Lathe rigidity

This one has taper roller bearings " I replaced it a while back with Tapered roller bearings "

Jason B, the bearing inner of the top bearing on that type of mill certainly has to move to take up the slack, exactly the same as the lathe in the thread. Changing to taper rollers from sealed ball races is a good idea, but sealing the taper rollers is slightly more of a problem.

When I changed the spindle size on the Tom Senor mill, I designed in a double lip oil seal for the bottom taper roller, not to keep the grease in primarily, but to keep the swarf out. I didn't fit the garter spring.

And exactly why you can't bond it solid with bearing fit.

As they say! ^^^^^

Bearings are not inelastic, correct preload implies a small amount of elastic deformation shared out between bearing, spindle and housing acording to their materials and design. This can only be achieved by the relative movement of inner and outer races.

Some high speed spindles are designed with the bearing a close sliding fit and a spring to apply prelaod.

Neil

My advice to anyone thinking about replacing their lathe spindle bearings is to buy the new bearings, and make the tooling to reassemble the bearings without stressing them before taking the thing to bits. Aluminium rings which are a loose fit in in the bores and on the shafts, which press on both inner and outer races at the same time, and tubes if necessary to push with.

When the time comes to fit the bearings, ensure that the tubular "dolly" only touches the part to be fitted (ie the inner, to press onto a shaft; or the outer to press into a housing ) Doing it so that both races are loaded , or the wrong one, risks damage to the bearing. Which rather defeats the purpose of changing the bearings!

Howard

If you are fitting bearings where the inner and outer races are in line, then using a tool which presses on both at once cannot cause any harm. Taper rollers do not line up when they are assembled, but because they come apart, it is normal to deal with each part separately.

Well, I finally had a chance to get back to the spindle things today and have good news and bad news.

The good news is that the polishing has worked nicely. I can press the old bearing in with relatively little effort and there are no 'twangs' as it is pressed. Hoorah!

Next, following the advice in this forum I pressed the front bearing home. This was silly and I should have applied brains.

I can see that the 'correct way would be to press in the front bearing (like this), then pull in the spindle (with the force on the inner race.

However, once the front bearing is in place there is no way to assemble the gears on the spindle.

The only way you can actually assemble the whole thing is to press the front bearing on the spindle and the put on the keyway inner spacer and gears and press the spindle in place. this means that the pressure is on the inner race with the press going in on the outer race.

So now I need to unpress the front bearing. To do that I need to make a spacer (approx 56mm diameter so that I don't damage it on the way out. If only I had a working lathe!

I think I can make a suitable spacer on the mill and cut it off on the bandsaw. But I don't have the heart to start it today!

Old Mart - your advice is well taken, but you have to know what you are doing to know what tools to make!

Iain

Bad luck, Ian, try to remove that bearing without damaging it, or you will be buying yet another. I made a similar type of mistake yesterday, I pressed two parts together and left out one procedure which would have been much easier to have done before they were assembled. Instead of taking a minute to do, it will take me 1/2 hour just to set up.

Well it's been 40 days in the wilderness, but I've finally made some progress.

In advance, I can tell you that the take-away is that you should NEVER take your lathe apart unless you have a working lathe!

The first thing to do was to make a piece to press out the bearing that I'd pressed in. No lathe you see, so I had to do some lathing on my tiny mill. I decided to do this with a rotary table.

The outside

The Inside

Unpleasantly the clamps shifted (several times) during the work, so I ended up by milling the outside again.

How do you part off on the milling machine, I hear you say? Perhaps, a slitting saw?

Nope, my trusty new bandsaw! result is.

The piece fitted passably well

And have pressed the bearing on to the spindle, pressed the spindle into the headstock.

It was at this point that I realised that I needed a similar washer to press the rear bearing in, if I was not to risk damaging the damn thing. I reached for my lathe.... Oh, dear! It's in bits.

Back to the trusty milling machine. This time I decided that life was a little too short for rotary tables and slipping clamps. So out came my boring head. A challenge this time was that the bit of aluminium I had that was wide enough was deeper than the Z movement on the mill by a few mm. I in the end I bored to that depth and then remove the last bit with chain drilling and a file.

Drilling the innards, before boring out to 30 mm

. Again the clamps didn't hold well, so I went back to holding down with some normal clamps and switching to a clamp through the centre for the outside

My first attempt at this used a standard boring bar, but running backwards. This wasn't a good idea as the only real effect was to unscrew the boring bar head from the mandrel.

So I took a boring bar I made earlier and made a sort of trepanning tool (above). As the piece had moved before I'd finished the middle it was no longer aligned as you might be able to see from the photo.

Not a piece I'm awfully proud of, but it did the job!

And the bearing pressed home nicely!

The question on your lips, of course, is, 'has it made a difference?'

The answer is a definite *yes*. Firstly, there is no longer any lateral movement from the chuck under load. Secondly, it runs noticeably quieter. And thirdly, it seems to be producing significantly better surface finish in my limited tests so far!

With this all done now, I feel re-energised - back in from the wilderness and will get back to the steam engine...

As usual my thanks to all on this thread who've offered advice and support!

Iain

Result

Great news. There are many useful things for us all to learn from a thread like this, especially that there is almost always a way to overcome seemingly impossible hurdles by lateral thinking.