A seal for a vintage machine

[Myk Rian]

My first felting project entails a shaft seal for a 1955 Delta 24" scroll saw. The lower shaft of a scroll saw moves up and down, pulling the cutting blade down, and a spring in the top of the saw pulls the blade back up. First, a couple pictures of the saw.
I received this saw in very bad condition. It even looks sad in the picture.


Restoration of vintage machines requires a complete tear-down for cleaning, inspection, repair, and painting.


Without going through a bunch of restoration pictures, I'll get right to the finished saw, and then move on to the project at hand. I designed and built the cherry base for the saw.


This is the working part of the saw. The shaft is connected to a crank shaft, which moves it up and down. Just like the piston in your car engine.


At the top of the upper bushing is the felt seal. It prevents saw dust from getting into the crankcase, and the oil from getting out of it. This is the subject of the thread. I would like to reproduce it.






Now that you know what I want to make, what would be the best way of going about it. It is very dense, so the fibers would need a lot of compressing. I'm thinking I could build the seal inside the cavity of the shaft and cap, using them as a form. Just keep working it. What needles would be used? I bought a Feltworks multi needle tool with 7-8 needles in it at Michaels crafts. Should I look for some fine needles. These seem a little coarse, as the barbs are spaced fairly wide apart. 1/4" or so. I will probably be using 2 or 3 needles in it.
So, any input from the collective would be very much appreciated.

[Pandagirl]

Myk, the cherry base is beautiful! I'm not a big needle felter, but you will probably break needles if you try to do it in the steel shaft, if I understood correctly. Since it needs to be dense and compressed you will need coarse fibers. What do you have? Secondly, most needle felters use a foam or brush base to needle felt.. You would probably be better off trying to wet felt it. Perhaps you could find a dowel or rod that was the right internal circumference to work on. Or if you do needle felt it use a piece of foam (not styrofoam) to wrap the wool around in order to have it be the right internal circumference. There will probably be some trial and error.  But you're using such small amounts of wool it won't be an expensive experiment.

Perhaps some of our felters with more experience have done something similar. I'm just thinking out loud.

[MTRuth]

Wowza! That is an amazing restoration. Looks like a totally different machine.

I would not go the needle felting route either. It would be much quicker to wet felt a piece around the right sized dowel and then you would get a much stiffer end result. You could make a longer length around the dowel and then cut it exactly to the size you need. Do you have any felting experience?

[Myk Rian]

Mar 15, 2014 21:14:50 GMT MTRuth said:

   Do you have any felting experience?

Absolutely none. If I wet felt it, perhaps this thread could be moved to the appropriate forum.

[MTRuth]

No worries - we can just leave it here. But if you have specific questions on wet felting, it might be a good idea to ask in that section and just refer back to this thread.

[zed]

I don't needle felt much but if it needs to be very dense and compact that might be the way to go, or at least for finishing/compacting/shaping.
Marilyn's suggestion of using a dowel is a good one.

[Shepherdess]

This is like making a wet felt bead. Marilyn is right you will need to try some different fibers to see which compacts down the right way. a combination of fibers might be best. what breed of wool do you have? I will do try to explain how to make a wet felt tube bead. for the washer you would need to scale it up ending with the size dowel that matches your need.

1) Bunch 6 round or hexagonal pencils together.
2) Wrap some wool around the pencils 3 or 4 times in about a 1 inch wide strip. The more wool you use the thicker the bead.
3) Wet your hands with warm soapy water( dish soap is fine) and start gently rubbing the wool and pencils back and fourth between your hands.
4) Keep wetting your hands and rubbing until the wool is completely wet and the wool  tightens around the pencils.
5) Remove 1 pencil. Roll the wool and pencils a little more aggressively around the remaining pencils.
6) Every time the wool gets tight around the pencils remove one until there is only one pencil tightly wrapped in wool.
remove the last pencil and you have a bead.

I would practice making beads with different wool till you find what you think will work best, then scale it up. It is a noisy thing to do so I don't recommend sitting watching TV with your spouse for this. Mine was not impressed.