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Replacement Spindle for Abene VHF-3BS

Wazic

Plastic
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Location
NY, USA
Hi folks,

Is there any hope in finding a replacement spindle for my #5xxx, Abene VHF-3BS?

It has been a very long road, trying to get the Abene VHF-3BS, moving quill, up and running. I finally got a a new set of bevel gears for the head, not quite understanding why I needed them, until I pulled the spindle and set it in a pair of V blocks with a dial indicator. It came from a vocational school, and apparently must have been abused.

I am rebuilding this for a student "maker space" and need to be mindful of a limited budget. University level student research, so better than mill/drill, but doesn't need to be aerospace. I imagine remaking the spindle would not be worth it. I have contacted virtually every shaft straightening service on the planet, and been unsuccessful to find someone who wants to take a try at some method of straightening. I have been at it for years. If the shaft didn't slide in a sleeve, traditional press straightening would probably work. The spindle I have must have been "straight attempted", as it has a "wave irregularity". The depressing tip off was an etch mark of the high spot as soon as it got free of the head.

I am hoping there is a half rusty, partially dysfunctional moving quill machine out there, languishing in a barn, that might have a functional spindle.

Best,

W
 
Can you be more specific as to the issue...perhaps photos of the offending spindle....
Off hand i would think any high grade industrial chrome and grind shop should be able to grind your existing (bent?) spindle
under size, then chrome and grind it back to standard using the tool holder taper as the reference....

If the bend affects the taper...repair the OD first then regrind the internal taper to true it up...This can even be done on the machine once assembled....
Some brave folks here have even restored the taper on their spindles using carbide tooling and using the table to feed the tool to recut the taper.....

Hard top believe that one of the established professional spindle repair shops could not do what i have described above and return the spindle to "as new" condition...
Of course this sort of precision work is not free........


Think a repair is lots more possible than finding another spindle especially for an Abene with a sensitive quill.......

Cheers Ross
 
What is the maximum deposition of material (with hard chrome)? As in, roughly, how much re-ground correction can be expected, and maintain surface strength? I wish it was simply a bearing journal, and not a fluted slide-way that takes a bit of punishment. Below are a couple of pics, where it looks like a machine shop has looked at it, and identified a high spot (x) (the apex of the "jump rope"). I don't have a vee block and indicator setup that is super accurate, but its definitely moving. With a horizontal arbor in, its visible with the naked eye.
spindleB.jpgspindleA.jpg
 
Some additional info to know here....As to hard chrome, part looks to use bearings on the surface so no rolling contact on the chromed surface, that is good
and allows build up without any issues...no problem going .010-.015 " on the diameter...more if needed, just has to be done correctly.

As to the spline, its not part of the precision controlling part of the spindle, so can tolerate a bit of clearance, not perfect, but not the end of things.
Question is where is the mating part (gear?) located or registered, the OD of the spline or the root (minor diameter) of the spline.

Looks to be located on the OD in your case (can be either) Test by mating the parts together and look where the clearance is. Its either on the major diameter or on the minor...
Some micrometer measurements will tell the exact story.
If the OD of the spline locates the mating part, some precision straitening then you can grind it true and chrome it back to standard. The plating shop can mask the grooves and minor diameter to keep from having to rework all that....


In truth, its not a real complex part. Could be made from scratch if need be.
Tell us what equipment you have available...Good lathe with a good spindle? Any grinding equipment, like a surface grinder perhaps?
Need to see the mating part(s) for the spline..drive gear perhaps?

Cheers Ross
 
Oddly enough, the bearing areas are fine. The apex of "bow" is in the middle of the spline, right where the two bevel gears mesh. You can see epic wear in the teeth of both gears, suggesting that the shaft is swinging at that point, causing serious chatter with the teeth. Compared to the one new gear, the wear in the other two is impressive. I would imagine press straightening would be first, to try and get the spline concentric, or I will continue to eat teeth, and most likely transmit significant vibration to the cutter. I am not sure if you can chrome the spline and regrind for concentricity...I have an Annn Yang Centroid lathe, but the setup to make something like this is above my abilities. Finding someone with a press big enough, would be a start.1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg4.jpg
 
Be aware that what you need is someone who has a real straightening press.....
These are dedicated straightening devices. The ones i am familiar with have a hydraulic powered ram that is controlled via a servo valve that allows the operator to precisely
control the stroke of the ram in tiny amounts.....the platen is rigid below the ram and the setup includes special movable (on ball bearings) holders to carry the work...the holders all have
indicators and are made with a compressible spring loaded action so that you can rotate the part on the carriage and read its run out at that point, and apply pressure directly over the carriage.
The carriage will collapse and allow the force to be applied directly on the pate to the platen ...by pressing in selected positions in small moves the operator can watch the entire part and how its moving.
move it back and fourth to check the entire part.
The guy who grinds my cams "Mega-Cycle) just up the road has such a press, and he straightened , with my help, the 7' long 50 mm diameter line boring bar for my Berco line boring machine...
Got everything within .0003" TIR over the total length.....
Gotta be someone in your area that has such a press and knows how to use it....

Is the shaft hard, can you scratch it with a file? Do you have two (mating) new gears, is just see the one, are the teeth worn like that all the way around?

