighten the bolts on your home made angle plate and mount the correct size drill bit for boring the pilot hole for your treaded hole. Set your depth. Running at the right speed and using some cutting oil or, please dont laugh, bacon greese, begin to drill the hole right up the center of your motor shaft. You should notice a tiny lathe center hole to help you align the center of your shaft. Also make sure to jam a block of wood into the cooling fan of the motor or attach a pair of vise grips with a shop rag on the upper part of the shaft and secure. You dont want the motor shaft rotating while your drilling. Drill down a bit and then pull out. Reoil and drill down a bit more. Keep clearing swarf as needed. When you reach depth, your done. Should be about 5 minutes of drilling.

Lower the drill press table and take out your tap and tap wrench. Using cutting oil, thread oil or bacon greese, continue tapping this hole. At this point, careful sighting down the tap on both X and Y should be good enough. Once the tap is started, you dont need to sight and guide anymore. Rotate the tap no more than 1/2 turn and then back off to clear swarf and make sure things are turning smooth. Then advace to the face and take it down a bit more. Be gradual, clear swarf, dont force anything and keep the oil coming and you will be done in no time.

The thing to think about is this. What if you off a bit? Well, your filling the hole of a steel shaft with a steel bolt. So as long as your relatively close to insure that the head of the bolt is as centered as possible and knowing your not going over 1750 or 3600 RPM depending on your motor type, you should be O.K. There is no need to take the motor apart unless you are blue printing this part for a NASCAR engine. Also keep any chips from getting into the motor by taping up holes and/or using rags.

2). Most large cities have a collection of metal workers called Home Machine Shop guys or HSMers. They often have clubs. Try to find out anyone who is in this group locally. Often, you find retired guys and what not with a lathe and milling machine in the basement shop and these guys build real steam engines and scale models of working gasoline engines, etc. as a hobby. They are often very nice and a great resource when you need to get metal items fabricated for woodworking, esp. if this is a hobby for you. Its too bad you dont live near me as I would do this on a saturday night for a case of beer! About 20 or 30 minutes of actual work and then of course, the bilateral show and tell and war stories.

Good Luck...

[Dev Emch]

By the way, if any of you wish to look at a hard core HSMer, check out Craig Prucha's shop. He retores antique hit and miss engines for fun. Go to this site and select his shop or shop tour.

www.antique-engine.com

Good Luck...