Wood bearings

[RB211]

Apparently older farm equipment used wood bearings made from Ash? Someone in one of the J.I. Case groups was turning wood on his Leblonde lathe, how I learned about it.

[chipmaker4130]

Yup. The old horse/ox drawn wagons used well-greased wood hubs with a steel band shrunk around the outside. They were not 'tight', but they lasted a good many years properly lubed.

[mickeyf]

There is also wax or oil impregnated maple which is/has been used for band saw blade guides - I think it was marketed as "wonder wood".

[sarge41]

There is also wax or oil impregnated maple which is/has been used for band saw blade guides - I think it was marketed as "wonder wood".

And some companies produced pressure treated linseed oil maple bearings. Many were used in mining shaker boxes that were submerged in water. I once worked on a Ferguson disc that the bearings were badly worn. The local implement dealer wanted outrageous prices. They were worn on one side only, so i just reversed the bearings (had to drill a new grease fitting hole) and used them for several years before selling. The only reason they were worn is because the previous owner hadn't greased them. The bearing journals looked like new.
Sarge41

As an aside, the grease fittings extended down into the wooden bearing to keep it from turning.

[Doozer]

Finally something you can turn on a Harbor Freight lathe without getting chatter ! ! !

---Doozer

[Cuttings]

There is also a wood called Lignum Vitae which has been used around boats for a longtime. I believe it is the wood that is known as iron wood around boat yards. I had a little piece under the rudder stock of my boat to take the virticle load of the rudder. It was in there for over 30 years when I owned the boat and is probably still there supporting the rudder. That stuff is so tuff it has to be machined with metal working equipment.

[boslab]

A friend of mine when I was a kid ran a timber yard in town ( on the side of Neath canal) I was a school kid and he got me a couple of weekends as a dogsbody cleaner painter labourer, whilst sitting in the tea room / canteen one of the old guys told me about an order they had for wood for the queen Elizabeth II, it was for prop shaft bearings, made of best quality seasoned lignum vitae, the wood was 20 years old when they bandsawed the segments
it was ancient before then, I was shocked that a ship would have wooden bearings but I was assured it was common!
later in the steel industry I discovered the pulleys and sheaves on the 50t grap unloaders was also a collection of wooden bearings, the carpenters shop had patterns for dozens of different wood bits and bobs, even pads on a rolling mill, ( it was an old corrugated sheet mill) but the carpenters told me the turners were now using tufnol instead, not because it was better, because lignum was getting difficult to source in big bits, it was never large but it was getting extinct
I do hope it’s recovered, beech was used by the ton too, wish I’d fetched some offcuts home now!
mark
sorry cuttings I missed your post, I wasn’t ignoring you, my apologies
mark

[old mart]

Cuttings beat me to the lignum vitae, a hard close grained yellow coloured wood with a lot of natural lubricants in it. It was used in the propellor stern tubes of anything from motorboats to ocean liners and battleships. It is also used to make metal bashing mallets.

[A.K. Boomer]

I can see using what was "once meant to be" for authentic restorations and even tinkerers who just plain like playing/tuning their old equipment all the time,

But - and i can say this cuz it's been out for sometime now --------- Good ole UHMW is far superior in most all applications in comparison to wood,,, self lubricating, wear resistant, impact resistant tough as nails, acid proof rust proof and kinda like babbit bearings will absorb harmful particulates and keep them from gouging shaft material...

it's amazing stuff... but sticks out like a sore thumb in it's most popular color which is bright white...

[paul463]

We had a on old Case combine at the farm that had wood bearings on the straw walker cranks.
Wood bearings are still used in hydro turbines around the world.

[MaxHeadRoom]

Another wood that is very hard dense wood and can be great for turning is English Box wood.
It was used in England for tool handles before the advent of Plastic, I have some inherited artifacts such as File handles and a tanners awl handle made from it.
Also a wine bottle corkscrew with a square/Acme turned Box thread .

[Tundra Twin Track]

I have 14 Maple Pilot bearing on a 50’ power shaft on a grain auger that was built in 1990.Never been shedded out in all types of weather,have replaced some,6 are original the warranty has expired after 32 yrs lol.

[David Powell]

At the amusement parkwhere I worked we had a log Ride, there is a conveyor belt which moves the " Logs" containig up to 8 peopleup to the top, The rollers on which the belt ran were made of white maple, running on stainless steel shafts. We received the white maple as branches, roughed out the bushes about 1/4 inch oversize then boiled them in tallow in 5 galon drums over a fire in tthe yard
Once we judged them " Done" we drilled them a loose running fit for the stainless shafts, and turned the outer diameters to a standard size.
The water for the ride came, just coarsely filtered, directly from Lake Ontario. The bushes lasted for several years use. I was told plastics of various sorts had been tried but found to wear out, and wear out the shafts far faster than the wood.
The ride is stillin use 40 yrs lafter I left..
Regards David. Powell

[boslab]

That’s what the carpenters told me about the dockside 50t grab unloaders, wood was best but they got stuck with tufnol which they hated as it stinks bloody awful when machining, they reckoned it gave you bad headaches?
wood smells nice btw!
mark

[Glug]

I was visiting a friend recently and he had a shelf made from a large plank of wood. Not just any wood, but a piece of wood originally intended to be a commercial helicopter blade. It had a very large number of growth rings per inch. IIRC, it was spruce.