Turcite or Rulon cost vs Linen Grade Phenolic

[Richard King 2]

Someone on PM was asking about his Machine used Phenolic wearstrips (another name is Micarta) and wanted to know if he could use Turcite B (same as Rulon 142 just made by a different company) I did a little detective work and checked the prices. I had ordered some Rulon 142 in 2022 and I looked on a Website and got this price yesterday
Phenolic is $15.51 for a 1/16 x 12" x 36"
Rulon 142 is $480.75 for a 1/16 x 12" x 36"

Micarta linen grade is what we used before Turcite was invented. We also used Bronze - Amco 18 was the brand and number. We epoxied on the Phenolic /Micarta like Turcite and you could hand scrape it the same too. It wore good as long as you kept it lubricated. Turcite / Rulon is self lubricating as it is a PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) plastic. It is also impregnated with bronze so it wears longer. A few years ago I used some Phenolic on the bottom of the headstock and tailstock on a Drake CNC Thread grinder because I needed something solid as Turcite can squish when tightening down. Phenolic won't squish. So if some of you you need a wearstrip think about Phenolic - make sure you order grade linen and not grade canvas or paper as it has a fine thread like silk and doesn't absorb water like paper does. Phenolic is so much more reasonably priced too as you can see above.

Another product we now use for wearstrips is Moglice. It gets hard like Phenolic but Is super slippery so it won't work on Tailstocks too.

 

[FOMOGO]

Interesting info Richard. If I recall correctly Ford flathead V8's had a phenolic timing gear. Mike

 

[ltlvt]

Someone on PM was asking about his Machine used Phenolic wearstrips (another name is Micarta) and wanted to know if he could use Turcite B (same as Rulon 142 just made by a different company) I did a little detective work and checked the prices. I had ordered some Rulon 142 in 2022 and I looked on a Website and got this price yesterday
Phenolic is $15.51 for a 1/16 x 12" x 36"
Rulon 142 is $480.75 for a 1/16 x 12" x 36"

Micarta linen grade is what we used before Turcite was invented. We also used Bronze - Amco 18 was the brand and number. We epoxied on the Phenolic /Micarta like Turcite and you could hand scrape it the same too. It wore good as long as you kept it lubricated. Turcite / Rulon is self lubricating as it is a PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) plastic. It is also impregnated with bronze so it wears longer. A few years ago I used some Phenolic on the bottom of the headstock and tailstock on a Drake CNC Thread grinder because I needed something solid as Turcite can squish when tightening down. Phenolic won't squish. So if some of you you need a wearstrip think about Phenolic - make sure you order grade linen and not grade canvas or paper as it has a fine thread like silk and doesn't absorb water like paper does. Phenolic is so much more reasonably priced too as you can see above.

Another product we now use for wearstrips is Moglice. It gets hard like Phenolic but Is super slippery so it won't work on Tailstocks too.

Richard did you mean to say Moglice won't work on Tailstocks?

 

[Provincial]

If Moglice is very slippery, it will be very hard or impossible to clamp the tailstock securely.

It makes one wonder if a mill clamps more securely, especially being able to move on three axes (plural of axis, not wood chopping) and thus having more chances to slip. Perhaps the broad contact surfaces of the gibs make the difference.

Richard did you mean to say Moglice won't work on Tailstocks?

 

[projectnut]

Rulon works fine for machinery that isn't used in a production atmosphere. The company I worked for originally used Amco 18 bushings in a tray dispenser. The trays went down the production line and were filled with different food products. After a short period of time the USDA inspector objected to the bushing material saying since the bushings would eventually wear and the debris could potentially get into a tray, they had to be replaced with a food grade approved material. We chose Rulon. It turned out to be a bad choice. In this case the machine was running 16 hrs. a day 7 days a week for months on end. The Rulon wore considerably faster than the Amco necessitating their replacement in a matter of months. To solve the problem, we redesigned the dispenser to keep the bushings below the food area, switched back to the Amco, and enclosed the entire mechanism.

 

[Richard King 2]

Moglice is so slippery it won't lock in place on a tail-stock bottom. It works to raise it up to the centerline and it will stay put with light drills, but if you drill a drill with a-lot of pressure it will slide backwards. I always glued Phenolic in between the sole bottom and top where you adjust side to side or we made a new soul or used Amco. We scraped it to fit and align the TS. I have seen others mill off the old cast bottom and bolt on a thicker cast iron wear strip. I read years ago where a guy who put Moglice on the bottom had to use a 4 x 4 braced against the cross beam in the lathe bed to keep it from sliding back. That was 30 + years ago, possibly Moglice has a new product now. I'm not sure. Moglice used to be sold by Devitt Machinery in PA. I used to rep it until I was a guest speaker for the SME and someone asked me which was better Turcite or Moglice ? and I said both were good in different places. Devitt didn't like that answer and fired me...lol I was being honest. I wrote this post so you also knew about Phenolic.

Phenolic needs oil for lubrication and would be a bad choice in a food related application. While looking for a price for Phenolic I see there is some now made with graphite so times have changed. I just know Linen Grade is what we used and it worked for machine tool wear plates. We glued it on and used counter suck flat head brass screws to anchor it.

