I'm in the process of putting back together a Mach Turn 325 by 1000 that I purchased as for parts / not working.
Something that occurred to me which might be useful for other owners of geared head Asian Lathes. The spindle bearings are supplied by oil splashed up into a gutter that runs around the inner perimeter of the headstock casting, this leads to two holes that allow this oil to then run down into the bearings.
I got a standard pipe cleaner, folded it in half and then in half again, I then held it halfway along and folded the free ends down to make a "T". I then put the leg of the T down the bearing oil hole, with the cross of the T lying in the gutter. I think this could help improve bearing life significantly for very little effort.
I used to own an old English Edgewick lathe that had a very similar oiling arrangement, it appeared to have had pipe cleaners shoved down all these gutter oil holes from new. I did a minor refurb on this lathe to address some wear and tear, there were however no issues with the spindle bearings, the amount of crud and metal shavings that the pipe cleaners had prevented from ultimately going through the spindle bearings and other bearings was significant.
As a side note, Okuma seems to have concluded that using gearbox oil for spindle bearing lubrication was fraught with problems. A number of their lathes had spindle bearing lubrication completely separated from the gearbox.
Something that occurred to me which might be useful for other owners of geared head Asian Lathes. The spindle bearings are supplied by oil splashed up into a gutter that runs around the inner perimeter of the headstock casting, this leads to two holes that allow this oil to then run down into the bearings.
I got a standard pipe cleaner, folded it in half and then in half again, I then held it halfway along and folded the free ends down to make a "T". I then put the leg of the T down the bearing oil hole, with the cross of the T lying in the gutter. I think this could help improve bearing life significantly for very little effort.
I used to own an old English Edgewick lathe that had a very similar oiling arrangement, it appeared to have had pipe cleaners shoved down all these gutter oil holes from new. I did a minor refurb on this lathe to address some wear and tear, there were however no issues with the spindle bearings, the amount of crud and metal shavings that the pipe cleaners had prevented from ultimately going through the spindle bearings and other bearings was significant.
As a side note, Okuma seems to have concluded that using gearbox oil for spindle bearing lubrication was fraught with problems. A number of their lathes had spindle bearing lubrication completely separated from the gearbox.
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