hello everyone tonight

Well here is the answer--the 2 guide vertical timbers are independently adjustable by placing wood wedges from the bottom crowding the timber's vertical stance or position very accurately, what I did was adjust one timber so that it seemed to be correctly positioned and then lower the guide block down and crowd over the opposite timber with wedges until the guide block will travel full distance up and down without binding or loosening--

Now one little thing that I did was to raise the unit by rotating the turbine manually to top dead centre , then at this point from the centre of the blade's attaching point I dropped down a plumb bob and marked it accurately on the side of the pitman--now I mean accurately using a fine nylon line, then I lowered the pitman gently by once again rotating the turbine manually to the bottom of the stroke and once again checking if the plumb line crosses the previous mark, if all is well it should be lined up perfectly if not more adjustment is the order of the day, this needs to be repeated until you are completely satisfied that it is as accurate as you can make it

Once that has been accomplished you are able to move to the next step

I might say that the directions I am giving you are not available as far as I know in any historical mechanics book, and I hope it helps someone someday maintain our historical mill legacy, I always felt proud to be able to pass on some of my knowledge of this old equipment to a new generation

I also realize there are many very knowledgeable people out there that operate old mills, but operating and repairing and maintaining are horses of 2 different colours--even myself in the years gone by would look at a large empty hole in the first storey level where the turbine and pitman was located during a regular interval rebuild.

With everything removed and the onus is on you to ensure that everything would be back to operating order which in most cases was about 6 months away, with operating season to begin once more at that time--it sure separated the men from the boys for sure--but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge

Early on in my career I needed advise on some aspects of the rebuild, it was at this time I realized I was completely alone because 90% of the other mills used other types of water power mostly water wheels of the overshot , undershot or breast wheels, while other used a more modern metal turbines, all early but did not relate to the early horizontal barrel wheel that I was working with in the saw mill, and its associated linkages

Some early books would show the various parts of the mill but no explanation of how they were used or how for instance you inserted them in working position

well sorry for rambling on but I will be getting back to the work at hand

enjoy

NH