- Joined
- Apr 23, 2011
- Messages
- 2,476
I am making a muller for my casting sand. I am trying to use a rear axle for the drive mechanism. I sourced a solid axle housing from a RWD car and cut the outer ends off the housing, (discarding the center), leaving them about 200 mm long each. I plan on welding them together to make a short solid tube with a wheel bearing in each end to support the shortened axles. I cut 1 axle close to the outer bearing, leaving a short stub to weld a female spline to. The other ½ axle, (not yet cut) I planned on cutting similarly and then welding a male spline to it. This will then give me the ability to assemble the two ½ axles easily.
I wanted to use the spline connection to provide some ridgidity to the axle connection as there is no longer any centre bearings for support. I think a flexible drive coupling will allow the axles to move too much laterally within the housing. The assembly runs vertically inside a drum with the (now) lower axle flange having the drive connected to it, and the (now) upper flange carrying the mulling assembly.
In use the axle will rotate at a speed in the range of 10-20 RPM so I am not (too) concerned about marginal errors of alignment, but obviously I would like to get it as good as can be.
I mounted the shortened axle in my lathe and running true but I am having trouble getting the female spline positioned concentric and co-axial to weld it on. I also forsee this being a problem when it comes to shorten the other axle. So looking for suggestions/ideas.
This is (not mine) a muller in action. This one uses a rotating drum rather than a rotating muller mechanism, but the theory is the same.
Cheers Phil
I wanted to use the spline connection to provide some ridgidity to the axle connection as there is no longer any centre bearings for support. I think a flexible drive coupling will allow the axles to move too much laterally within the housing. The assembly runs vertically inside a drum with the (now) lower axle flange having the drive connected to it, and the (now) upper flange carrying the mulling assembly.
In use the axle will rotate at a speed in the range of 10-20 RPM so I am not (too) concerned about marginal errors of alignment, but obviously I would like to get it as good as can be.
I mounted the shortened axle in my lathe and running true but I am having trouble getting the female spline positioned concentric and co-axial to weld it on. I also forsee this being a problem when it comes to shorten the other axle. So looking for suggestions/ideas.
This is (not mine) a muller in action. This one uses a rotating drum rather than a rotating muller mechanism, but the theory is the same.
Cheers Phil