Wooden Bearing for a Rotating Shaft

Big B · Dec 30, 2015

Has anyone ever seen wooden bearings for a rotating shaft. I will let you all know in a while what I am referring to.

Ready, set, go.

michiganbuck · Dec 30, 2015

Think that would be fine. I once made a pair of bearing of wooden oak wedges so the grain ends were facing the shaft. It worked fine but the machine had other problems and was scrapped before a long test...It was an old perhaps 1850s (or so) fender welt splitter having a cutter wheel against a solid wheel to split leather (or cloth) at the bend.

Crazy set-up with a home made sharp cutter spinning on the surface grinder going at SG speed. Lucky I still have my fingers after that. OSHA would have put me in the crazy house for sure.

I would like to know more about the early bearings use on the chariots and the like.

https://www.google.com/search?q=woo...X&ved=0ahUKEwiln7amn4TKAhUMPiYKHVnLAA0QsAQIJw

tdmidget · Dec 30, 2015

Sometimes still done on a ships tailshaft , lubricated with water. Seems feasible in low speed applications.

Jim Williams · Dec 30, 2015

Lignum vitae is the traditional wood used for ship drive shaft bearings. It is tough and self lubricating.

Jim

gbent · Dec 30, 2015

Lots of combines used to have wood blocks for straw walker bearings. Deere tried aluminum and the aluminum failed badly. They switched back to wood. I believe it was oil soaked maple. This was about a 500 rpm application, very dirty environment, reversing load every 180 degrees.

Straw Walker | Wood Block | Bearing Set | John Deere | 6600 | 6601 | 6620 | 6622 | H119613S
https://www.tractorpartsasap.com/Straw-Walker-Wood-Bearing-Block-John-Deere-940-p/109095.htm

James H Clark · Dec 30, 2015

Big B: Like gbent pointed out, oil soaked maple was used in agriculture stuff. I once rebuilt a Ferguson Tractor disc that used the maple bearings. This was a slow turning shaft running in dirt. They would last for years with just an occasional shot of grease. A lot of mining equipment, such as shaker boxes that were flooded with water and coal and rock had bearings that sometimes were Osage Orange wood, otherwise known as Ironwood.

JH

Big B · Dec 30, 2015

I guess it is nothing new to some of you but I was kind of surprised when my brother told me that they use wood for bearings in a hydroelectric dam that he services.

I asked him what kind of wood it is and he told me he thought it something from the arborvitae family. He said now they have changed to using phenolic.

This is on a shaft that is about 4" diameter and the generator produces about 500Kw.

Limy Sami · Dec 30, 2015

Yep,like has been stated, elevator bottom rollers running under water (veg washing plants), reaper / binders (still in use in the mid 80's for thatching straw) .......Cambridge ring rolls (dry dusty gritty conditions that any oil or grease meant instant death to shafts)

I even M/C'd up a set for a disc harrow- from a couple of old lignum bowling woods (green not ten pin!) as the bearings were on back order and the discs only had to last 40 acres, - they'd lasted 250 acres plus NOT OUT when I left the industry.

oh yeah! not strictly a bearing, but a rubber housing for one (centre bearing on a truck prop shaft) a bit of pine squashed up nicely and did the job - albeit with a bit more noise - until the guy could afford a new centre bearing!

Spyderedge · Dec 30, 2015

A good friends dad is an elevator repairman. I think he's mentioned wooden bearings in service in the past.

johnoder · Dec 30, 2015

We needed a way to shim these rears down to the 3/4" axle we used. Wood bush did the trick. Dad let us use the BIT and BRACE to make the holes. A dab of grease and away we went

62 years back

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/Career Related/Early Days/ModelT.jpg

Stradbash · Dec 30, 2015

Jim Williams said:
Lignum vitae is the traditional wood used for ship drive shaft bearings. It is tough and self lubricating.Jim

Yes, it's a very tough dense and waxy wood. I would only use it for such applications or when I was trying to bend the brain of a fellow woodworker. It's no fun to work, though I have made some machine and knife handles of it in my younger years.

3t3d · Dec 30, 2015

As already mentioned, Hydro dams have used wood for the main shaft for the generator.
IIRC one dam used cocobolo (sp?) with water lubrication. The bearings had been in there for decades without fail.
The Polaris Race department once tried oak for the track slides on a race sled.
It worked great, but was very noisy. They decided not to use it, because of PR, not for (racing) technical reasons.
A friend of mine built an experiment but did not want to spend too much money on bearings.
He used Oak bearings instead. Worked great. Until later, the bearing swelled and stopped turning.

Joe Gwinn · Dec 30, 2015

Machinery's Handbook, 19th edition, lists wood bearings on page 586, along with a number of other bearing materials. The wood species mentioned are Maple and Lignum Vitae.

Load capacities, max temps, max surface speed, and PV limit are listed. For wood, it's 2,000 psi, 150 F, 2,000 feet per minute, and 15,000 psi times speed in feet per minute.

JS · Dec 30, 2015

Woodexbearing.com

CountryBoy19 · Dec 30, 2015

James H Clark said:
Big B: Like gbent pointed out, oil soaked maple was used in agriculture stuff. I once rebuilt a Ferguson Tractor disc that used the maple bearings. This was a slow turning shaft running in dirt. They would last for years with just an occasional shot of grease. A lot of mining equipment, such as shaker boxes that were flooded with water and coal and rock had bearings that sometimes were Osage Orange wood, otherwise known as Ironwood.

JH

Just a point of clarification, Osage Orange =/= Ironwood
Osage Orange (Maclura Pomifera) has many "nicknames" of which I've NEVER heard it called Ironwood.

That being said, Ironwood isn't really a specific species at all. Most commonly in forestry it refers to one of a number of Hornbeam and Hophornbeam species in North America but can apply to numerous lesser common species and or foreign species.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional arborist/forester. I studied and competed in forestry competitions years ago and ranked as high as 2nd Place in my state's competition.

Sunnymead13 · Dec 30, 2015

The Hot Rod pic is priceless..

stephen thomas · Dec 30, 2015

And it was a babe magnet, too!

Had to be the quiet, smooth running wooden bearings.
Couldn't have been the sauve, debonair charioteers.

smt

gwilson · Dec 30, 2015

Lignum Vitae was the wood of choice for large propeller shafts. Now it has gotten horribly expensive,and other similar woods are passed off as the real stuff. One fake is an Argentinian wood,but I forget its true name.

Lignum was also used for ships block and tackle and even for wooden bowling balls before bakelite became popular.

Illinoyance · Dec 30, 2015

Old washing machines used hardwood bearings in the wringer.

ratbldr427 · Dec 31, 2015

Illinoyance not to dispute you but way back in my childhood I think I heard they used tits in the wringer.

Wooden Bearing for a Rotating Shaft

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

Titanium

Diamond

Cast Iron

Diamond

Stainless

Stainless

Stainless

Aluminum

Diamond

Diamond

Stainless

Titanium

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