Unexpected success

So, I got this fan aaaages ago, ages and ages ago really. Over a year now, I think. It’s an original brass/cast metal/scary wiring fan from [whenever] – it’s not got any brand information – in fact, the only useful information on it is the 250V plate.

It’s got a serial number too.

Anyway, I spent a happy several hours stripping it completely down, removing the old ‘grease’ and oil, and cleaning its moving parts. Eventually, having worked out that the rear bearing has – remarkably – survived well enough for the thing to work I started work on reassembly and found that the rubber insulation on the wires going into the motor – wires which are insulated in rubber then cotton coated then attached with cotton thread coated in some sort of paint; those wires; the rubber in them had broken down – not to the stage I’m used to. The stage where it flakes off in big chunks. Oh no.

No, in this fan it’s old enough that they’re surrounded by crumbly small pieces of insulation. Replacing as far as I could this ‘insulation’ with rubber from the much shortened mains lead (again, old enough that it’s actual rubber in the insulation, not pvc), holding this in place with insulating tape and then covering it with duct tape (yes, yes, I know, but it’s black and it’ll do until I can get something a bit more appropriate – and ideally… black). And replacing the lead to the fan motor from the base (where the control switch is) with – again the mains cable…

…finally I got to the cause of all this work – the failed bearing. This was, once, I think, a sintered bearing [basically, made from powder and porus so that oil can flow through it and lubricate the bearing surfaces]; unfortunately, in the last 40-50 years I don’t think it’d seen any oil (just like the other mechanism hadn’t seen any grease). Having drenched it in oil I tried to reassemble it, but something unfortunate has happened to the sintered bearing. It’s cracked and battered and really not well.

So a fun hour or so ensued as I attacked the problem from various angles – repositioning the bearing, moving it within it’s holder both forward and back, rotating it so as the forces would be in a different place…

…eventually I resorted to filing it where it was rubbing – still no go. If I pushed the casing fully home the fan jammed solid.

Finally, in a moment of divine inspiration, I decided to bodge it.

I put a small ‘shim’ in between the casing of the main body and the fan itself, and y’know what? This is what happened….

Lethal, but nice.

It’s still really tatty, and the oscillation just jams it, the front bearing is now so slack that I don’t know how much good it’s doing. What I need to do is get a micrometer and measure the front bearing and get a new one made up. Once that’s done I think it’d work exactly as the day it was made.

I’m trying to work out what to do with the grille, I think I’ll maybe leave it as it is. I think perhaps – as I’m unlikely ever to make the fan perfect, then leaving it repaired; and naturally repaired; is quite nice. I dunno yet.

Anyway, I’ll take a pic when it’s fully back together – and less lethal. Trey hid behind me when I showed her – and said “it’s got no guard!”. Hopefully, the araldite should hold the poor-quality bronze together – when I tried to braze it it just shattered – which was *definately* not what I intended…