Moglice for an 8-1/4" bore for spindle quill

I have a customer with a double column machine center that is about 20 years old. The lube system somehow got contaminated with a chemical that smelled like ammonia. It finally clogged the system and wasn't getting any lube and faulted out. The lube system has been cleaned up and flushed repeatedly and good lube is going to all of the bearings.

The slides use bearing packs and those are still good, but the spindle quill had 3 bearing surfaces, 2 of those being Moglice(top/center) and 1 made of bronze on the bottom. It is approximately an 8-1/4" diameter bore and the quill is about 6 feet long. The housing is approximately 4ft tall that the quill rides in. The top bearing surface is 2-1/2" wide Moglice, and the middle is also 2-1/2" wide Moglice. The quill is driven by the z-axis ballscrew/servo motor and also has a live spindle inside the quill.

The upper Moglice bearing surface is destroyed and needs to be replaced. There are cracks all the way thru the 2-1/2" wide bearing. The middle bearing surface seems to be ok as no heat was being generated while running the quill up and down, but probably should also be replaced. You can see the middle bearing in the photo of the housing. The middle bearing has a cutout where the slide bolts to the quill. The upper bearing got hot and the servo load went over 200% and finally got a diff over alarm. When removing the quill after it cooled down I almost snapped the strap attached to the crane. I had to pry on the bottom to get it moving.

A call into the manufacturer service department said to break out the old Moglice, clean the area, install the quill back inside the housing, and pour in the new Moglice. No machining needed. Are you kidding me? There is an oil groove in the middle of both bearing surfaces for lube with a cross-ported hole and fitting on the outside of the housing. What do you coat the quill with so when it is removed out the top it doesn't damage the Moglice? Still waiting on answers from them.

I was thinking about removing the saddle from the machine and installing the new Moglice in both bearing surfaces and then have the housing machined to the quill size with a couple tenths clearance. Then cut the oil grooves and drill out the cross-ports. Will a good machine shop be able to put the bore back on center for squareness and so the z-axis slide that drives the quill still fits? The slide bolts to the quill.

I am scratching my head on this one. Any suggestions are very welcomed. I have 2 weeks to think about it as I am on vacation as of Friday, a much needed break.

Thanks in advance, Daryl

First of all I should say I used to be a Devitt Machinery the USA Importer of Moglice Rep. Moglice is some wonderful stuff but there are some issues too. With machine designed using it, you don't have much choice in another option. You can call Cody the Mogice Tech out in PA and he I am sure could help more then the machine mfg. factory rep. Devitt Machinery Company | Devitt Machinery Company

You will need to spray a release agent..it's like wax die release on the quill. If your quill gets hot you will have to have Cody calculate the number of coats of the release agen you will need to apply as Moglice expands with heat. But if the lube issue caused the heat then you are probably OK with one coat. But please ask Cody.

You will have to figure out a way to dam up the edges of the place your going to pour. With out being there and seeing it all I can say is they use children's clay, foam insulating tape, dried Silicone, O-Rings, etc. Mogice has different consistency materials. One you pour and is liquid, one looks like pancake batter and flows slow, another is a putty that looks like cake frosting. I have used all 3 and the liquid works best for me. I squirt in into place using a big syringe from the bottom up and as it fills the void the air escapes up the top.

I do know Cody travels and he can come and assist you do the job. It might be the best way to do the job. Installing Moglice the wrong way ..well you will need to chip it out and start again. It is not forgiving like the other products are. Products like Turcite or Rulon on flat way surface.

The factory rep was wrong as Mogice needs to be spotted to hold the oil and as you said an oil grove cut into it. Cody can show you how to cast in the oil groves too.
Rich

Hi Rich,

I figured you would be the go to guy on this. I will give Cody a call on Monday. When you say that the Moglice needs to be spotted, do you mean scraped in like you would scrape a babbitt type spindle bearing?

Thanks for the info!

Daryl

No, Moglice will make an exact duplication of what it is formed to, so no scraping is needed to make a match fit like ways. I meant "spotting" as in oil pockets like oil 1/2 moon flaking is done of flat ways. You can make a Inside scraper that resembles a hook scraper to cut small depressions about 1/8 x 1/8" x .002" deep. If it is to flat the oil won't be able to work it's way under the edges. That reminds me after you pour it, bevel the top and bottom edge so the oil can "wedge" in between the quill and Moglice.

You can also find a "spoon" scraper or the radius tip we use for Biax 1/2 moon scraping to cut the spots. The flaker blades bottom edge is radius-ed as is the front edge. A flat scraper blade won't work on a curved surface. Rich

I spoke with Cody and sent him some information. It looks like he will be able to help us out. Thanks Rich!

Daryl

Please take some pictures and update us on what you do. Can be a learning curve for everyone. Rich

Will do, lots of them. Cody seems very helpful.

Yea-sounds for sure that the moglice just gets poured in. you would have to put something in the create the oil grooves.

My SNK quill is somewhat worn, but is brass inside the spindle housing. I am not a big fan of Moglice, I think people try to use it for every single application but it is not a fix all for everything.

But in this case it seems to be a prefect fit for this application. I think the most critical thing for you is when re working this spindle all is lined up properly when the moglice is poured.

I am curious-what kind of machine is this you are working on?

MCV-AII. It is going to take about 3 or 4 set-ups and injections to do this. I believe we will be using an o-ring to create the groove. It appears that it was injected with SKC material from the factory but I was not able to remove the plug. We might have to add more injection ports.