Don't give up, think this can be acceptably repaired. If at a total loss, i would consider straightening that shaft using Mega-Cycle's machine...but i need to check on its availability.
Cheers Ross
 
Weird, I would expect fretting/galling damage from small cyclic movements on the splines as well, if there is serious trouble with runout and gear meshing.
Also strange that all teeth are more or less worn equally and not only those who have meshing issues due to runout.

Could it be that the machine had gear lubrication issues or was used for very long time and then sold, as the previous owners knew that it's toast and rebuild wouldn't be economical?

Or really badly adjusted bevel gears, I've seen a Sixis 103 that also had similar worn gears (not as bad as on this one though), on which bevel gear adjustment was bad.
 
I imagine those gears will sound like a rock crusher if you put them in service. That is a shocking amount of wear. I wonder how it happened, short of throwing sand in there and running for hours.
 
We see wear exactly like this on ring and pinion final drive gears in Hewland transaxle gear boxes....Can happen there in the course of a weekend.
Often accounted for by boor setup and poor lubrication....(not exactly a direct comparison generally much higher forces on the Hewland set)
I suspect poor lube in this case...but anything is possible...Would be interested in having the hardness tested...could be the case was too thin and broke down which lead to rapid
wear on the core.....
Further as explained by the OP....truly amazed that the spline could bet bent and not the entire spindle.....does not seem possible, in service the only forces acting on the spline are the
thrust from the gear set....A crash would have surely affected the spindle bearing area...and a sudden stop of the spindle that might create excessive side thrust on the spline would
surely have broken the engaged teeth of the gear set.
Cheers Ross
 
This is an interesting project and worth the effort and expense depending on the condition of the rest of the machine .I look forward to hearing about the progress .
When you see the amount of metal that is missing from the drive gears it's a surprise that the spindle bearing is still good as it is an easy path down from the worn gears to the bearing .
The Abene manual talks about greasing the spindle bearings but does not mention those gears . Is there an ideal grease to use . The RPM gets up to 2000. There is only one way to
get grease in there and that is to slide the head off its mounting ring and apply .Most of the grease flings off right away and gets pushed out from where we want it .
I check mine frequently and usually add a little grease each time . The gears look good . It does seem like there could be a better way .
Any tips on a better grease/lube would be of great help to me and I'm sure other Abene owners including the OP .
Good luck with the project .
Regards , Ted
 
What is the best grease for these bevel gears ?
I sent the question to Abene Sweeden but have not heard back .
What are other people using in their Abenes ,Deckels etc?
Regards , Ted
 
A member here who rebuilt his over in the uk recommended to me “ Molyslip (lubricants heavily loaded with Molybdenum Disulphide) and I used their HSB grease (High Speed Bearing)”

I went with “ SHELL GADUS S2 V220 2 HIGH PERFORMANCE MULTIPURPOSE EXTREME PRESSURE GREASE 400GM”

It seems to be working well
 
Weird, I would expect fretting/galling damage from small cyclic movements on the splines as well, if there is serious trouble with runout and gear meshing.
Also strange that all teeth are more or less worn equally and not only those who have meshing issues due to runout.

Could it be that the machine had gear lubrication issues or was used for very long time and then sold, as the previous owners knew that it's toast and rebuild wouldn't be economical?

Or really badly adjusted bevel gears, I've seen a Sixis 103 that also had similar worn gears (not as bad as on this one though), on which bevel gear adjustment was bad.

Good call, congrats.
 
A member here who rebuilt his over in the uk recommended to me “ Molyslip (lubricants heavily loaded with Molybdenum Disulphide) and I used their HSB grease (High Speed Bearing)”

I went with “ SHELL GADUS S2 V220 2 HIGH PERFORMANCE MULTIPURPOSE EXTREME PRESSURE GREASE 400GM”

It seems to be working well

Rapid wear has been noticed in some milling head gears of similar type as a direct result of using MoS2. In that app you need a short fiber tacky grease with no EP additives. But, because the cutting power is ( probably ) low any grease will do.
 
What is the best grease for these bevel gears ?
I sent the question to Abene Sweeden but have not heard back .
What are other people using in their Abenes ,Deckels etc?
Regards , Ted

Strange as it may sound, nobody knows. But the ideal grease is ( almost ) always an oil.
 
Strange as it may sound, nobody knows. But the ideal grease is ( almost ) always an oil.

Only if you can keep the oil on the gears...not always the case....

Don't agree with your statement on using a lube with EP additives.....AFAIK the EP additives only become an issue if there are bronze bushings in play...
not an issue on steel gears......
Cheers Ross
 
1. Only if you can keep the oil on the gears...not always the case....

2. Don't agree with your statement on using a lube with EP additives.....AFAIK the EP additives only become an issue if there are bronze bushings in play...
not an issue on steel gears......
Cheers Ross

1. Sure.

2. That's perfectly fine - we learn from (polite ) disagreements. But given that you like quality machine tools I will assure you I REALLY know what I am talking about. This is however too technical a discussion to have here.
 
Thank you Plastiko
I'll look into both the Molyslip and the Shell Gadus.
Also thank you Orbital for the warning re. MoS2 .
I did speak with Howard at Kluber . He said to try Kluber NBU15 . Actually it says on the NBU15 write up that it can be used for bevel gears in milling machines . I might give it a go .
Didn't mean to highjack this thread .
Ted
 








 
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