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question for the linear motion gurus.

VertigoGlass

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 25, 2012
Location
San Bernardino Ca
I am currently tooling up to make some glass blowing lathes. My 1970 glass lathe used a box way with a cast iron tail stock. My current plan is to use mounted linear rails, the linear rails i ordered came with the bearing slides and they are an aluminum housing with a plastic insert with ball bearings. My concern is the radiant heat from the glassblowing process to melt the plastic so i have two options with step up to the more expensive stainless bearing inserts or use somethin like an oil impregnated bronze bushing. The reason for using the linear rails and bushing is that down the road they can be replaced if/when damaged. These are not high precision .0001 type tools as the glass we use are out of round or tollerance lucky if the tubes are within 5-8 thou of eachother. Any advice on the bushing over higher end bearing would be great.
 
If the linear bearings are at the bottom, a sheet metal heat shield should deflect any heat away from them. There should be no heat rising up from underneath to hurt them should there?
Or did I misunderstand the concept?

Two layers of heat shields should stop any radiated heat, or dripping hot glass.
 
Thank you for the quick reply's

It will have a dust/heat sheild covering the shafts and the bulk of the tailstock will block the majority of the radiant heat. I sometimes use a wooden block to raise my torch up off the fire carriage (same as a cross slide on a normal lathe) and the wood will sometime smolder and catch on fire 8-10 inches away from the primary heat sourcs so it was a concern of mine.

The link looks just like what i had planned on making a bronze oil impregnated bushing but if i can get it from them for a decent price then hot damn there i go! Thank you both once again
 
from mcmaster carr you could get
pillow blocks with bronze bushings
ground shafting
and mounting blocks
screws, nuts and cranks
the whole thing could be done basicaly bolt up
 
I plan on using as much off the shelf stuff as i can. I looked at the pillow blocks for the linear mostion aspect and didnt see anything that would work with the sizing i need but i will continue the search. Some of the "home built" glass lathes in the past have used large pillow blocks as a head stock/tailstock to hold the spindle. Problem is with the size of the pass through on the pillow block. The larger size lathe i am building has a pass through of 5 inches.
 








 
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