Water Wheel Episode 6: Mount Up!

Bad Paddle #3 Standing Separate from the Rest

The God of Octagons (I think his name is Octavius) has not been kind.  All of my putzing around earlier trying to make the spokes perfectly aligned at 45 degrees seemed to be for naught.  With the paddles painted, it was time to start mounting them onto the hubs.   I mounted paddle #1, then paddle #2 - so far so good.  But when I tried to mount paddle #3, it wouldn't line up with the holes on the inside hub.  How can this be?  DAG-NABBIT!  It oughta fit! Did I not sacrifice enough blood to Octavius?  The math doesn't lie.  I calculated it and....wait a minute.  Well, now that I think about it, maybe some of the problem was of my own doing.  Maybe.  

The "Trimmed" Tips of the Spokes

Let's back up.  When the spokes were, being laid out on the garage floor, I trimmed the ends of each spoke to fit around the circle, align with the hub holes, and spread out to the correct 45 degrees.  Although not all of the spoke tips were trimmed to exactly 22.5 degrees, they nevertheless lined up and fit properly.  I then numbered the spokes in sequence going clockwise so that I could mount them as paddles onto the hubs.   

Spokes Were Numbered in a Clockwise Sequence 

I did this layout with the first group of (outside) spokes, then repeated the same process for the inside set of spokes.  Both sets of spokes were numbered in a clockwise direction (the term "clockwise" keeps coming up...perhaps a clue?).

When building the paddles, I grabbed two spokes of the same number and built a paddle.  Paddle #1 used the two spokes labeled #1, then paddle #2 used the two spokes labeled #2, etc.  So what's the problem? 

The problem is that one set of eight spokes are going to be sandwiched together with the second set of spokes in the form of paddles.  Hence, as one set of spokes were numbered in a clockwise direction, the other set of spokes (on the opposite side of the water wheel) should then be numbered in a counter-clockwise direction in order to mate up correctly.  One set of paddle spokes is being mounted on the hub backwards.

DAG-NABBIT!


So...you're telling me that I should have mated spoke #2 with inside spoke #8, then #3 with #7 and so on?  Oh, for cryin out loud.  Too late now...paddles are already built.  Phooey.

All Eight Paddles Finally Mounted

I ended up having to trim paddles #3 and #7 to make them fit correctly.  Only two paddles had to be adjusted...it could have been worse.  

One other fix was required.  The bolts and the holes in the metal hubs are all 1/2 inch in size - so I drilled the holes in the spokes the same size.  While the bolts fit nice and snug in the spokes, they were too snug, making it nigh on impossible to do the mounting.  I re-drilled the holes to 9/16s size, which helped greatly in the mounting.

The final step in the mounting process is to position the paddles in the correct 45 degree position and tighten them down.  The first two paddles sets took some effort to get them at the correct distance apart (32 7/8 inches according to earlier blog episode 3). A lot of trial and error.  Once the first two paddles were set, I made a bracket the length between the top of the first paddle and the bottom of the second paddle.  I then used that bracket on all the remaining paddles to get the correct distance apart.  It worked well, and am very happy about the final position of all of the paddles.


So...out of curiosity...will it spin?

**Whew**    OK...bonus points for me.  

Next step:  Cut and mount the siderails.