I used Moglice inside tailstock bores if they were worn. When I was a rep for Moglice I had a company call me who had a Lucas Boring Machine and the saddle bronze nut had worn out. They had ordered a new nut but Lucas who was dang near bankrupt then. Must have been it the 1990's sent them the wrong pitch or thread count nut. It was at a company that made steel beams for highway bridges and that machine was used to drill holes in the beams. They need to complete an order and were desperate to get the machine running.

I had never used it in a nut before, but Devitt said it would work. I got there and we took the old nut and broached key ways inside the ID and I drilled holes threw it to act like pins. I bored the ends out and pressed in some bronze bushings the size of the feed screw OD about 1/2 long. The nut was approx (from memory) 10" long and n one end it had a flange that bolted to the saddle. The tread OD was about 3" . Anyway we made the bushings to center it on the screw. Then we sprayed the screw with 2 coats of Moglice wax release sprays. I estimated it would be about .002" thick. Let that dry and slide on the nut. We did it on the end of the screw as it wasn't worn. Then I used duct tape and wrapped the OD of the nut so the Moglice would run out the holes I had drilled into it. I super glued in a 1/2 plastic pipe in one of the bottom holes where we would use a caulking gun to squirt in the Moglice. Then I put 2 more plastic tubes in the top of the nut at each end to act like a chimney so the air inside could escape and we had a head above the new threads. I used kids play clay (the stuff I hadn't touched in 40 years, since kindergarten, lol) to seal the ends of the threads between the feed screw and old bronze nut

Mixed up the Moglice and Devitt told me to use every drop of the activator in the Moglice mixture. It is a 2 part Moly Epoxy. They tell you to chuck a Allen wrench in a drill press to stir it inside the plastic container it comes in. When you think you've mixed it enough do it again. Then we poured it into the plastic caulking gun tube they sell you and squirt it into the bottom tube. It is a liquid about the consistency of maple syrup. We kept squirting it in until it started to fell the tubes on top, they were about 4" long and when the tubes were 1/2 full we took a vise grip and squeezed the bottom squirt tube shut. It says it has to dry for 24 hours, we waited about 18 hours as they were desperate to get the machine running. The tubes were hard as a rock so we started to turn the new nut off the screw. It was a mirror finish. We cleaned it up removed the duct tape and I was shocked as to how nice it worked. They drilled a lube hole into it and installed it.

I forgot about it and in the rebuilding business "No News is Good news" . I bumped into the foreman of that plant at a trade show and he told me the new Mogliced nut was as tight as the day we put it in. I have made new 1/2 nuts out of their Putty as Moglice comes in 3 different thicknesses. You can read about it at Moglice.com - They say now scraping is needed, but that's a bit of a stretch. Rich

 

[rabler]

Richard,
For moglice, what is the best procedure to set up a carriage saddle on a lathe for moglice? Lathe is a 1944 Monarch 12"CK. Not a hi-value machine but one I enjoy and have been slowly enhancing as I go, hobbyist style.

Seems that the ideal approach would be to to put the saddle on a bench, upside down, and lower the inverted bed onto the saddle with clay dams around the saddle contact surfaces. But that would require complete lathe dissassembly of a roughly 3500 lb lathe. Is there a practical way to do it in the bed-up configuration, just dissassembling the carriage/saddle?

I'm aware that the carriage needs to be milled to some gap (which I forget right now) to provide some clearance and texture. Figure the way wipers can be used as mounts for spacers with adjustment screws to get the precise gap. Get it all set up carefully before mixing/pouring. Release on the bed ways.

Clay dams are generally suggested as a method to hold unset moglice in place. But it seems it would still run off the top of the inverted V's before the carriage was seated? Use a thicker moglice than the pour and set perhaps?

 

[Richard King 2]

When you build a machine and put any type of wearstrip on the saddle, you do it the way the machine will be sitting when in use. I can't imagine flipping the bed over. Get that out of your mind. Look at the link I gave from Gernoff and Robert Goslin - VetteBob. They talk about how they did the saddle on his Monarch EE . They made blocks that bolted to where the way wipers bolted on. Then drilled and tapped holes where he screwed in set screws that he brazed brass to the screw end. Then he adjusted the screws to get his alignment of the saddle before putting on Moglice putty so no dams were needed. I would say that everything your thinking about rebuillding or doing has been done in the past and written about on the internet. You can Google what you want to do and type Practical Machinist or Hobby Machinist in the Google search line..

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/moglice-machining-10ee-carriage.323649/page-2

On the PM link there is a troll who writes on there named Monarchist, ignore him he also went by the name Thermite. He was banned on PM because he had issues. He was a smart guy, but his info, many times were cut and pasted from what others wrote. (in my opinion that is)

Another type of Moglice has the thickness of pancake batter and you could dam around the edges and it won't leak like the liquid.

 

[Richard King 2]

This is the website to Moglice and Devitt a Ton of info. They say no scraping is needed. That is on the wearstrip, but it needs to be 1/2 mooned. and oil grooves.. If your scraping a small machine you have to scrape the iron that you Moglice to it. I taught Drew Devitt to power scrape.

Devitt Machinery Company | Devitt Machinery Company

 

[cathead]

Where is a good source for phenolic wear strips for the lathe bed?

Also, I am looking for source for the epoxy resin as well.