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14" Variable Speed Spindle SBL Vari-Drive Lube

Joined
Nov 11, 2018
14 with no options boo.jpg Vari speed.jpg
I have a 14" Variable Speed Drive Lathe like the one pictured. The sales literature says the variable speed drive is lubed for life; but it has a drain plug and a fill plug on it. What sort of lubricant should I feed it? I can speculate too, I'd like feedback from someone with direct experience on the matter.

Thanks,
-Bill
 
Hi Bill, the company I worked for back in the Jurrasic era had one that I turned into a vertical turning lathe. If I remember correctly the gearbox had 90 weight gearoil in it but it's been awhile. At any rate, we ran it in the vertical position for at least 15 years with very few problems. It was a pretty robust and simple system. Jim
 
Hi Bill, the company I worked for back in the Jurrasic era had one that I turned into a vertical turning lathe. If I remember correctly the gearbox had 90 weight gearoil in it but it's been awhile. At any rate, we ran it in the vertical position for at least 15 years with very few problems. It was a pretty robust and simple system. Jim

Jim,

-That's really cool, I'd love to hear the back story on that. Thanks for posting.
 
The company needed a lathe to bore out the housings of a variety of optical devices in order to mate the optical center to the mechanical center when they potted the lens in place. Doing it horizontally there would always be some sag. Boss said can you build one? So we did. We mounted the 14" vertically to a piece of 1" plate just small enough width wise to go through the doors, counterweighted the carriage with a block of steel connected with a roller chain to the carriage,drilled and tapped eccentric cam followers to the back of the carriage to hold it against the back of the ways and took the oil out of the gearbox and replaced it with grease (which seemed to work fine since we only replaced the bearings once in 15 years and the gears didn't make any significant metal...). I had to modify the shifter for the high and low range by putting a cam follower on the shift fork,otherwise it wanted to wear against the gears. The operator would use a laser collimator to align the lenses to the housing after boring the housing. Sounds pretty Rube Goldbergish but it was cheap and effective which made the boss happy. I regret never taking any pictures of it. Jim
 
Hi Bill, the company I worked for back in the Jurrasic era had one that I turned into a vertical turning lathe. If I remember correctly the gearbox had 90 weight gearoil in it but it's been awhile. At any rate, we ran it in the vertical position for at least 15 years with very few problems. It was a pretty robust and simple system. Jim


I regret you never taking pictures too! That sounds like a hell of a time. Wonder how many guys walked past that and had to double take.

Is that a lathe,



On its head?



Yep.
 








 
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