Can you damage a plain bronze bearing spindle by running it with too much clearance?

To the OP questions, it's hard to say if you'd damage the machine. You'd think the original design would have been for a "bullet-proof" hardened spindle and the weak point in the more easily/cheaper bearings. Probably best to change the bearings out so you don't have to fiddle with work-arounds to get a good finish.

Not an apples to apples data point for you, but below is a posting from me doing a repair on a bench grinder my dad made in high school in 1954. Short version is the shop project (every student in the class made one of these grinders) was to expose the students to the horizontal mill, lathe and drill press. The grinder had brass bearings, not bronze. You'll see in the photos below that there was "a little" wear in the bushings/bearings. The spindle was just cold-rolled steel, not 4140 or drill rod, and it was fine.

Bruce


Just a little wear in the spindle bearing/bushing! Even I could see why the grinder spindle danced while grinding!
1681996921000.png
1681996950187.png


 
To the OP questions, it's hard to say if you'd damage the machine. You'd think the original design would have been for a "bullet-proof" hardened spindle and the weak point in the more easily/cheaper bearings. Probably best to change the bearings out so you don't have to fiddle with work-arounds to get a good finish.

Not an apples to apples data point for you, but below is a posting from me doing a repair on a bench grinder my dad made in high school in 1954. Short version is the shop project (every student in the class made one of these grinders) was to expose the students to the horizontal mill, lathe and drill press. The grinder had brass bearings, not bronze. You'll see in the photos below that there was "a little" wear in the bushings/bearings. The spindle was just cold-rolled steel, not 4140 or drill rod, and it was fine.

Bruce


Just a little wear in the spindle bearing/bushing! Even I could see why the grinder spindle danced while grinding!
View attachment 445131
View attachment 445132


Haha, I love the pictures :-)

It makes me feel a bit better about my grinder :-)
Instead of a new thread, why not just move this one? That would keep all of the info together.
This question is still relevant. The restoration of the machine is going to be quite involved. Also I have more questions, for example regarding bearing preload. I would rather keep lots of detail in the restoration thread and just have individual questions in the questions subforum. It makes it easoto find for people searching in future and thd answers don't get buried by my very long posts :-)
 
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