To Wipe or Not to Wipe ? That is the question.

[ltlvt]

Okay all you sick bastards get your head out of the gutter. I'm talking about felt way wipers. I am at the point of putting new felt wipers on my saddle for the Clausing 5913 lathe. Some manufactures do not put wipers on and say they collect the fine chips and cause wear on the ways. Yet others insist the wipers help seal in the oil and keep the ways clean. So lets hear it for Wipers . Pro and Con. BTW the felt wipers from Clausing must have gold inside them. If ya know what I mean. LOL

 

[coolidge]

That counter argument sounds faulty. Without wipers the fine chips will still be there. I'd rather a fine chip be stuck in a felt wiper than jammed between the ways and saddle. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[GeneT45]

Definitely wipers. Clean 'em off or replace them once in a while. Those tiny chips, with precious little pressure on them, aren't going to materially increase wear in any form. And make your own, they aren't exactly rocket science, and you don't need the gold filling... ;-)

GsT

 

[markba633csi]

I think it's better to have than to have not

 

[MrWhoopee]

Wipe! Definitely wipe!

 

[gard]

Oil soaked wipers is what keeps the ways lubricated. And lubrication is important just about everywhere.

 

[cathead]

Tiny shards of metal will probably not do any harm if caught in the wipers. It's a lot more concerning
if they get sandwiched between the ways and carriage. Wipers it is here.

 

[mmcmdl]

Okay all you sick bastards get your head out of the gutter.

You rang ? I've got friends in low places . Wipe !

 

[jwmay]

I’d go with the manufacturer of the equipment, over anything. If Clausing put wipers on it, they ought to be on it.

 

[Jake M]

Okay all you sick bastards get your head out of the gutter. I'm talking about felt way wipers. I am at the point of putting new felt wipers on my saddle for the Clausing 5913 lathe. Some manufactures do not put wipers on and say they collect the fine chips and cause wear on the ways. Yet others insist the wipers help seal in the oil and keep the ways clean. So lets hear it for Wipers . Pro and Con. BTW the felt wipers from Clausing must have gold inside them. If ya know what I mean. LOL

My little South Bend 9A uses felt wipers. It's not a big lathe, and it's not a perfect world, so there's occasions where I don't have the horsepower (or rigidity if I did have the horsepower) to make a "correct" cut, and I end up with dust.

I find that the wipers are great at A, collecting that, and B, holding on to oil. They're ALWAYS well oiled when I change them. And I do that often. (relatively speaking, often in terms of machine hours).

My wipers are available on eBay and Amazon from the usuall crowd of home shop/borderline home shop people who make simple things. If I were you, and I were worried, I'd see if that was an option for your lathe, or see if it's plausible to replecate a sheet of felt to cut your own.

I do think wipers are better than no wipers, (UNLESS the carriage is designed to push chips, which if you have wipers, it is not designed that way), but I also believe that felt wipers are high maintenance UNLESS you're in a perfect world where you're tooled up and dialed in for EVERYTHING you turn.

0.02