Thank You Jeff, You proved me right.
I am probably the only one who encouraged you to do it yourself.
The mighty dollar made you do it. You had a price of sending it to a spindle company and paying them $3100.00 to do the job.
We talked on the phone and I said it would be so easy with a few tools. Many make machine rebuilding "rocket science" and it's not if you are careful, have a manual so you can see what is inside the machine, have a few tools, your mechanically inclined and have some guts.
After we talked I emailed and talked to my old foreman Craig Laurich as he rebuilds a lot of spindles as he runs a 1 man rebuilding company in Hibbing, MN. now. Jeff talked on the phone with him too and he also told him it was simple. I taught Craig how to do a lot of things plus he is super smart and has had a successful machine rebuilding company for over 25 years. His specialty is he rebuilds Bryant and Techica Center Hole Grinders for Hoff Machinery in Minneapolis. He rebuilds these precision machine from top to bottom, spindle and scraping, etc.
Craig also told you it was simple, also told you to use Kluber grease, how much to use, clean and stone everything.
So anyone out there with a surface grinder with a spindle bearing issue, please ask for help doing it before hand. Don't be a chicken. You have to be careful, have a clean area, clean hands, a game plane and take a lot of pictures.
Some spindles are difficult. One brand I would send to a pro is a Pope spindle as the inner race is a tapered hole that placement of it on a taper in the wrong place can ruin it. Another machine is Hardinge. Hardinge had special made bearings and they had special tools to install them. I toured the Hardinge plant and they had a "secret room" to do the heads.
Jeff has guts, but was afraid to do it at first. I am glad he listened and saved close to $2500.00 He is a good scraper too and he had a good teacher. I knew he could do it himself and he proved it. Thank You Jeff for this post as it is a Good one!
