THE RURAL, NEW-VORKER 
-555 
Horse Power from Discarded Mower. 
Would you give me full information 
how to make a horse power from an old 
mower that has been discarded as not be¬ 
ing of any more use in the hayfield? Also 
drawings and arrangements as to over¬ 
head bearings; the power is to be set 
out of doors and to be run into the build¬ 
ing to a line shaft, and from that to a 
saw, churn, grindstone, separator, etc 
What would be the right size pulley, or 
would a walking-beam be better? 
Belton, Mass. G. v. R. 
A FTER the mower has served its days 
of usefulness in the hayfield it can, 
by the exercise of a little ingenuity, be 
converted into a sweep power for driv¬ 
ing some of the lighter farm machinery. 
This could be done in several ways; per¬ 
haps the best would be to take the mower 
apart and use the gear wheels so obtained 
in building a power with shafting bought 
for the purpose. The gears could then 
protect them from the weather. The outside 
shaft is connected to the mower by differ¬ 
ent methods, depending on the form of 
the crank wheel. A flange coupling 
serves the purpose well when the mower 
is of such a type that it can be used. 
Wooden bearings are entirely satisfactory 
for a place like this: keep them well 
greased with a graphite grease or with 
grease and stick stove polish and they 
will run for years with no trouble. 
In regard to the size pulleys to be 
used to secure the proper speed: this in¬ 
formation cannot he given unless the 
diameter of the pulley on the machine 
to be driven and its proper speed are 
known. By speed I mean the revolu¬ 
tions per minute. The pulley size can be 
easily figured however when this informa¬ 
tion is at hand. 
The mowing machine is usually geared 
be put up overhead out of the way. Pre¬ 
sumably though, the quickest and cheap¬ 
est way will be the one desired, the draw¬ 
ing showing a method where the old mow¬ 
er is simply stood up on end and a sweep 
bolted across the traction wheel, the pow¬ 
er being taken off at the crank shaft. 
Select a place at the side or end of a 
building if it is desired to carry the line 
shaft indoors, and set at least three solid 
posts in the ground to a distance of four 
feet, or until firm and below frost. These 
posts should be in a line at right angles 
to the side of the building as the line 
shaft will run parallel to them. By 
means of the straight edge and level cut 
I lie tops of the posts off level, letting 
them project above the ground about 10 
inches, a greater distance being too much 
for the horse to step over as he turns the 
sweep. Dress these posts down to four 
inches thick at the top and bolt an eight- 
inch plank to either side. A third plank 
is laid on top and spiked down, form¬ 
ing an inverted trough. As shown by the 
drawing, this serves as an anchor for the 
mower at the outer end and also as a 
support for the line shaft. Care should 
be taken to get it both level and solid. 
At the outer end of these planks dig 
a pit from 2*4 to three feet deep, de¬ 
pending on the mower used, the usual 
width of a mower tread being 50 inches. 
The pit is made about feet across, or 
wide enough to take the wheel easily. 
After taking off the unnecessary parts 
the mower is let into this pit and sup¬ 
ported by the crank shaft housing lying 
on top of the planks. A couple of heavy 
iron clamps are put around the planks 
and crank shaft housing and drawn up 
tight to hold the mower rigid, putting 
in a light blocking so that the crank 
wheel will run free. Before placing the 
mower in the pit take the pawls from 
the lower wheel to avoid the racket that 
would otherwise be made wheu the pow¬ 
er was in operation. 
Block the mower up level and after 
placing an old tin pail or other article 
of similar shape directly under the cen¬ 
ter of the wheel as shown in the cut, fill 
the bottom of the pit with mushy con¬ 
crete. The pail is to keep the concrete 
from the center of the wheel where the 
axle protrudes. This concrete will hold 
the bottom of the power solid and by the 
addition of a cross sill (not shown in 
the cut) the power can be made very 
rigid. 
The shaft is supported by hard wood 
bearings placed on the top of the inverted 
trough of planks. A pulley at the end 
connects by a belt with a line shaft in¬ 
side the building. These pulleys and belt 
will need a housing built over them to 
at about 2G to 1; i.e., the crank wheel 
makes 26 revolutions to every one made 
by the traction wheels. With a 10-foot 
sweep the horse would have to travel 
slightly over 31 feet for each revolution 
of the sweep and traction wheel to which 
it is attached. If the horse walked at 
the rate of 2Ve miles per hour (an aver¬ 
age speed) we would get practically 
7 1-10 revolutions of the sweep per min¬ 
ute. Now as the crank wheel makes 26 
revolutions for every one of the sweep 
we would have 7 1-10 times 26 or 184 
6-10 revolutions per minute as the speed 
of our lower line of shafting. With an 
IS inch pulley on this shaft and a 12 
inch on the shaft above we would se¬ 
cure a speed of 276 9-10 revolutions per 
minute in our upper line of shafting from 
which the machinery will be driven. 
To obtain the size pulley needed on 
this line shaft to drive each machine at 
its proper speed multiply the diameter 
of the pulley (in inches) by the revolu¬ 
tions per minute that it makes when run¬ 
ning at the proper speed and divide this 
product by the number of revolutions per 
minute made by the driving shaft. The 
result will be the diameter of the driv¬ 
ing pulley in inches. It is best to de¬ 
termine this speed of your driving shaft 
by trial as it will vary somewhat from 
the figures given ; by using a mower geared 
26 to one and pulleys as stated the driv¬ 
ing shaft will make 39 revolutions for 
every one made by the sweep. 
This particular arrangement of power 
and shafting may not suit your conditions 
which are, of course unknown to the 
writer, but by a little thought it will be 
easy to adapt the principle to your pur¬ 
pose. If the mower has been abandoned 
because of slipping gears it will of course 
be useless to try to make a horse power of 
it as the same trouble would bother here. 
I would not care to recommend this pow¬ 
er for running a cream separator. The 
cream separator is a very delicate ma¬ 
chine and to wear well and skim proper¬ 
ly it must be driven steadily at the proper 
rate of speed. It requires a very steady 
power for proper driving, and unless 
a system of governing pulleys could be 
introduced the power furnished by this 
arrangement would be too spasmodic. 
R. H. S. 
R. H. (page 217) might get some relief 
from his sparrow troubles if he could get 
a pair of barn owls to stay in his barn. 
The same birds would help keep down the 
rats and mice, and would not be likely 
to trouble the chickens at all. I have 
heard of several cases where this method 
has been tried with success. A. C. w. 
When You Buy, Be 
Sure to Get the 
Weight You Pay For 
Tj'ERTILIZER and other farm necessities 
^ that you buy are expensive enough 
without adding to their cost through short 
weight. 
No one is infallible. Anyone is apt to make 
mistakes in weight when shipping. But —you will 
not be paying for such mistakes, if you check the 
weight of everything you buy on 
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