Open frame induction motor for cheap, would you go for it?

[Dennis Aspö]

Thanks, it's a little part of my work to take photos so I have some rudimentary skill. I was going at the parts with an angle grinder and wire brush today:





Unfortunately I spotted the first real problem with this motor, this is the part that holds the bearing on the fan side, it's broken:


And on the other side they tried an earlier repair that didn't hold, I believe welding cast iron isn't that reliable:


Not sure what I ought to do now, silver solder it?

[Phil Thien]

How about some pics of the housing ends from the INSIDE?

Are there any schools nearby that teach welding? I think you should consult a professional, to see whether they would advise a repair, or not.

[Dennis Aspö]

There are vocational schools around, I'm not sure what else you can do, repair or throw away, that means a repair is worth attempting to me. My dad used to do welding so he could offer a opinion but that's a trip for tomorrow if so, I was planning to go as I have my bead blasting setup there and bead blast the housing ends and smaller parts.

There's one picture of the other housing posted earlier, the other one looks more or less the same except a lot of crud around the grille, I can go take one but I don't think you'll see much useful at this stage.

[Dennis Aspö]

Continuing with the other parts, no point in holding up.







Pictures for Phil:






I've asked around and cast iron can be welded, the trick is it needs to be evenly preheated, and then cool slowly. I have a shop oven at my dads I can use for that, but unfortunately no suitable welder, only a MIG. Then you need to cool the part slowly, what they used to do in the olden days when cast iron was used much more for machinery was to place the welded part in sawdust and bury it for insulation purposes. Lucky me, sawdust is something I have a lot of.

[Mike Henderson]

You could try brazing it - you wouldn't have to put as much heat into it and a good braze is very strong. There are better welders on the forum than me, but I'd grind out a V shape in the crack and fill it with braze.

Mike

[Dennis Aspö]

Forgot about this thread a while, but the motor was welded and works fine. Don't have any good pictures of it, but here it's mounted in it's new home, unless I find a bigger jointer/planer to put it in:


I have to build some better dust collection

[Allan Speers]

Pretty great that you were able to save that puppy!

So they're a little inefficient compared to todays motors, it's not like we run them all that much.



I'm curious - was the insultaion 100%? (You did check it, yes?) If not, did you touch it up with shellac, or something else, as some folks have done?

I have an old 1 HP R/I motor that I plan on rebuilding, and I'm looking for ideas. (The Nazi that runs OWWM has banned me from that site, so no help over there. )

[Dennis Aspö]

I haven't done anything to the insulation or checked it, I think as long as it doesn't trip the GFCI like the last motor I had that was burned out did, then I am OK. NEver heard of using shellac to top it up with, perhaps something to look into as a preventative measure.

I'm turning into the matthias wandel of 3-phase or something, I picked up two more motors over the weekend, a 3 and 2.2kw one for 25 euros each for that price it was hard to not jump on it! Now I have a .75kw, 2.2kw, 3kw and 4kw 3-phase motor, plus one unknown 1-phase motor that's probably .5kw or thereabouts.


The smallest one was only .25kw and I didn't want it.

I never managed to register at OWWM so I've never been there, I've asked at Canadian Woodworking forums earlier though, they have a good vintage section.

[Allan Speers]

I never managed to register at OWWM so I've never been there, I've asked at Canadian Woodworking forums earlier though, they have a good vintage section.

OWWM is a great place. Good people and an insane amount of knowledge. - Just a VERY strange guy who runs things.

Thanks for the tip on CWW - Maybe if I pretend I have mostly vintage Generals, I can sneak in a question about Powermatic.

[Justin Meyer]

Some pictures of it taken apart, it was much easier to disassemble than any modern motor I've worked on.

Back lid off, some rust on the rotor:

Dennis, what treatment did you give to the rotor? Any after pic?