# Tore Down The Head Stock On My 10l How Do These Bearings Look?



## catskinner (May 30, 2015)

This lathe hasn't run in over 40 years but seems to be tight and not much wear on the ways.

There are some gouges in the bearings, was wondering if these are acceptable.


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## Ulma Doctor (May 30, 2015)

they look scored, 
how's the spindle???


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## catskinner (May 30, 2015)

The spindle looks good, I forgot to take a picture of it.


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## Ulma Doctor (May 30, 2015)

were you able to determine the spindle deflection when it was assembled?
if not was there noticeable slop when you extracted the spindle?
were there brass shims present when you took the caps off?


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## Ulma Doctor (May 30, 2015)

you can always use some plastigage to find the clearance, the product is usually used for engine rebuilding, but will give a very good indication in your case! 
http://www.plastigaugeusa.com/how.html


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## catskinner (May 30, 2015)

The lathe was partially disassembled when I started the rebuild so I couldn't check out the deflection.  It seemed fairly tight as I was beginning the tear down of the headstock.


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## Kernbigo (May 30, 2015)

If the spindle looks good no problem, take a spoon scraper and put some oil pockets in the plain bearings, reassemble and shim for the proper lift, it will work ok


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## brino (May 30, 2015)

Hey catskinner, I have no good advice for you, I just wanted to say what great pictures you took. 
They are close enough to see and all in focus.
That makes getting some advice possible.
-brino


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## catskinner (May 30, 2015)

Kernbigo said:


> If the spindle looks good no problem, take a spoon scraper and put some oil pockets in the plain bearings, reassemble and shim for the proper lift, it will work ok



I am new to this restoration part so I to need what a spoon scraper is and a description of the oil pockets. Thanks for the advice however.




brino said:


> Hey catskinner, I have no good advice for you, I just wanted to say what great pictures you took.
> They are close enough to see and all in focus.
> That makes getting some advice possible.
> -brino



Thanks brino I always take a bunch of pictures and then sort through and use the best ones.



Ulma Doctor said:


> were you able to determine the spindle deflection when it was assembled?
> if not was there noticeable slop when you extracted the spindle?
> were there brass shims present when you took the caps off?



The spindle was tight when I went to lift it out I had to bump it with a plastic hammer to get it loose. There were shims under the bearing caps on both ends, one "factory" set in the rear, and one "factory" set and two hand made ones in the front. I did not mike them though.


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## T Bredehoft (May 30, 2015)

This will not get you a spoon scraper, but will get you a scraper you can use. 

Obtain a large 5/8 minimum across-the-flats 3-cornered-file. Go to the big end and cut it off, (from the shoulder toward the tip, leaving 3 inches plus the tang).

Using a 6 inch or smaller grinding wheel, start grinding the three sides of the file, so that you have a Three Sided  Point at the end, the edges of which correspond to the original edges of the file. The sides will be slightly concave, and the edges curved. Do not get the file hot enough that you can't hold it. Once you have ground away all the little teeth of the file, stroke the sides with a good whetstone until the edges are sharp, not sharp enough to shave with, but sharp. 

Put an old file handle on the tang and glue it so it's solid.

You can now use the curved edge of the scraper to shave bits off the surface of the bearings.  You don't want to take off chunks, just real thin shavings, to give the surface a place to hold oil.


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## Kernbigo (May 30, 2015)

google scraping plain spindle bearings it will explain how to do it, and also setting bearing lift


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## Nammar (May 30, 2015)

Hi Catskinner, From your pictures, your lathe spindle bearings look as if they are an integral part of the headstock casting (as opposed to loose removable shell bearings) and they also look as if they are cast iron. As you have already indicated that you do not know what a spoon scraper is, you are advised to steer clear of scraping the bearing with a spoon scraper, as you may end up doing more harm than just leaving it as it is. It worked for many years as is, so don't kick the sleeping dog! Regarding the shims, you need to make sure that the same shims are put back into their respective positions, as these are used to get clearance on the bearings.

My advice to you would be to clean everything up by polishing using Scotchbrite or steel wool and leave the scratches for now. Once everything has been cleaned up, spread some engineers blue onto the spindle bearing surfaces and put the spindle into the headstock casting bearing pockets as it would be on the lathe. Don't put the bearing caps on just yet. With gravity holding the shaft in place, rotate the shaft by 360 degrees and remove the spindle and observe the contact of the spindle to the bearing surfaces. This will indicate to you if there are any high spots that may be holding the spindle bearing higher, thereby preventing the spindle from bedding properly in the bearing journal pockets.

A 60 to 70 % contact pattern on the lower segment of the bearing journal is what would be considered good. If this is not the case, you are advised to find someone with the experience of scraping bearings to assist you further.

Having done that and assuming that there are no high spots on the bearing journals that may need scraping to remove, again put some engineers marking blue onto the spindle bearing surfaces and put the spindle back into the headstock, put the shims in place and put the bearing caps on and bolt them down and tighten them. Rotate the shaft by 360 degrees and open everything up again. Note that a tight shaft at this point indicates to you that the bearing is too tight and something is squeezing the shaft and causing it to be tight. Observe the contact pattern on the headstock bearing journal surfaces again. This will indicate to you any high spots, which will cause binding of the spindle.

Next, clean off the engineers marking blue and re-assemble using oil this time. After everything has been tightened down again, set up a dial test indicator to measure the clearance of each bearing in the vertical plane using a tommy bar or large screwdriver to lift the spindle. (i.e.: up and down direction.) As a rule of thumb, one thousands of an inch per one inch diameter of spindle is an acceptable clearance. Any clearance smaller than this will cause the bearing to run hot and may even cause overheating and possible seizure. This is where you may have to remove or insert shims to adjust the bearing clearance to the desired value, in your case around two thousandths of an inch.

