flat belt bearings Re: speed and lubricant

[spinrow]

I have an old 14" lathe(patented 1890) with an external speed reduction transmission. I put on a 3450 rpm electric motor and have a max. spindle speed about 450 rpm. I found old grease in the spindle bearing access holes on the bearing caps.
Before I used it I wanted to get recommendations regarding max. speed and type of lubricant to use? Should grease or oil be used for bearings? Thanks Paul

[garyphansen]

If you found grease in the spindle you need to take the spindle out and clean all the grease of the spindle and the bearing. A plain bearing is disgned to ride on a film of oil. Others will tell you that you need to get specal machine oil but I will not. I have been using plain old SAE 20 for the last 27 years with out a problem. Oil use to be recomended for back gear lub but recently South Bend Lathes started recomending a teflon grease for the backgears (oil still works). Gary P. Hansen
P.S. Add oil if needed everytime you use it and you will be a happy camper.

[menace]

I have a South Bend 9A 1948 that I run what the book calls for and it works well. I also have a Carrol-Jamieson 14"x 48 pat 1910 that I use mobil 1 synthetic 0w and it purrs. I tried spindle oil in it and it started to seize and all would run out quickly. The next day it was hard to turn the spindle by hand. I plastigauged the spindle and got .003 front and back , I'd call that close enough and put mobil 0w syn in the oilers , if I spin it by hand it keeps turning, if I don't use it for a week or two it still spins freely and when Ido run it I crank it up there in rpms and the bearing caps run cool, not like before! For this old lathe synthetic oil put her back in action! I use it on the entire machine, it stays where you put it! I'm really tempted to use it on my SB9, it wouldn't take much coaxing!

[spinrow]

Thanks for your suggestions. I will remove the spindle, clean out the grease, and oil it well. Paul