High speed grease!!!!

I am starting to reassemble the Herbert high speed drill which was used in a shadow factory producing Merlin magnetos and starter motors.

All is looking good and I note that one of the many plates on this drill, it says "Use Prices RM Belmoline grease on the high speed spindle bearings" It even says the machine was supplied with a tin of said grease. Now some 80 years later, the tin is missing!

So what is a good replacement for this "High speed grease" other than my usual Castrol Lithium grease? Maximum spindle speed is 10,000 rpm and the bearings are a combination of ball and thrust races. I might as well get the right grease after cleaning out all the old stuff.

Regards,

Andrew.

Back in the day, Castrol BNS

I have an Alexander Engraver and Diesinker with a spindle speed of 9400. The recommended grease is;

Isoflex Super Tel from Kluber Lubrication.

Edited By Brian H on 21/03/2021 14:44:42

+1 Kluber

Kluber was used in most of the spindles I designed although they only ran uptown 10,000 rpm. Not cheap but just get the minimum quantity as specified by the manufacturer. Bearings actually need very little, too much will result in overheating and destroy the grease then the bearing.

Andrew,

Either Castrol BNS as Dave says or Castrol FCB, at a pinch MS3 would be a third choice at a push, MS3 is a high melt point grease but I would want to 'warm up' the drill prior to loading it if I used MS3.

Did this drill by any chance come out of the old Lucas factory at Shaftsmoor Lane?

Martin

In an application that calls for Klúber high speed bearing grease (NBU 15 IIRC) at work I use this equivalent from a British supplier. IIRC the last 400 g cartridge I bought last year was around £30 - a lot less than the Klúber product. This is a very soft white grease.

I used to use Klúber at the last employment, but they were local then (just outside Halifax) & I just collected from them when required. Fastest spindles we did then were for a Marwin router that ran to 12,000 rpm - weighed quantities of grease inserted into the bearings with a syringe, then careful running in by building up the revs over a couple of days while monitoring the spindle temperature. Not just a case of shoving a good finger full of grease into the bearings and straight up to full speed !

Nigel B.

Edited By mgnbuk on 21/03/2021 15:08:59

I would go for a plain high melting point lithium grease, used sparingly. Overpacking is not a good idea, the grease must have room to be spun out of the trackways, or churning results in overheating. I was told that greases with molybdenum disulfide was not to be used with rolling element bearings as it reacts chemically with the steel surface making it harder and brittle, not a disadvantage with plain bearings.

The klueber greases mentioned are fine. But if you don't want to spend too much, the key grease property you should look for is it's consistency or penetration number. Ensure that you get a No.3 which is 'stiffer' grease than most others which are typically no.2. Stiff greases will 'channel' faster than soft ones. This helps keeps temperatures down and is particularly helpful on vertical shafts where the excess grease that gets displaced to the upper side of the bearing is always trying to slump back into the bearing.

Of course, other properties like viscosity etc can be important in high speed applications but quite honestly for an intermittently used drill I really wouldn't worry too much

Gerry

Hello,

Thanks everyone, that gives me a fair choice, although none of them is easy to find and they seem a touch expensive if you can find them!

Martin, the drill came from the old BTH shadow factory in Leicester (It even has the air ministry plaque to prove it) The factory later became Thorn Lighting. It was painted in Air Ministry blue to make sure that people knew who it belonged to!

Andrew.

Looking at the original product packaging raises a couple of interesting issues:

1. Was this solidified Whale Oil ?
2. How many grades were available ... and which one suits the Herbert drill

MichaelG.

.

**LINK**

https://vintageautomobilia.co.uk/product/prices-belmoline-grease/

Edit: see also https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Prices_Patent_Candle_Co

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/03/2021 20:18:22

If I recall correctly that site now hosts Sainsbury's superstore & petrol station.

regards

Here is a link to bearing lubricants.

**LINK**

Another snippet from Grace’s Guide:

”PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE Co., LTD. , Belmont Works, Battersea, S.W. (246).—This firm has a wide selection of lubricants and solvents on view. The oils of greatest importance that are exhibited here are the Motorine C and heavy gas engine oils, which, we were informed, are the most widely used oils of this firm on motor cars. For gear work Battersea gear oil is chiefly employed, while for the gear box of which the bearings are worn a solidified oil known as Belmoline is used. Belgraphine, which is also a solid preparation with refined powdered graphite ,added, is also supplied in three grades for the same purpose as Belmoline.”

Ref. **LINK**

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1907_Motor_Show_(SMMT)

MichaelG.

This might be suitable, was specified on variator rollers on a Suzuki.

https://www.chemtool.com/Greases/Types-of-Greases/Polyurea#:~:text=Polyurea%20grease%20is%20a%20non-soap%20thickened%20grease%20that,water%20resistance%20compared%20to%20other%20common%20grease%20types

That looks a useful set of attributes, Colin

**LINK** for convenience.

MichaelG.

Old Mart, your warning about molybdenum disulphide additives is very relevant, in my uninformed youth there was a fashion to use greases with moly added or to add moly additives to various oils for “superior performance “. I followed the trend and added the relevant moly to the gearbox oil on my car, the car had relatively low mileage, certainly less than 30,000 miles: within a couple of thousand miles there was a catastrophic failure of the gearbox. When dismantled it was evident that the bearing where the output shaft ran inside the input shaft had failed, this bearing was a needle roller with very fine rollers, the moly had affected the surface of the rollers leading to complete collapse of the bearing with rollers exiting their cage and ending up jammed between the teeth of the gears. Needless to say now very wary of the claims made concerning any “miracle” potions. Dave W

Yes needle rollers don't like thick "glug" at all. The moly additiive is made to make a thick gluggy (to use the technical term) film that works wonderfully to stop gear teeth micro-welding together and wearing out under high loads etc. But needle rollers really like to have a thinner oil circulating through the tiny spaces between their tiny rollers. It happens that Harley Davidson used needle rollers in some of their later transmissions and a lot of Harley guys like to run super thick oils in their bikes in hot climates. Works ok in a hot engine but the needle rollers in the cooler transmission are the first thing to fail.

BTW, what is the RPM of this Herbert HIgh Speed drill press and what type of bearings has it? Balls, rollers, tapered, needle?

I had to look up "shadow factory" to see what you meant by that. Interesting stuff. It's a piece of history you have there. The drill press that won the war.

Edited By Hopper on 22/03/2021 10:22:22

Hello Hopper,

It is certainly a piece of history, but I doubt that many people would bother with it! The bearings are ball bearings top and bottom of the main shaft. Each with a thrust race running on the bottom of the bearing housing. I at first thought they actually ran on the bottom cage lip of the ball bearing, until I cleared the accumulated gunge of old grease. Surprisingly the bearings were in good condition.

The top speed is 10,000 rpm. I now know that there were two three step pulleys for the 3 phase motor. The high speed one is missing and I will need to turn up a replacement. It is too big a diameter for my ML10, so it will have to wait until I finish a lathe refurb, or lock down finishes, so I can use a friends bigger lathe.

I doubt it will get much use, but it has been under my bench for 30 years and I thought it about time I did something with it. Once reassembled I will need my engine hoist to shift it, I guess it weighs at least 100 kilos and maybe quite a bit more!

Andrew.

Wow sounds like quite the machine. I had imagined it smaller for magneto work. Yes 10k rpm is up there so grease choice could be beyond the normal realms for drill presses.