I'm having a little bit of trouble assuming a way oil would serve for a
headstock----but then what do I know?
I'm far from an expert, but I think I'd use something like Mobil DTE Medium
for the headstock. A good idea is to talk to a distributor that handles
Mobil products. I've had real good luck with them. They can cross
reference almost anything, including foreign oils. Worked for me for my
Graziano. Any place I've ever worked, and for my own use, Vactra #2 has
been the only choice for way oil.
Harold
"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in
news:429427a2 snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net:
This oil should do fine for the headstock. We use that weight oil in all
of our old equipment with gear drive headstocks (Shell Tonna 68). In a
gear train, you are looking for a high-pressure lubricant, with decent
tacking ability. Way oil serves this purpose well, and would be less
resistive than a true 90 weight gear oil, allowing more power to the
spindle, and less used to plow the gears through the oil.
Pacemakers are NICE lathes
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
I agree with Harold on both choices of oil.
Gunner
(who hates it when that happens )
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
I got a lesson on this with my Sheldon R15-6! The lube plate on the
machine, AND the manual both say to use Mobil Vactra oil Heavy in the
headstock, and Mobil Compound AA in the apron (which is also pumped onto
the slideways). While rebuilding the machine, I would mumble tha mantra
"way oil in the headstock, gear oil on the ways, very strange!" for
entertainment. When I got the machine put back together, I replaced all
the lubes with the current equivalent of these lubes. And, when I
ran the spindle, I found the bearings getting frighteningly hot after
just a couple of minutes! After a day of consultation with the experts
in this group, the consensus was 100% that this had to be an incredible
error on the part of Sheldon. Somebody had a new book from a couple
years later, and it showed Mobil Velocite oil Heavy, NOT Vactra! What
a TYPO! Anyway, I had some Velocite #6 which is the called-for oil
for the high speed spindle, so I put that in. It is pretty thin, and
I think I will eventually replace it, but the heating is gone.
The Sheldon R15-6 uses some pretty exotic zero-clearance bearings that
require a thin oil. There is more to this than just the Saybolt rating
(SUS, Saybolt universal seconds, the time it takes the oil to drain from
one line to another on a Saybolt cup, at a specified temperature). I
would be real hesitant to put way lube in a headstock after my
experience. And, I would check the bearing temperature carefully the
first time I ran it.
Jon
The Febis line is from ESSO and the correct product for a precision roller
bearing headstock is K32. K32 has an advertised viscosity of 140 - 170
Saybolt. K68 is gearbox and apron oil. If the lathe has plain bearings on
the headstock spindle, then K68 can be used there as well, but only if the
spindle does NOT use tapered rollers.
Steve
You may not need a local Mobil distributor. There's an email link
somewhere on the Mobil web site for support. Thye were fairly quick getting
back to me about lubes for a 60+ year old lathe.
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