Well the winter part of old mother nature is sure sticking around, the geese are back but I bet that they wish that they should have stayed down south a while longer, one thing for sure they sure noticed the corn crib from way up there, it didn't take them long to clean up all the kernels laying around--the pairs are staking out land claims not far from the food supply--
I have the wood supply for next winter well on the way, just finishing up--and on the bad days working on my grind stone set up, coming along nice--referred to the old text book to get grinding speed worked out--they were smart old fellows then because they didn't use rpm's-- rather they note grindingwheel rim, or circumference speed as feet per minute, so it doesn't really matter how big the wheel or how small, just measure its circumference and away you go, in my case the grinding wheel is 86 " around so using their suggested speed of 700 feet per minute it comes down close to what I suspected about 100 rpm in todays jargon
They also included nice formulas to work out pulley sizes that are workable in both direction ie: if you know the speed of the driver, or failing that if you know the speed of the driven, you can work out easily the pulley sizes
--I have the grinding wheel presently mounted on a moveable platform that can be stored away easily, and then moved out for use.
The wheel itself is quite heavy and getting its shaft centered was a task, but I eventually got there, at least for the 700 rim speed recommendation.
I did alot of soul searching to come up with a workable shaft, because it came with nothing but a rough hole about 1-3\4", and not straight through the stone--well my final decision was 1-1\4" pipe--I used floor collars up against the stone threaded on a short piece of threaded connector pipe through the stones centre hole, I spun the collars up tight against the stone on both sides, centering it in the proceedure, I then drilled and threaded lag screws into the stone to hold it firmly.
The collars being threaded right through have enough thread left to accepted short 1\14" pipe on each side of the stone, this pipe protruding out from the stone creates a good support for the stone to rotate on.
I used emery cloth to really shine up the exterior surface of the pipe, that will be in contact with the support bearings
well got to go now, will discuss this project further tomorrow I have some issues that I might need some help with, please comment or post questions if you have any