Getting My Bearings

[Pavel314]

I've been planning to build a windmill to areate my pond for several years now, more for the fun of the building experience as opposed to really needing it. One of the major problems in designing it is that I don't have much experience with bearings, other than the front bearings on cars and trucks.

Does anyone know of an online bearing store that has a good selection of general purpose bearings? I need moderate size bearings, something to fit a shaft about an inch or so in diameter. And they'd have to have some sort of flange or retainer for attaching them to the frame. I considered using car front axel bearings but thought there must be a source for something easier to work with.

Thanks for any leads,

Paul

[Eric in North TX]

What you are describing are pillow blocks.

[jamesgangnc]

Grangers has a number of sealed bearings. But as the other posted provided, the pillow blocks are ready to mount on a flat surface making fabrication simpler.

[dpb]

Pavel314 wrote: ...

As another said, you could use a pillow block, but you really will need a thrust bearing to take the axial load that general purpose pillow blocks aren't designed for.

An inch shaft is pretty stout, what size wheel do you envision here?

Local bearing distributorship would be my recommendation altho being farm boy for such purposes I've often used the thrust bearings from a planter drill disc or somesuch from the equipment dealer of choice.

You can, of course, buy really cheap pillow blocks from places like Harbor Freight and not quite so cheap from Northern Industrial, etc., that may be sufficient again depending on what the actual loadings are.

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[Jules Richardson]

Not online, but my local farm supply place has a selection - maybe it's worth investigating what's in your region. All manner of bearings attached to things in the form of mower parts, trailer parts etc., too.

(They also stock pre-built windmills, about 10' tall, with shaft drive to the base, but that would take all the fun out of building your own ;-)

cheers

Jules

[Pavel314]

Thank you all for your input. I never would have guessed that "pillow block" meant a bearing but that's why I ask this sort of question here. A one-inch shaft is probably extreme. What I'd like to build is a vertical axis windmill, described at:

I envision it driving a wheel about two feet in diameter to just stir up the water and clean up some of the murkieness.

Paul