hello everyone tonight

thanks for the replies, it gives me an incentive to continue to try and put forth what I consider interesting as well as educational material, that has a connection with historic framing, in the sense that if any of you would during your careers happen to be faced with or know someone who might be confronted with a similar task could work their way through it, in this case constructing or reconstructing historic mill structures as well as their associated equipment

To continue with the reconstruction of the power and drive train in a 1865 water powered vertical blade mill, we are at this point still working on the lower adjustable pitman bearing--

We have the pitman at this point mortised out to accept the insertable bearing unit, the pitman has been reinforced with a specially forged and shaped hammerstrap--now back to the bearing itself--

The wood bearing dimensions will be roughly 4" wide, 4" thick and 6" long, of solid good quality white oak

Through the centre of the block a hole is created which in my case was 3-", the exact size of the pin on the offset crank referred to previously --now this has to be done with care using callipers on the pin to ensure a very tight fit. Do not worry about too tight when I say tight I mean real tight, it will quickly wear, and will not overheat due to the water lubrication. In fact the friction will glass the surface of the wood and create a real hard wear surface.

Now this block is cut through the centre of the pin hole, creating an upper and lower section. The cutting action will create a very small amount of room for tightening when the bearing is worn in during the initial running of the new bearing, and should bottom out

Now we get back to the some additional work needed on the adjustable wood bearing

Try and follow me--up the edges of both sections of the bearing, as well as across the bottom-- 2 mortises are let in to accept a "u" shaped strap 1\8th " thick by 1.25" wide--this strap is fastened solidly to the bottom section with 4--flat head #10 screws--2 on each side--the top section of the bearing will slide down on top of the bottom section being held in place by the guiding groves and the upper part of the strap, that is securely fastened to the lower section

Here again care needs to be taken to work accurately to ensure a tight fit

Now the bearing is inserted in the pitman and we will continue to the next step--we are not done yet----

enjoy

NH