Spindle Repair via Welding.

Gentlemen.

Thought I'd show you some thing that's been in and out of my shop like a yo-yo all week. Little over a week ago, I got sent this spindle cartridge over from Perth for a rebuild. Quoted it sight unseen as I've done a lot of these over many years.

This is what they sent me.

Snapped bolts in the spindle drive keys, so they MIG welded a set in.


I suspect the damage to the face, was them trying to peen some meat, back into the key slots.


You got to love a fitter that pulls bearings out of Precision Housing's by taking to them with a welder.



More to follow.

Phil.

I found that damage last Sunday, when I first looked at it. I had to sleep on it for a night.

I've done plenty of hard chrome repairs to tapers, but the keys and face.

Last Monday, I took it across town to a specialist welder for assessment. They are famous for doing reclamation welding on Press Tools & dies. I see plenty of their work in my toolmakers customers plants. They can put edges back on press tools, that tolerate punching.

I could tell them, this spindle was made from Bohler E200. They could match the filler, even asked me what Hardness I wanted it. I told them anything better that 45 RC. Didn't test it, but a file barely touches it, and it grinds like hardened steel.

They didn't even blink at it. I brought it back here, extracted the broken screws from under where the keys were. That was critical to maintain those threads. Opened the key way up, to give them some depth for deposition. Opened the bell mouthing out in the top of the taper, ground the face to give them a witness mark, and sent it back.

This is what it looked like after build up. Ugly as a hat full of arse holes, but more meat than I started out with. Distortion was negligible. Top and bottom bearing journals just clocked up with in spec. Its not that demanding of an application, 6k rpm.



Reground Taper, Face, and wire EDMed key ways. I have a spindle back that I can do something with.







Regards Phil.

Looks like a nice repair Phil. Well done and nice photos too.

It's not your style to get bent out of shape Phil. Regards Tyrone.

Great job Phil. You took a piece of scrap and made it right. Kudos to you and the welder. I have had to weld up many details over the years to build up where a machinist or engineering screw up and I was always apologetic to the machinist about how bad the area looked. The guy always said it looked great and after he machined it I would always check back to make sure.

We do what we have to do to repair a machine. Good job man! Daryl

If I got that piece back , knowing what I sent in, and the price and delivery were in line, I would be mighty pleased.

(IF only a week, seems like the turn around was more than fine!)

Nice save !!

( In regards to posts from the OP and myself that were erased I assume for content, as I am genuinely interested of his methods if they are viable )

#### wits? Is this one specific person or those in general who were participating in that thread? Honestly I couldn't care less. But I could see nowhere that you even participated in that thread. (Maybe those posts were deleted as well, Please we are all big boys here)

If you have had success spot( not the whole way , or even the whole way) spay welding precise Iron way surfaces .0005" per foot flatness and better and then grinding and scraping the iron back in after and not have the iron be geficked in some way or another, I for one would be very interested in it.

Sure if something is really damaged and you either weld it or scrap it and the results would be satisfactory for the application, then rock and roll. But would you spray weld a low spot in a SIP or Kellenberger etc.?

I have Ni. spray welded many things and re machined them with good results including Iron Block and Cylinder head decks, Valves, seats, crankshafts, camshafts, etc etc. But they were not machine tools, of which there would be no real possibility of pre, in process, or post treatment of the casting to relieve stress etc.And once you torch that Iron there is no going back.

Even if it could be done with no ill after effects, I would say in most situations it would not be worth it unless a piece of critical casting was severed or there was a really deep hole that would make rebuilding the rest of the machine way more difficult than dealing with the weld.

It really depends on the application.Like your spindle weld repair. For the animals that are going to use it, it is probably way better than needed.Would you do the same to a jig grinding spindle?

You weld metal it will distort and change. This is an indisputable Fact.

Maybe you have a different process, filler etc. there are many. I am only speaking of the few I have experience with along with my general knowledge.

machtool said:

Gentlemen.

Thought I'd show you some thing that's been in and out of my shop like a yo-yo all week. Little over a week ago, I got sent this spindle cartridge over from Perth for a rebuild. Quoted it sight unseen as I've done a lot of these over many years.

Click to expand...

Do you get to revise your quote when you've seen the real thing?

Similar to a guy who goes back to his preacher to see if he can get unwed just a week after the wedding.

