New Bearing Check Out?

[cdhknives]

The bearings on my old Atlas are shot. I'm going to go ahead and replace them, but $800+ for 'precision grade' Timken bearings just can't happen. Silk purse out a sow's ear, false economy, too much else badly worn, not into full rebuilding, etc. Bunch of reasons. Got the lathe to use it, and willing to accept it has limitations $800 in bearings aren't going to overcome. Don't try and talk me out of it...if I was into high precision I'd save the grand this is likely to cost (plus another grand to fix all the other problems and get the lathe to new condition) me and put it towards a new premium lathe.

BUT, I'm anal enough to try and make the best of it. Besides buying a good brand (Timken, most likely, though I'm still shopping) what can I do to get the most out of this? For example:

I read about matching high points on the bearings. Is there a 'home shop trick' to accomplish this?

Is there another brand of premium (inch, not metric) bearing that would be cheaper than $300 each for a grade 3 or better precision?

 

[Clausing]

I have a 5900 clausing lathe that the bearings were shot from the previous owner's lack of oiling. After getting the bearings out, I located the bearing numbers, went to my local NAPA auto dealer and viola', they had the comparable bearings to me in two days. It didn't cost me an "arm & leg" either. My Clausing (10 inch) is making chips hand over fist and with close tolerances. Check out this process before you spend your future tooling money on "high" dollar bearings. Hope this helps. Oh and by the way, considering the age of my Clausing, and the quality of the day, my lathe is light years ahead in quality over what was original.

 

[Kernbigo]

The out race i believe is special on the font one, i replace the one on my atlas about 10 years ago, got them out of California for $200 shipped, but can't r ember the co. name