I met Cody at the customer's shop last Monday and we started on the job. We took a lot of measurements on the existing bearing material, quill, and bronze bushing. We pealed most of the old bearing material out easily as it had lost it's adhesion. Cody determined that the middle section did not need to be replaced. I was able to make an o-ring from a repair kit to simulate the new oil groove. We never heard back from the manufacturer as to what the clearance should be between the Moglice and the quill but Cody had already done his own calculations. We went with .0005" per side. We drilled out the old material from the vent on the rear and the injection port on the front side near the bottom. I ruined 4 drill bits drilling the old material out, tough stuff.

Cody was a very helpful and knowledgeable guy and a young pup to boot, lol. Pretty sharp for his age, I think 25? Anyways, I got pulled off the job to go install new linear rails and ball screws on X and Z axis on an old Hardinge lathe in Northern Michigan so I didn't get to see the rest of the process.

I have been promised photos for this thread. Cody installed tape to dam up the lower portion of the bearing in the housing. Then coated the quill with the right amount of release agent for proper clearance. He plugged the oil port and installed the quill, then measured the location of the o-ring for the oil groove. Then they injected the Moglice with a pneumatic gun that Cody had which attached to a fitting in the injection port. The Moglice is a 2 part mixture and took almost 45 minutes for the Moglice to make it's way around and up to the top. This was completed on Tuesday. On Wednesday they removed the quill and cleaned it up. It turned out real good! I will add more photos of the process when I receive them from Cody. Thanks for the recommendation Rich, I guess it went smoothly and he was out of there early Wednesday.

Your welcome. It always helps to have a guide the first time around on a project like that. That's not the same as putting it on flat ways which can be done with-out a lot of in person help. Most of the complaints you hear on Moglice was from someone who didn't have help, figured he knew how to do it and screwed it up.

Sort of like going to a new resort that your paying $1000.00 a week for a cabin and going out fishing without a guide and not catching any fish. I always get a guide for the first day when I stay at a resort. Might cost $200.00 but he shows you where all the best spots are, so the rest of the week you don't get skunked.

My friend Drew Devitt the President of Moglice USA would not let Cody do those types of installation if he didn't know his "stuff". Moglice has revolutionized the building and machine rebuilding business. Like Turcite and the Biax Scraper have. Rich

G'day Daryl.

Pity you got dragged away for another job. That's really good going, if Cody got out of there by Wednesday.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the pictures.

Regards Phil.

Last December we did another one of these double columns that the quill was so tight it over came the pre-load on a new z-axis ballscrew and showed .009" lost motion on an indicator. With the motor and brake removed you could put a wrench in the end of the screw and could not turn the quill down without a large cheater bar. This was with the weight of the quill, spindle, and a huge spindle motor up top.

I called on Devitt Machinery once again. This time I was able to see the project thru. After the quill was removed we spent a full day measuring the quill and bore. The prep work takes much longer than anything. The broken up bearing material was removed and the area cleaned up. The quill was masked off so the area where the Moglice would be injected could have the correct amount of release agent applied. I think they sprayed about 10 coats but that was 4 months ago. We were trying to get .0004" of clearance in the bore to the quill. An o-ring was glued to the quill at the location of the lube port, the small hole in the photo. The small hole was plugged off to keep the Moglice out. The large hole near the top is a vent so the Moglice flows up as it is injected. Once the Moglice started coming out of the vent a setscrew is installed in the hole. A dam was built around the top to minimize the cleanup after the Moglice setup.

Once the quill was in place and the o-ring location was measured, they mixed up the Moglice in a can and poured it into a caulking gun. The Moglice was injected thru a port opposite and lower than the vent hole.

The next day after the Moglice had set-up, we broke the quill loose and removed it from the bore. It was critical that there were no air pockets. The o-ring groove was cleaned up and drilled out. They used a die grinder to smooth the top area where the dam was built. There was one more application Moglice to smooth out the top where some had chipped away.

The whole process probably only took 3 or 4 days and the Devitt crew did a great job. I will add some photos that will do a much better job than what I just wrote.

The last photo is of the machine and the rebuilt spindle that I installed after the Moglice repair.

Devitt Machinery hard at work.


A face only a mother could love...Cody Reeves

Question, Other Brother. The o-ring has clearance to the bore, so the Moglice can flow past it, right?

sfriedberg said:

Question, Other Brother. The o-ring has clearance to the bore, so the Moglice can flow past it, right?

Click to expand...

That is correct. When the quill is removed the rubber has to be dug out of the groove in the Moglice. It was an interesting project and similar to what the original manufacturer did. They probably used a jig for geometry positioning of the quill, but we used the 2 inch center section of bearing that wasn't damaged and an adjustable bronze bushing on the bottom of the housing to retain the geometry.

Thanks for the description and pictures! What do they use as the ideal running fit when the spindle is warm? It sounds like they wanted .0005/side cold the first time, then the new bearing was .0004/side? Did they change the calculations, or decide the spindle would be a little warmer at running temp? Warm clearance target was around .0002/side?

Interesting that the release agent builds up uniformly at about a micron a layer, if ten coats gave the .0004 buildup. I wonder how they get it to deposit that thinly.

It lookls like the LULZ are strong with this man essential on any job

I spoke to Cody a couple weeks ago about a grind job. Looks like he is having wayyy too much fun with you!

Other Brother said:

Last December we did another one of these double columns that the quill was so tight {huge snip}

Click to expand...

I'm just glad to have you back. Hi end work and laying it on the line. No need to tell you I'm impressed.

Regards Phil.