Preacher: But you took her for better or for worse.

Guy: Yeah, but she was worse than I took her for.

Thats a super job Phill. How did you grind the taper?

Years back got a call from a guy who said he his lathe spindle bearings were noisy. I went over there and as I walked up to the lathe I saw a welder ground wire clamped to one of the head-stock leveling bolts. I looked at the lathe owner and said " why is that there?" He said "OH I weld up shafts in the lathe" I said your running current through the spindle bearings and the bearings are shot. He decided to not replace the bearings as it was an old beater. I suggested he rap copper around the shaft and have a steel plate pressing against it and attach the ground to it to avoid the current going through the spindle bearings.

Only place i know of is this Harvest engineering

Welcome to the Harvest Engineering website

did he do the weld repair?

I got him to look at welding some cast iron flywheel hubs but came to the conclusion its better to cast new, so thats what i did.
I don't think he had done cast iron before.
Anyhow here is a pic attached.

It has just occurred to me if the spindle looked like that what does the mating part look like? You would not want to mate the "new" repair to a old beaten up part that will ruin the fit and damage the repair.

May want to mention that upon spindle return.

Street said:

It has just occurred to me if the spindle looked like that what does the mating part look like? You would not want to mate the "new" repair to a old beaten up part that will ruin the fit and damage the repair.

May want to mention that upon spindle return.

Click to expand...

Best guess is that "spindles" run on bearings. Most bearings are happy to receive any spindle in spec. I wouldn't worry about that part if the spindle runs true.

cheers

Its a cartridge assy he has to build so most likely putting the bearings in and setting them.

It the Hub or chuck or whatever that fits on the end i was referring to....

Street said:

Its a cartridge assy he has to build so most likely putting the bearings in and setting them.

It the Hub or chuck or whatever that fits on the end i was referring to....

Click to expand...

Oh,... I was thinking that was some "standard" machine tool spindle nose CAT40 or something like. That is something readily exchanged for a known good one.

I very well may be entirely incorrect in the assumption however. ;-)

machtool said:

Gentlemen.

Thought I'd show you some thing that's been in and out of my shop like a yo-yo all week. Little over a week ago, I got sent this spindle cartridge over from Perth for a rebuild. Quoted it sight unseen as I've done a lot of these over many years.

This is what they sent me.

Snapped bolts in the spindle drive keys, so they MIG welded a set in.
View attachment 144554

I suspect the damage to the face, was them trying to peen some meat, back into the key slots.
View attachment 144556View attachment 144557View attachment 144555

You got to love a fitter that pulls bearings out of Precision Housing's by taking to them with a welder.

View attachment 144553

More to follow.

Phil.

Click to expand...

Pulling taper bearing seats with a TIG torch is a very good method! Though I would not be troubled to use MIG or filler rod. ;-)

Amazing. I would have given up on that!

Richard King said:

Thats a super job Phill. How did you grind the taper?

Click to expand...

Just a universal cylindrical grinder, with the table twisted to the angle, and the front bearing journals running on a steady with bronze pads.

yzfr1pwr said:

You weld metal it will distort and change. This is an indisputable Fact.

Maybe you have a different process, filler etc. there are many. I am only speaking of the few I have experience with along with my general knowledge.

Click to expand...

Yea the weld does leave a mark but not as bad as you may think. With cold work tool steels you can go around a hole and expect to get a surface pull at the bead edge (depression) in the .001" depth range. So the die surface will clean up at .001 or .002.

The first pic in post #2 is pretty instructive for this type of welding. They don't get a puddle going first like normal TIG welding, it's more a sweat the filler down till it breaks the surface tension thing. Looks very different than for joining things.

They likely plugged the dressed back taper hole with a slightly undersized copper or brass piece & let the filler just blob against it. And the look around the OD with the key edge is pretty much as good as you're gonna get (looks cold and blobbed up).

It's not a technique you find in codes except for possibly ASME sec IX - QW-290 "temperbead welding" maybe.

I'd say the guys have pretty good game - likely actually used 2 different fillers - one for the base and one for that much overlay.

I wonder how much Phil had to take the original face back to get cleanup? (because the face witness grind seems to be completely gone) Looks good.

Matt

That's a lovely repair of a truly ugly part. My hat is off both to Phil and his local specialist welders.