New to the Blanchard club

[Spruewell]

Yep, cleaning and stoning. Then stoning and cleaning. Followed by more stoning and cleaning. Looks like it had gear oil in the sump. I have a big cast iron surface plate I am considering putting the chuck on to lap the bottom side and then stoning before re-assembly.

 

[Carbidebob]

Most Blanchard people pay no attention to this plug until the chuck does not do the ordinarily float revs to stopping.
I use 10W-40 in here. Fancy gear oils and way lube seem too thick.
This system looses oil with running and needs to be kept up.
Drift after chuck stop is a warning.
You hit the stop button and how much rotation then happens. 1, 1/4, 1/2, 1/8 of a rev?

 

[Spruewell]

I didn’t run the table much before I started taking it apart for maintenance. But if I remember correctly, it stopped in less than a 1/4 turn. I think it probably had more to do with the condition of the ways (for lack of a better term) under the chuck. It’s going to take some work to get them smooth. Stoning them just showed how rough they were. There has to be a better way to re-condition those surfaces. The bottom of the chuck is flat, so lapping that will be relatively easy. Except of course, the book says it weighs about 1600lbs.

 

[Spruewell]

Still cleaning on this thing in between paying jobs. Got the transformer hooked up and so far it seems to be doing the trick. I haven’t turned on the main spindle yet. Waiting until I have guards back on before I light that thing up.

All the ways on the table and column are grease lubed. I’m wondering if sticking with grease is a good idea, or if trying to converted it to use way oil would be better. Seems like a bit of extra work, so maybe not worth it.

 

[Garwood]

Still cleaning on this thing in between paying jobs. Got the transformer hooked up and so far it seems to be doing the trick. I haven’t turned on the main spindle yet. Waiting until I have guards back on before I light that thing up.

All the ways on the table and column are grease lubed. I’m wondering if sticking with grease is a good idea, or if trying to converted it to use way oil would be better. Seems like a bit of extra work, so maybe not worth it.

Grease works fine. I looked into converting mine to oil and talked to guys the run these. Grease is easy and it works.

 

[mach ramsey mn]

Maybe change the name of this thread to “As the Blanchard turns…”

 

[Barbter]

Maybe change the name of this thread to “As the Blanchard turns…”

“As the Blanchard doesn't yet turn…”

 

[mach ramsey mn]

Eventually that is going to turn!!!

 

[Spruewell]

The saga continues.

Got down to the point where I could check the oil in the gearbox that turns the chuck. No oil. And what little came out was pasty with grit. So, I pulled the table. Going to take it outside and pressure wash it.



That is some dirty work


I think I will be removing the table traverse box as well. The key on the input shaft is hammered out

 

[Garwood]

That gearbox was empty on mine too.

The fill tube was completely buried.

Filled with oil it sounds OK, but the table stops pretty quick when I turn off rotation and I know the table bearing surface is nice.

I'm curious what you find in the gearbox. I'll probably be doing the same to mine someday.

 

[Spruewell]

Removing the chuck is pretty easy. There is a 3/4” threaded hole in the center for an eye bolt. It lifts straight up and off. Just remember that it’s pretty heavy. The book put my 36” chuck at 1600lbs. The table was a little more involved. I had to remove the aprons which required disconnecting the wiring for the switches and the contactors for the chuck (not difficult). The hardest part was reaching in under the table to disconnect the drive shaft. After that it lifted right out.

 

[Spruewell]

After a bit more digging, I got the table traverse box out. The coupler on the input shaft had a lot of backlash and as I suspected the key way was hammered pretty bad. In one of the previous photos, you can kinda see that the cover under the pinion gear is corroded pretty bad and there are some holes through it.


On a positive note, almost all the bolts are socket head cap screws and have come out without much of a fight. However, in this case, there isn’t much left of the heads for the bolts holding the bearing caps on.

 

[Doug]

No report button for the spam ^^^ ?

 

[Vancbiker]

No report button for the spam ^^^ ?

Deleted and banned less than 20 minutes after posting. The mods and admins keep pretty close eye here.

 

[Doug]

Deleted and banned less than 20 minutes after posting. The mods and admins keep pretty close eye here.

Please answer my question.....

 

[Vancbiker]

No perceived need. If spam stayed up for hours or days and the staff ignored the forum I can see a report function.

Do you see a benefit?

If you would like to discuss further send a PM. I would prefer to not clutter up this thread.

 

[Spruewell]

Got some time to pull apart the table traverse box:



Looked like it was full of peanut butter.

The lube line was eaten up and allowed a bunch of "stuff" to get in. The taper bearings on the worm gear were ruined. Fortunately, somehow, the rest of it looks mostly undamaged.

 

[Barbter]

I think, there's a bit of oil, mixed in with "that"!

 

[mach ramsey mn]

Looks like clover lapping compound! All of those parts look like they have very friendly over the years!