J Grainger
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2006
- Location
- United Kingdom
Hello,
Some years ago I purchased a couple of Hardinge Cataract bench lathes, followed by a spare headstock and compound slide from a scrapped machine. Life kind of got in the way of doing anything with them but I've recently constructed a bench top, fitted original steam pipe legs, and put one of the lathes on it, using the spare BB59 enclosed headstock.
These two headstocks are the same model and type but the spare one has the brake intact, and having removed the chase threading spindle gear from the original headstock (with a bit of heat) it turned out to be missing a fairly important preload nut.
Running the lathe after oiling, I discovered the read bearing is intermittently noisy, it's been getting quieter with a bit of running - but it's still somewhat concerning. The front bearings seem fine.
Reviewing the headstock picture on the lathes website it seems that the rear bearing is just a deep grove ball bearing with the outer race free to float in the headstock bore - the lack of pre-load suggests to me that it's really nothing special.
Searching reveals there are a few threads on replacing the front bearings but little seems to have been said about the rear bearing. I wondered if anyone has replaced theirs or can offer advice on the sort of runout spec I'll need to look for in what seems to be a fairly (relatively speaking) non-critical bearing.
Thank you,
Jonathan
Some years ago I purchased a couple of Hardinge Cataract bench lathes, followed by a spare headstock and compound slide from a scrapped machine. Life kind of got in the way of doing anything with them but I've recently constructed a bench top, fitted original steam pipe legs, and put one of the lathes on it, using the spare BB59 enclosed headstock.
These two headstocks are the same model and type but the spare one has the brake intact, and having removed the chase threading spindle gear from the original headstock (with a bit of heat) it turned out to be missing a fairly important preload nut.
Running the lathe after oiling, I discovered the read bearing is intermittently noisy, it's been getting quieter with a bit of running - but it's still somewhat concerning. The front bearings seem fine.
Reviewing the headstock picture on the lathes website it seems that the rear bearing is just a deep grove ball bearing with the outer race free to float in the headstock bore - the lack of pre-load suggests to me that it's really nothing special.
Searching reveals there are a few threads on replacing the front bearings but little seems to have been said about the rear bearing. I wondered if anyone has replaced theirs or can offer advice on the sort of runout spec I'll need to look for in what seems to be a fairly (relatively speaking) non-critical bearing.
Thank you,
Jonathan