VN Finally, The High Speed Sub Head Is Running

[Jason Annen]

Picked this up earlier this year, striped it, painted it, and rebuilt it. The problem was with the drive arbor. All I had was a picture to go off of, plus the female spline. The spline is a straight spline, 1" OD. I used an involute cutter to rough in the spline, then fit it by hand with a carbide burr and file. All told I spent about 10 hours making it. I used 4140QT.









I only ran it for a few minutes, but it seemed fine, no vibrations or any heat.

Jason

 

[Jason Annen]

and now it's not. Major heat build up in the spindle, so I pulled the bearings and cleaned them again, the tics won't go away. So now I have 2 new bearings on the way. I was going to replace the seals, but so far that has been a very steep up hill battle. Still looking though. Bearings are do in by the weekend.

Jason

 

[Reeltor]

Jason,

I don't know what the heat build up should be in your high speed head, but according to Van Norman, the standard in the main spindle on the mill can be as high as 170° F. "Newer" machines are lower due to "improved grease and lubrication"

 

[Jason Annen]

I have read that, however my 1937 number 12 can run for and hour working and the cutter head never gets any hotter than the surroundings.

There were issues with the bearings. New ones should be here tomorrow, and then we shall see what it does.

Jason

 

[Uglydog]

Jason,
What DP cutter did you use?
I'll eventually need to make a spline shaft for the sub-head on my 22LU.

Did you quench the 4140QT?
If so, then did she move much?
I've got 4140 (no suffix) on hand...

Daryl
MN

 

[Jason Annen]

I'll have to check on the cutter, I had a limited selection to choose from.

I did not harden the arbor. It was pretty resistant to the file, which added a bunch of time.

Jason

 

[HMF]

Hoping the new bearings cool things down...

 

[Jason Annen]

New bearings have arrived and are installed. The new bearings do run warm, but nothing like the old ones.

Couple observations. The lubrication system is a complete joke. There is only one grease fitting, and you would need to pump a whole tube through it and you might get to about 1/3 of the bearings, if it gets past the gears. There is no way grease will get to any of the 3 bearings in the spindle. Taking it partially apart is the only way to grease it.

The quill kind of sucks. The hand crank is small and mine is really tight. I polished everything, but it's still snug. It only has 2.5" of travel.

Overall, I will be keeping it. The ability to rotate to any angle in any direction is nice. The increase in spindle rpms is nice too. I did use it a little tonight, but it will get a good workout over the next week.



Jason

 

[HMF]

It's much more versatile than mounting an M head to it.

 

[Reeltor]

New bearings have arrived and are installed. The new bearings do run warm, but nothing like the old ones.

Couple observations. The lubrication system is a complete joke. There is only one grease fitting, and you would need to pump a whole tube through it and you might get to about 1/3 of the bearings, if it gets past the gears. There is no way grease will get to any of the 3 bearings in the spindle. Taking it partially apart is the only way to grease it.

The quill kind of sucks. The hand crank is small and mine is really tight. I polished everything, but it's still snug. It only has 2.5" of travel.

Overall, I will be keeping it. The ability to rotate to any angle in any direction is nice. The increase in spindle rpms is nice too. I did use it a little tonight, but it will get a good workout over the next week.

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Jason

Jason,

I have never seen any type of manual for any of the accessories with the exception of the Dividing Heads. Are you sure that the nipple on top of the head is for grease and not a gear type oil?
The gears in my main mill head are lubricated with oil (Heavy-Medium in my case). I can't believe that the engineers at Van Norman designed the high speed head to only lubricate 1/3rd of the bearings.
I don't have a clue, just thinking out-loud.

Mike