My little 7x14 is now ready to be cleaned, fettled and the rest

SouthernChap

SouthernChap

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Here's where I am now with my AMA714B (Weiss WBL1835):

20231012_172012.jpg

and here:

20231012_172028.jpg

To be fair, the bed is pretty burr free, ways feel nice and smooth, it's surprisingly yellow muck free and there's very little in the way of random paint in places there shouldn't be paint and paint flaking off where it should be solid.

I had heard that Weiss had started putting sealed angular contact bearings in their head stocks, but having checked, these are just plain sealed ball bearings (6206 2RS). So I bought a pair of 7206 2RS from ArcEuroTrade, they'll arrive in a couple of days.

However, there's zero detectable play in the spindle either laterally or front to back.

Anyway, my question is this: I'm wondering if I should bother changing the bearings right now that I have the thing mostly in bits.

Is it going to be worth the effort and terror of hitting one of the parts of my lathe that has to be as precise as possible with my deadblow hammer (albeit with a bit of wood to protect it)?

Or should I wait until I start seeing evidence of wear in the installed bearings?

Or maybe I should reassemble and check the runout at the spindle (yeah, like an eejit I forgot to do it before disassembly), and if it's trouble, get the headstock off and change them then?

What do you'll reckon?

Cheers in advance for any help. :)

Steve
 
In my opinion bearings should never be installed by hammering-
A press or some type of threaded puller/pusher should always be used instead
Personally I would use the bearings it came with for now, you might get quite a lot of usage from them
 
Yeah, I started looking at bearing pullers on Amazon (UK) but I got confused and gave up. Do you have any recommendations?

But yes, I think you're right; given the apparent lack of wiggle, I guess I might leave it for now.
 
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There is definitely a risk of going overboard on this- try to keep things in focus
You may decide after a relatively short time that you want or need a bigger lathe, for example
A 14" lathe may prove to be limiting when you need to drill longish workpieces; it may be necessary to acquire a set of
short shank drill bits
 
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markba633csi said:
There is definitely a risk of going overboard on this- try to keep things in focus
You may decide after a relatively short time that you want or need a bigger lathe, for example
A 14" lathe may prove to be limiting when you need to drill longish workpieces; it may be necessary to acquire a set of
short shank drill bits
Click to expand...
Eh, in the UK, I found nothing I could afford on eBay (mostly Myfords costing 2K), so I got the 7x14.

A week later someone suggested I look at Facebook marketplace (I have always refused to have anything to do with Facebook previously) so I looked at it via my partner's account (she's always watching videos of crafting on Facebook) and don’t you know it, there were a fair few Colchester and Boxford students for reasonable money.

Oh well, too late now, money's gone. Maybe a couple years hence. :)

You're right though. There's only so much quality you can wring out of a Chinese 7x14. Perspective eh? ;)
 
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Exactly, perspective
I used a tiny Unimat lathe for many a year- you can bet your booties that machine had limitations, but I was able to make
lots of parts on it- still have it in fact
 
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I think you should go forward with installing the angular contact bearings. They are much stronger in thrust, and pre-loading them pulls them on track, where pre-loading the radial bearings pulls them out of track. The spindle sees a lot of thrust load in operation. Besides, the lathe is exploded already and the 7206 bearings are inbound.

I picked up a bearing installer from Amazon.de that makes installing bearing pairs like that (or exactly like an automotive differential, if you need to search) easy to do.
 
pontiac428 said:
I think you should go forward with installing the angular contact bearings. They are much stronger in thrust, and pre-loading them pulls them on track, where pre-loading the radial bearings pulls them out of track. The spindle sees a lot of thrust load in operation. Besides, the lathe is exploded already and the 7206 bearings are inbound.

I picked up a bearing installer from Amazon.de that makes installing bearing pairs like that (or exactly like an automotive differential, if you need to search) easy to do.
Click to expand...


Y'see this is the issue with forums: you get two mutually exclusive bits of advice both of which are entirely sensible perspectives. :D

If I'm being entirely honest, the moment I ordered the bearings I sort of regretted it:

I struggled to get the search parameters right to find a tool on Amazon that obviously did both removal and installation of bearings; obviously a hydraulic press would do the job but even the cheap presses are over £100 and I only have so much square footage on my side of the garage.

Could you tell me what the brand and product name of your bearing removal/installation tools is? Actually, if you happen to have a link to the Amazon.de product page that would be handy to help with search terms. :)

Then there's the preload or rather, the amount thereof. Knowing how much preload seems to be a 'feel' thing; something I don't yet possess*.

Do you have any general advice about how best to get a preload that'll be in the right general area?

*I suspect it's this that's making me a bit averse to installing the new bearings and so the idea of 'putting off' this job feels more attractive but really, in addition to the fact that avoiding this feels like I'm cutting corners a bit (something I endeavour to avoid in my professional life), I do enjoy this kinds of thing.
 
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