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Possible help with bearings

snddude56

Plastic
Joined
Jan 31, 2020
Hi! My name is Nate. I'm hoping to get some help with a small project. I have a pendulum clock that was made by my grandfather years ago. Basically, I'm hoping to replace all of the bearings as they are all bad. I have a total of 14 bearings in 6 different sizes. The smallest of them has an OD of 0.375", an ID of 0.1235 and a width of 0.1555. So far, I have the following manufacturers: SKF, Norma, Fafnir, NTN and another one that I can't make out a manufacturer but is marked "ND 7R6". What I'm wondering is whether there is a way to reference these dimensions to a manufacturer and how to find out where I can get the bearings in small amounts. Two are 1 each, 2 are 2 each, and 2 are 4 each. If I can figure out a manufacturer for each size, perhaps I can get them from Ebay or something like that. Thanks all for your time!
 
If these are ball bearings you can shop for them by the dimensions that you have. The manufacturer is not relevant. Watch the prefixes on the part numbers so you can avoid sealed bearings. Too much drag for a clock mechanism.
 
Thankyou all very much! After I posted this, I found the "Dyna roll" site which has a quick easy way to plug in the ID and OD and get a list of options. I found all but 1, and then discovered that this was the one that has the current ?part number?. LOL Now I'm hoping that I can find 1 vendor who I can get all 14 from rather than multiple vendors. Rickyb, thanks for mentioning the thought on the seals. The two largest bearings are for the shaft that has the sprocket for the drive weight and they are rated for something over 100 lbs.. I wonder how much weight it actually will take. LOL I'm not sure if my grandfather used those because that was what was needed, or whether they were what he had handy. I still have tons of gears in various materials, tons of bearings of different sizes (not sure how many are any good) and a whole lot of other stuff that at some point I have to get rid of. If there's someone who can use a whole bunch of things including screws, set screws, I can take a little bit of an inventory and give you a very generalized list and then ship it to you for shipping costs. I don't know if there is any PM'ing here so not sure how to pass secure info.
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I am no expert but I have never heard of a home size clock using other then plain bearings with no balls or rollers. Fancy clock bearings can be made of sapphire. A so called jeweled bearing.
Bill D
 
Did you try cleaning them thoroughly and reoiling with a little clock oil? They are more likely to be dirty than worn.

Using ball bearings in clocks is mainly a model engineer/anorak sort of thing. I think it is based on a misunderstanding that ball bearings have less friction than the traditional plain brass bush. Ball bearings were supposedly invented by John Harrison of sea clock fame, so they are especially appealing to british anoraks.

Jewels are the way to go to minimize friction but are unnecessay in most clocks. Watches and mechanical instrumentation are where jewels are mostly used.
 








 
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