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1929 9" Junior-Felts in Bronze Spindle Bearings?

jmills

Plastic
Joined
Apr 22, 2013
Location
Charleston, SC
I've searched and can't find a definitive answer. I am waiting for oils to arrive this week and then I will be firing up this lathe to run for the first time in several decades. I'm really excited!

It has been completely disassembled and put back together, but I haven't been able to figure out if there should be felts in the spindle bearings. There was no evidence of any previous ones, which leads me to think no. Below are pics of the bearings. The hole in the top bearing cap goes all the way through the cap to the spindle. There are no capillary wicks on this lathe. There looks to be enough room to put a felt where the top and bottom caps come together, but unsure. Any assistance would be great.

P1140721.jpg

P1140705.jpg

P1140722.jpg
 
I have a similar lathe ('29 heavy 9) and I put a little bit of felt in both top oilers to slow the flow of oil down a little bit. Rear doesn't use much oil, front drinks like a sailor in port.

Are both front and rear bearings split on yours? Mine are solid one piece bronze, no idea if they're stock or were replaced in the last 90 years or so :)
 
Not sure what kind of gits, plug or whatever you have on top of the cap. But with no felt I would use a time release type oil cup, and may have called for it anyway. Something like this:

McMaster-Carr

Looks like this:

386.jpg

Fill the cup and flip the lever when you're going to run.
 
I have a 9 Jr and it only has a bit of felt in each oil cup. I made new split bronze bearings for it and there is a bit of space in there where a piece of square felt might go but I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I just make sure that it gets oil in the cups on a regular basis. You typically wouldn't run that lathe all day long on a production basis but if you did, you'd probably want to give it a couple of drops in each cup every couple of hours just to be sure it didn't run dry.

BTW it's a really nice lathe and capable of much heavier work than the more common 9" Workshop lathe.
 
Both bearings are split. At the moment, the cups are missing on the top caps, so that is something I need to get. At the moment, I just want to get it up and running and then work on the missing parts.

I might see if I can get some felt in there, but if it starts to get complicated, I'll just make sure it is oiled well before I use it. This is going to be more of a hobby lathe, so it won't be used all that much. It definitely won't be used all day long.
 








 
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