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16CY apron worm and wheel, would you replace these?

marka12161

Stainless
Joined
Dec 23, 2016
Location
Oswego, NY USA
The bushings that align the feed rod and therefore the carriage feed worm gear to the worm wheel are shot. Both the worm and the wheel show more than a little wear. I got a quote from monarch for both and while they would certainly lighten your wallet more than i would like, the cost is in line with replacement gears i've bought for a tractor rebuild.

The question is, given the condition, would you replace these? Clearly, now is the time.

Thanks for the insight

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I'd imagine Monarch would like a pretty penny for the pair

Making them would be one heck of a project on ordinary machine tools

They only make the power feed go - and as long as they are willing to do that I would leave them in service

I gather those are only on the lead screw reverse Monarchs - no such thing in the CW 16 apron
 
Well, damn... I'm about to do the same job, same lathe. Im knee deep into my rebuild, and if these were mine, i would replace. Depends on what you plan on doing with your lathe and budget.

What does your lead screw look like?

If I end up in the same boat, I would look for replacements, and shop for alternitives. Monarch is not the only gear maker in the world.
There are companies that do this. Better yet, have 5 made of each. Add 25% to yor cost, and sell 4 of them. I'm in for a set!

I love pictures of your project.
 
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My 10EE bushings were worn as well, with similar but not so extreme wear on the gears. I bored out the bushings and fitted new inners on the bushings, so to speak. I flipped the worm around so it was pushing predominately on the more unused surface. Since feeding doesn’t have a backlash issue, I would say that your gears are good for a couple more decades of use, certainly at hobby levels.

With my knowledge of gears, is Monarch charging about $1200 for the pair?

South Bend has the worm supported in its own bushings in the apron casting, a better design than having the feed shaft supported in bushings in the apron and then the worm load path going through the feed shaft into the feed shaft bushings and then into the apron.

I tried to figure out how to do that on the 10EE, not enough room or material to get bearings on the worm.
 
Well, damn... I'm about to do the same job, same lathe. Im knee deep into my rebuild, and if these were mine, i would replace. Depends on what you plan on doing with your lathe and budget.

What does your lead screw look like?

If I end up in the same boat, I would look for replacements, and shop for alternatives. Monarch is not the only gear maker in the world.
There are companies that do this. Better yet, have 5 made of each. Add 25% to yor cost, and sell 4 of them. I'm in for a set!

Lead screw looks really good. I'm all ears if you've got any recommendations on alternate sources. My concern with re-using these is that the feed rate will no longer be constant since the worm wear isn't constant.
 
I flipped the worm around so it was pushing predominately on the more unused surface. Since feeding doesn’t have a backlash issue, I would say that your gears are good for a couple more decades of use, certainly at hobby levels.

With my knowledge of gears, is Monarch charging about $1200 for the pair?

Flipping the worm is a great idea. You're not far off on the quote from monarch. in fact they're a bit north of the number you came up with. This is a bit of a tough decision. I only paid $2K for the machine and it came with the taper attachment, steady rest and follow rest. The headstock gears look really good but there's wear on the tailstock and likely the carriage as well. I'm hosting a scraping class in the spring where i hope to learn how to properly scrape in the carriage and tailstock. My point is the machine doesn't need much and i've got some budget to set what's wrong right but at the same time, i'm not a fan of throwing money down the drain. I'll have to think through this.
 
Willy, you mention another gear source. I doubt Monarch makes gears any longer. If they do not have leftover inventory from decades ago, they probably contract with a gear shop. As far as price goes, you could ask me or ZK what we would charge for those two gears. You would probably be surprised by the price. The worm wheel uses a purpose made hob, as the hob has to match the contour of the throating. I’ll bet if I called Ash gear and asked how much that hob would be, the answer would be more just for the hob than what Monarch is charging for both gears. Worm wheels need vertical feed, my Barber Colman has vertical feed, ZK’s doesn’t, one more level of difficulty.

Worms are usually made on worm milling machines, I don’t have one of those. Don’t know much about them.
 
Look for a sock gearset
The centre to centre distance needs to be the same (if it is set at least)as wel as the ratio
Also if the worm is left hand or right hand
The rest is irrelevent
Perhaps even LH or RH is irrelevent

Peter
 








 
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