Quieting a Noisey Bench Top Lathe. How ??

[Steamchick]

Good point Lloyd.
But a simple "decibel" check may help? - using a sound pressure level (noise meter?) App on your phone, ointinting at various bits with the microphone of your smartphone, may give you the source with a simple sweep - about 4 inches or 10cm from the bearings, ends and middle of motor, belts, pulleys, tin boxes that cover the whirring bits, etc. Especially if you do it taking a 0.020" cut on some cast iron...
K2
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sou...i390i650l5.23307j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[lathe nut]

Good point Lloyd.
But a simple "decibel" check may help? - using a sound pressure level (noise meter?) App on your phone, ointinting at various bits with the microphone of your smartphone, may give you the source with a simple sweep - about 4 inches or 10cm from the bearings, ends and middle of motor, belts, pulleys, tin boxes that cover the whirring bits, etc. Especially if you do it taking a 0.020" cut on some cast iron...
K2
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sou...i390i650l5.23307j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Mention on Cement to cut down vibrations, that is something I know a lot about, I was in the Oil and Gas Field for 43 years and was with a Cementing company, what we did was to cement the casing to the earth, (Bore Hole), run the casing in the ground and we would pump cement inside the casing, then pump down a giant rubber plug that would push all the cement out and clean the casing at the same time, once the cement was all out of the casing, we had on top of the casing what was called a cement head, had to leave a valve open so as the cement expanded, that would apple pressure to the outside of the casing, it would slowly seep out until the cement was set up, there is no vibration in cement and the strength would get 3,200 P.S.I. in 24 hours.

 

[Apprentice707]

I had a Harbor Freight 7 x 12 lathe on which I changed the mandrel bearings for Timken ones, what a difference in noise level and the run out improved too.

Regards

B

 

[Steamchick]

Reminds me to service my lathe with new bearings,...
The clickety-clack (until properly warmed) may one day become clickety-bang!
K2

 

[wce4]

I had a Harbor Freight 7 x 12 lathe on which I changed the mandrel bearings for Timken ones, what a difference in noise level and the run out improved too.

Regards

B

Agree with you I changed the mandrel bearings for Timken ones on my Harbor Freight 7 x 12 lathe, big difference in noise level and cutting finish.

 

[Jens Eirik Skogstad]

Bearing preload


I finally figured "bearing preload." I actually ended up tightening the preload by 1/4 turn. The bearing arrangement is 2 tapered roller bearings like a car front axle. That did the trick!
As someone previously suggested, the bearings might need to be tightened to a small percentage of their max axial loading.
And so it seems.

I has Sieg C6 with same bearing and spindle as your lathe. In each 5 year I'm dismantle the spindle and washing the bearings clean and free from old grease and dirt etc. Then relube the bearings with new wheel bearing grease. Never had noise from the bearings in my lathe. The noise from change gear is common since its straight teeths instead skewed gear teeths to make less noise. Noise from the belt can be cured with talcum powder on the belt/pulleys.

To preload the braring: Tighten the nut light and run the lathe without load in 1000 rpm and wait in 15 minutes. Then feel the bearings is warm about 35-40 degree celsius/95-104 degree fahrenheit means the preload is correct. If too cold or too warm, the preload the bearings are fault. Because the spindle is expanding in length when the bearings is warm who led to sloppy bearings. Too high preload the bearings can make damage the bearings.

 

[SmithDoor]

I've had this Grizzly 10" x 22" benchtop lathe for about 13 years and it has served me well. I have babied it and never driven it too hard.
But it has been really noisey from the beginning and it is time to try and fix it. I know what a $$$$ Hardinge tool room lathe sounds like, and therefore I do have realistic expectations for what the the $ Grizzly should sound like, LOL.

I have only now started to track down the source(s) of the noise and it seems like there isn't going to be a magic bullet that fixes it; more like a bunch of improvements that all add up to less noise. It has 3 low speeds (150, 300, 560) and 3 high speeds (720, 1200, 2400) with an idler between the motor and spindle for the low range, and am almost embarrassed to say that I almost never use the the 3 high speeds because of the noise.

Today, I ran the motor just by itself. A little noisey, but not major. Then, to isolate the spindle, I ran the single belt from the big pulley on the motor to the small pulley on the spindle. I also removed the fiber idler rear that goes between the spindle and the feed gear box. With just the motor and the spindle, the noise was significant, but I know that the straight cut change gears add significantly more also. Without having a tenth indicator (.0001") I can't detect any spindle runout, so even though the spindle bearings sound noisey, it is not like they are bad.

I am not afraid of attacking the spindle assembly if people who know, think it will yield good results at removing noise. The motor bearings sound like a better place to start. There might also be some sympathetic noises from the bench, although it is pretty heavy and "dead." But at the same time, I do remember how much noise the big vise on my mill table makes unless the jaws are clamped shut.

