Flywheel Foolishness

[ShopShoe]

Your "what it should be" description started me thinking about the Maytag engines, in the way they look. The flywheel they used had vanes. Most of us know the single-cylinder Maytag, but they also made some with 2 cylinders. I think they were 2-cycle, but I'm talking about how they looked. Searching the net will show lots of examples.

--ShopShoe

 

[Brian Rupnow]

It's a brand new day, and just like Steve Earl, I've come back with brand new plan. The flywheel is going to be 8" o.d. with a 1/4" web and a 1 3/4" dia. hub. No bolting. The "blades" are going to be 1 1/4" x 1/8" x 1 1/2". All is steel and all is welded. All mig welded. This size will cool the engine I am designing without any trouble.

 

[peterl95124]

And when it's all bolted together, it looks like this. The easiest way to attach the 1" diameter fan blades in place is to weld them. The last time I tied to weld aluminum with my tig I just made a horrible mess, but these parts are a lot thinner and don't need a lot of weld to keep them in place. This will move a surprising amount of air, which will be directed over the cylinder, and hopefully keep the engine cool.--particularly if the engine is a hit and miss, because all the time the engine is missing, it is pumping ambient temperature air thru the cylinder and out the exhaust.

Brian, I think you'll find that with these "fan blades" no air will move at all, to move air they have to be airfoil shaped and be able to avoid stall, some of the suggestions below are more likely to work. Pete.

Ooops, I see I'm so late to the party that you've already come up with a better design, let us know how well it works !, Pete.

 

[kwoodhands]

That sound more like a centrifugal fan that draws it's air from the middle and throws it out the edge, work fine in the usual fan shroud that you find on the end of an electric motor but won't blow axially like Brian wants and he does not like the sheet metal work that a Briggs type shroud would need

Your correct , the fan is at the end of the motor shaft. I thought that my method might be converted some how to a flywheel
Most of the flywheels I have made are cast from type metal.
Easy to melt and flow into wood forms. I have a lot of small pieces of cherry, I mill the rim, spokes and hub into 5/4 cherry.
I don't allow for draft as I saw the form away after the casting.
The flywheels are cast about .1/16" thicker and they are turned to dimension and trued up on a tapered mandrel.
mike