Quieting gear noise.

[Tozguy]

Walmarts sell this stuff in their bike department.
http://www.whitelightningco.com/products/lubricants
The Clean ride would be my suggestion because it is easy to apply and dries to a wax like coating. Don't know how long it would last on a set of lathe gears.
Otherwise I bet you could enclose the gear train with a nice wood box insulated with sound proofing under carpet and it would look like a CNC lathe.

BTW once kids have been bathed and breast fed they will sleep through anything.
I know I do.

 

[4GSR]

Only if you were closer to Calgary or even near Red Deer. I have a buddy up there that owns a shop that does certain types of industrial coatings.

http://www.silver-fox.net/protective-coatings/tefcote/

Tefcote is a Teflon coating mainly used for corrosion protection in the oilfield but is also used as a anti friction bearing material in industrial equipment. It is a baked on coating. The other coating, which he does not do, or if he does, does not have it listed, is Molykote baked on coating. It has moly disulfide embedded for lubrication along with Teflon. There are companies that do onesies and twosies in these coatings. Just don't know of any off hand. These coating will add about .003-.007" to the surfaces of the gear teeth. You would only coat every other gear for it to work. It will quieten down the gear train. But how long it would last, I don't know.

The last thing a person could do is replace every other gear with a Delrin or phenolic or micarta gear. The micarta gear is what is on my Sheldon lathe as well as on most all of the other Sheldon lathes out there.

Ken

 

[bench]

Could always bore out the inside of the screw and thread/pin a shaft to extend it...?

Thank you for the comment. I was thinking about it. Question is how to bore the rod without removing it true to the axis so that the attached gear or pulley would not wobble. Hope I am not hijacking the thread.

 

[4GSR]

Hijacking a thread? na, not here. We try not to hijack a threads, but it does happen. Just try to get it back on track.

 

[bench]

My first choice would be to figure out what damage occurred.
Gears missing some teeth? Shafts bent? Pins sheared?
Maybe you got lucky and some gears just slid on a banjo bracket?
-brino

Thank you for the comment. I cannot see any damage in the gears and shafts. Noise seems come mainly from the top left section of the gear box in the picture. If this gets any comment I will open a new thread to avoid hijacking. Thanks.

 

[4GSR]

Here's a couple pictures of the gear train on my Sheldon lathe. Kind of hard to see the non-metallic gears from the cast iron gears. Also the tar looking stuff coated inside the cover and walls of the gear train housing. As far as I know, it probably contains some form of Asbestos. Who knows, I'm not going to find out either! Let someone in the next generation worry about after I'm gone! Oh, forgot about the dirt dauber hive. I'm sure no one is at home.

 

[bfd]

keep the speed down slower speed less noise is some of the sound travel from vibration set the lathe on rubber feet. move the boys bedroom. build yourself a shop away from the house. I have many more useless solutions bill

 

[Tozguy]

Oooooold guys!
Ill look into the chain lube. I suppose that's probably not far off of chain saw oil?

Lube designed for open gears would perform best because it would last the longest.

Chain oils that don't dry will sling off and make a mess. Chain saw oil is probably the stringiest and messiest oil I have yet tried for gears.
Maxima (motorcycle chain lube) is very good for chain and sprockets but its expensive and it still needs to be re-applied frequently. It is a spray on lube and making provisions to control overspray when applying it is a necessity.

On my lathe, some gear settings seem to be quieter than other settings. I choose the quieter setting when I can for my own enjoyment.

 

[Bob Korves]

I use simple NLGI #1 lithium base grease (Lubriplate 630-AA, though there are many others that will work just fine.) I think the issue is with how much grease people put on the gears. I use about the same amount as I put toothpaste on my toothbrush to lube all the 13x40 lathe gear train, and even that might be excessive. Any lubricant that is not on the teeth where they are making contact is useless, will collect contaminants, and will get slung all over the place. If the contact areas of the teeth are wet with grease, it is lubricated. Wipe any excess off. Clean and re-lube each time you change the change gears, or if it starts looking dirty. Always have a well fitting cover over the gears to help keep out contaminants.

 

[willthedancer]

Involute spur gears, when properly cut and at proper center distance, will just whine due to displaced air. When the center distance isn't right, the tooth profiles are worn out of the involute form, or damage has occurred then things start clattering. This is caused by tooth faces striking back and forth against each other due to momentary rapid changes in angular velocity. A sticky gear lube quiets this by absorbing impact. Chevron makes some nasty black open gear lube for this. Sticky. It works, but it will not come out of your clothes.

No gear is ever perfect but cast gears are particularly poor in regard to tooth profiles and runout. They cheat the pitch circle down to account for manufacturing variances.

I saw a micarta gear above in the thread. This might help too. The teeth will absorb some of the impact noise. Not a perfect fix, but it may help.

The proper fix is some new gears that have been made by hobbing or on a gear shaper. Hopefully the manufacturer doesn't cheat the pitch circle and backlash on them.