Thread: Camel back dilemma

I have a old camel back drill, think it's a American Barnes but not sure, It has the four selectable power feeds which is nice. . The base casting for the C/pulley mount is broken , the break about four inches long . I have the broken piece . I am wondering about repair options ? Bronze brazing would require a lot of heat . There are two slotted rails in the base - maybe I could make up a heavy plate and bolt it to the slots and then mount the C/pulley and motor on the plate ?

Edit: i Just remembered this one I have is a Rockford, which was a company affiliated with Barnes. This particular model I have, has geared power feeds which I have not seen on any other Camel back, they normally use a small flat belt system for the power feed

Camelback Drills

This one is similar to mine

1909 Rockford Drilling Machine

Conversion to V belt

https://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/th...ed&setCookie=1

I’ve welded cast iron before on a few occasions but it’s not what I’d call easy.

The main precautions are similar to other welding tasks. That is to get everything super clean beforehand and ensure that the components are securely held in alignment while welding.

There are different grades of cast of course and your filler or electrode choice needs to be appropriate to the base material.

After separating the broken components, with something that size I’d heat the whole part to just under red hot before welding. We used a furnace for the heating and sat the work on heatproof ceramic. The amount of radiant heat can be fairly fierce so you need to fully suit up.

It needs planning because you really don’t want the work to cool down. I map out my movements beforehand and have a couple of helpers on hand. With bigger pieces I weld the central portion first and then return to the heat before continuing to weld laterally. This prevents skewing due to differential contraction when the welded section cools. Some bigger jobs have taken half a dozen reheats.

I return the completed work to the furnace and bring the whole piece up to just under red heat and then slowly drop the temperature back down before wrapping in a piece of old upholstery leather filled with old leather gloves. We keep old leather welding, gardening and riggers gloves in a crate just for this job. The package is left overnight to very slowly come back down to room temperature. It isn’t completely foolproof but saves the great majority of cracking.

If that were mine I'd be thinking of fabricating a new steel base in the style of a casting.

Repair to use or restore to original?
Maybe a new large baseplate either square or cut to shape and bolt the pieces to that.

Would tig silicon bronze work? Less heat and localised.

This guy managed a successful stick weld repair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ako5guyzNg

Camel backs quiet?(your first link) mine sure isn't, straight cut bevel gears cant help.