Please remember that the oil in a bearing of this nature will float the shaft as it starts turning, using wedge lubrication and this is why a clearance is required. The oil will go to the area of the bearing periphery where the pressure is the greatest and will lift the spindle off the bearing journal, thereby preventing the metal surfaces from rubbing together. The same principal applies to your car crankshaft and bearings, the only difference being that your car bearings are force fed oil and will thereby withstand a much higher loading than the bearings on your lathe, which are only gravity fed from an oil bath or oil dripper.

Any scraping of the headstock bearing journals will have an affect on the accuracy of the lathe overall. Scraping too much off the bottom part of the lower pockets will cause the centreline of the lathe to lower below that of the tailstock centre. Any uneven scraping on the sides of the bearing will cause the centreline to shoot out and an angle to that of the lathe bed, so you are best advised not to scrape too much off the bearing journals.

An old timer machinist in his 80's said to me that the best line shaft bearings were the cast iron bearings, so don't down rate your lathe bearings as been inferior in any way. These cast iron bearings have been working well in industry for more than 200 years in all kind of machines.

It would be nice if you post pictures of the steps that I have described above, when you get to that stage of the overhauling game, so that others can see and learn from your work and assist you further, as well.

Geoffrey.


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## catskinner (May 30, 2015)

Nammar said:


> From your pictures, your lathe spindle bearings look as if they are an integral part of the headstock casting (as opposed to loose removable shell bearings) and they also look as if they are cast iron.[/QUOTE
> 
> Yes they are cast as part of the headstock. I was wondering if the spindle had been changed before as it looks really nice compared to the bearings. Here are some pictures of the spindle.


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## catskinner (May 30, 2015)

Thanks guys for the info this is all starting to make sense now.


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## Kernbigo (May 31, 2015)

I did not suggest to scrape the bearings in,but to add oil pockets with a spoon scraper. You need to have experience to hand scrap bearings and and way systems, like my self.


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## Kernbigo (May 31, 2015)

View attachment 104918


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## Vladymere (May 31, 2015)

I think your bearings look fine.  The scoring is not significant to be an issue in my opinion.  Scraping oil pockets is, not required, that is what the linear scoring is there for.  Clean it up, put new wicks in, lube it up and adjust the bearings per the South Bend instructions.

Vlad


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## catskinner (May 31, 2015)

Thanks again guys I will do as suggested, sounds like it will work out fine.


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## fixit (Jun 3, 2015)

Nammar said:


> Hi Catskinner, From your pictures, your lathe spindle bearings look as if they are an integral part of the headstock casting (as opposed to loose removable shell bearings) and they also look as if they are cast iron. As you have already indicated that you do not know what a spoon scraper is, you are advised to steer clear of scraping the bearing with a spoon scraper, as you may end up doing more harm than just leaving it as it is. It worked for many years as is, so don't kick the sleeping dog! Regarding the shims, you need to make sure that the same shims are put back into their respective positions, as these are used to get clearance on the bearings.
> 
> My advice to you would be to clean everything up by polishing using Scotchbrite or steel wool and leave the scratches for now. Once everything has been cleaned up, spread some engineers blue onto the spindle bearing surfaces and put the spindle into the headstock casting bearing pockets as it would be on the lathe. Don't put the bearing caps on just yet. With gravity holding the shaft in place, rotate the shaft by 360 degrees and remove the spindle and observe the contact of the spindle to the bearing surfaces. This will indicate to you if there are any high spots that may be holding the spindle bearing higher, thereby preventing the spindle from bedding properly in the bearing journal pockets.
> 
> ...



VERY WELL SAID. I totally agree
fixit


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## catskinner (Jun 3, 2015)

fixit said:


> VERY WELL SAID. I totally agree
> fixit


bl
Thank you fixit, my plan is to do just that. The parts are in the electrolysis tank now and will be pulled out about noon. A little paint and the reassembly starts.


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## Thoro (Jun 7, 2015)

This is my experience with what I found when I tore apart my heavy 10 and it has the same bearings.

I found mine to be scored like yours's, not quite as bad, but not excellent.  I got all flustered and thought it was going to be a junker.  After reading what a lot of other guys said, some saying that it must be fixed, others saying to just claen it up and run it, see what happens, I decided to take a level headed simple approach and clean it all up, put it together and see what happens.  What I did was made sure there were no high spots in the segmented cast iron bearings as well as on the super polished/hardened spindle bearing surface.  I found the the cast iron bearings had very little to no high spots but the spindle had gauled material on the bearing surface.  I stoned the spindle very lightly with a very fine stone where the gaulling was ( it wasn't much.)  It seems fine to me.  Think of the scoring as extra oil passages.  This is what I would do if I were you.  Afterall it's not much more work to take it apart again if this doesn't work and then figure out a different way to fix it (if it indeed needs fixing)

Hope that helps.


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## catskinner (Jun 7, 2015)

Thoro said:


> Think of the scoring as extra oil passages. This is what I would do if I were you. Afterall it's not much more work to take it apart again if this doesn't work and then figure out a different way to fix it (if it indeed needs fixing)



Thank you Thoro for your comment, I have come to the same conclusion. I just got the case out of the electrolysis tank and will be checking it for high spots, my spindle looks good no gaulling that I can see.

Jim


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## catskinner (Jul 10, 2015)

I have finally started to reassemble my heavy 10, here are a few pics.  Some before and after.


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