Heisler gear box fabrication

Here I am playing on the Bridgeport. I know it looks like a rock in the vise but it really a piece of cast iron drop off a large round bar. When my friend, Richard ( a.k.a. Mr. Motion ) took this picture, he started to ask why I was using such a large piece of solid material to make the gearbox for the Heisler...

He says, "That looks like a lot of work, just to make a box." "Have you though about making it out of 4 pieces of steel bar welded together to form a box?"
Now at this point I turn the machine off, take a step back and start to consider the options. With the factors of; it was getting late, I was tired and had enough for one day, I figured, why not think on it for a while...

So in about 3 1/2 hours I have the basic structure for all three gearboxes. There is no way I could have even had the one box roughed out in that amount of time. I will weld these together and then machine in the bores for the shafts.
In the box with the 4 gears in place, this is the middle gearbox and one of the large gears is going to float on the axle. I did this with the hopes that it will help balance out the load on the pinions. We'll see how it works.