Bridgeport M-head lubrication questions

[amuller]

I"m about to get to assembling my M-head. As people will know, this normally uses a once-through drip system where oil from an oiler passes through the pulley bearings, then the spindle bearings, and eventually drips out to make a mess on the table, or gets spun off the spindle so it can be breathed. An alternative is to grease the bearings, and I've heard that B'port did install greased bearings on some machines where oil wasn't wanted. I don't know what if any seals they used.

What would you suggest I do know? Grease, or stick with oil?

If sticking with oil, I think I should use an oiler with an on-off lever and visible dripping so as to be able to regulate the feed rate. Any specific suggestions?

Thank you very much.

 

[benmychree]

I had an M head that I used on an old B&S mill that I used to have; the oiler was a big Gits type, maybe 3/4" diameter and one inch high that has a standpipe inside and a wick (a pipe cleaner works nicely) that supplied the (small) quantity of oil needed, there was no big issue with dripping oil mess, and no need to fill the oiler full up every time. I think why they used oil rather than grease was that this unit was a "high speed" head, I'm supposing that grease would cause overheating when operated at the higher speeds. The pipe cleaner wick is inserted with one end down the standpipe and a bit beyond the bottom of the oiler and the other end into the reservoir, part of it can be loosely coiled around the standpipe.
I think using a drip oiler would likely lead to much more oil being used than would be necessary. with the wick oiler, I'd just give it a little squirt before starting work.

 

[amuller]

I had an M head that I used on an old B&S mill that I used to have; the oiler was a big Gits type, maybe 3/4" diameter and one inch high that has a standpipe inside and a wick (a pipe cleaner works nicely) that supplied the (small) quantity of oil needed, there was no big issue with dripping oil mess, and no need to fill the oiler full up every time. I think why they used oil rather than grease was that this unit was a "high speed" head, I'm supposing that grease would cause overheating when operated at the higher speeds. The pipe cleaner wick is inserted with one end down the standpipe and a bit beyond the bottom of the oiler and the other end into the reservoir, part of it can be loosely coiled around the standpipe.
I think using a drip oiler would likely lead to much more oil being used than would be necessary. with the wick oiler, I'd just give it a little squirt before starting work.

Thanks for the input. There are four oilers of they type you describe on my shaper ram and they seem to work well in that application. I made wicks out of fat pipe cleaners and I suspect they may feed a bit more than necessary but that could be reduced with a different wick material. Of course, they feed constantly until they empty out. On the M-head, I think the normal speeds are well within the "grease" range but of course fresh clean oil is ideal whereas grease will eventually dry up. Now that I think about it, there was a smashed GITS wick oiler on the head. GITS is still around and makes wick oilers, but they are expensive, like 40-50 bucks. But it seems a simple device to make. https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...Cups?navid=12107473#navid=12107473+4287420061