The Steamboating Forum

Good information. I will be looking into this stuff. I have a friend who powder coated his Model A Ford parts at home. He bought a used electric stove for the smaller stuff and used a hand held infrared lamp for the frame and other big stuff.

Off to the the Grizzly web site . . . . .

Mike

Bart,
Have you thought about using needle bearings on the crank? You can get split cage needle bearings. Plastic cages could be trimmed if you can't find an exact fit. You would have to make sure the con rod cap would realign after machining to size. The joint between cap and rod would be at a low stress area and not too likely to cause problems assuming precise alignment.
I have also seen mention of split outer races but haven't found a source. Drawn cup or machined ring outer races could probably be cut on an angle and fitted back together so the rollers would not see a straight across gap. This would require a sacrifice of several bearings in the process.