Any thoughts, experiences, educated guesses, etc, will be appreciated. I would love to able able to run this lathe at 2400 rpm without it echoing all over the place.
Lloyd

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The picture with the safety door open shows it with just the single motor-to-spindle belt installed and it not driving the feed gear box at all.
View attachment 148759View attachment 148760

I would first remove all belts and gears.
Turn on motor and check the noise leave.

Then at first belt back and check.
Do this until you find the noise. Now you fix that noise.
Continue adding back until the next noise to fix.

From your photo I do see things that can make noise but can be replaced or adjusted.

======================
I just purchased a new lathe in November and read lot noise from older lathes. Now they using Poly-v-belt and ball bearings to keep high speed noise down.
On my lathe I stayed with metal gears witch makes a little noise but last longer over but could plastic gears.

======================

The metal gears are adjustable to reduce the noise or use a DC or stepper motor for power feed and not use the gears at high speed.

Good luck
Dave

 

[Niels Abildgaard]

I have changed quite some lathes for bigger spindles and less noise
Some very short videos with sound here

Improved lathes

 

[user 284]

Very interesting a much larger spindle of that size can be fitted Neils. You really should do a bit more in depth thread about how it was done here. I'm extremely impressed.

 

[Niels Abildgaard]

Very interesting a much larger spindle of that size can be fitted Neils. You really should do a bit more in depth thread about how it was done here. I'm extremely impressed.

Lovely to having interested listeners in my age.
There are two sizes and it will be messy to mix them.

A lot of small lathe headstocks have two 62mm holes for spindle bearing outher ring.
Among them WM180 that maybe is not manufactured anymore.
62 mm holes can house bearings allowing 30,35 and 40mm spindle diameters.

Some WM210 lathes have headstocks with 85mm holes that can seat and fix bearings with 45, 50,55 and 60mm inner holes.
My present lathe is a mix.

Bed and sadle/crosslide came from a WM180/300 allowing 300mm turning length.
Headstock was part of a WM210/400 with 38mm hole in spindle and Morsecone 5.
Bearing inner diameter 45mm. if my memory OK.

What creature is most relevant?

 

[user 284]

Thanks for the additional information Neils. I was wondering if you'd machined your own spindle from scratch. And then how you might have rough machined, heat treated and then precision ground that spindle and the internal Morse Taper. Using an off the shelf spindle from a larger lathe was in my opinion a very clever way around that. And increasing the spindle through hole by that much would be a very handy modification. Also a large and to me highly valuable improvement over the original size. You also now have if wanted the ability to use 5C collets with a simple MT 5 - 5C sleeve adapter. I might have to give your excellent idea some thought.

Now if someone could figure out how to shoe horn in a proper back gear. However it just doesn't look like there's nearly enough extra room to do so.

 

[Niels Abildgaard]

Thanks for the additional information Neils. I was wondering if you'd machined your own spindle from scratch. And then how you might have rough machined, heat treated and then precision ground that spindle and the internal Morse Taper. Using an off the shelf spindle from a larger lathe was in my opinion a very clever way around that. And increasing the spindle through hole by that much would be a very handy modification. Also a large and to me highly valuable improvement over the original size. You also now have if wanted the ability to use 5C collets with a simple MT 5 - 5C sleeve adapter. I might have to give your excellent idea some thought.

Now if someone could figure out how to shoe horn in a proper back gear. However it just doesn't look like there's nearly enough extra room to do so.

Open a new thread and tell us what lathe You have in mind and what diameter bearing holes it have.
Do not worry about backgear.
It is so last century
I am totally converted to Industrial sewing machine motors that do not make very much noise and have basement torque without end.

 

[SmithDoor]

Open a new thread and tell us what lathe You have in mind and what diameter bearing holes it have.
Do not worry about backgear.
It is so last century
I am totally converted to Industrial sewing machine motors that do not make very much noise and have basement torque without end.

There is photo on first page.
My guess is the feed gears are to close or main spindle ball bearing are to cheap.
Both easy to fix.

Dave

 

[user 284]

Mine is the basic 280 VF, but bought before they came out with the MT 5 large bore version. So it only has the MT 4 spindle taper and just over 1" / 25.4 mm through bore.

 

[Niels Abildgaard]

Mine is the basic 280 VF, but bought before they came out with the MT 5 large bore version. So it only has the MT 4 spindle taper and just over 1" / 25.4 mm through bore.

New thread please.

How to make a bigger spindle for a VF280 for example

 

[user 284]

No real need to start a new thread. I'll have to check my bearing OD's and ID's and then double check what the dimensions Weiss uses on there MT 5 spindle are. I'd maybe wrongly assumed Weiss used a different head stock casting for the increased spindle size. That may not be true if they did in fact use the same bearing OD as I have now but changed to a a larger bearing race ID. If that's what they did, then I only need to order the MT 5 spindle and then substitute with better American or Japanese made bearings.