Wood bearings

[graham o]

In New England Locust was used in the tail stocks of small dams and as bearings I believe. There was a thread on OWWM a few years ago.

[Baz]

There are often comments on forums mentioning that bowls balls are made from lignum but not sure if that was only 100 years ago.
This spring I made a bearing for the cricket club field roller, about ten ft long, 2 1/4 in shaft. I just copied the previous one made out fo two bits of 2x4. The hole drill only just gets 1 in deep so need to go in each side of each bit of 2x4. reminds me I must oil it again before the autumn rolling season.

[RB211]

Good one, but you'll still be lacking the accuracy needed for the wood bearing .

JL........

Plastic gears will strip too when your tool takes too deep of a cut

[JoeLee]

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

---Doozer

Good one, but you'll still be lacking the accuracy needed for the wood bearing .

JL........

[Richard P Wilson]

Its an endangered species, been felled almost to extinction, so trading 'new' lignum vitae is probably illegal in a lot of countries.

My late father was in the Royal Engineers Docks Operating division, for a while posted to West Africa. He told the story that a piece of lignum vitae was consigned to them, urgently needed for a repair to a war damaged merchant ship, but no one could find it. Eventually, someone realised that a nasty dirty log in the corner of a railway van was the highly valuable item everyone was looking for----.

[MattiJ]

Yeah, he is correct. I bought some blocks of Lignum vitae, I collect woods and I was overseas.. Pass port, piece of paper as what I want to decree.
Naw, I was in the Navy. No pass port required.

You cant find real lignum anymore. And yes, a great line shaft bearing. FYI No grease needed. JR

IIRC it is still available:

https://lignumvitaesolutions.com/products/marine/stern-tube-bearings/

[Doozer]

Some 20 years ago
I say an ad in the newspaper
for a milling machine, for $100.
I had to go check it out, and it
was only a few miles from my
house. Turns out it was a small
horizontal benchtop mill. Later
I was able to identify it as a
1902 (some say earlier) David
Pond mill. I bought it and took
it home. It is a really unique
piece. Wood pulley and old
skool hand fitted features.
The spindle had a key fitted to
it, and the key had dowel pins
holding it in its keyseat. Pretty
cool. It has an indexing wheel
built in to the saddle that would
index a very small table, which
could also be swapped for a
fair size dovetail vise, which
mounted to the index post.
The crank handles were cast
brass, indicative of the era it
was made. Anyhow, it came
with a belt countershaft that had
wood (oak?) bearing blocks.
Interesting thing, these blocks
actually had babbit poured into
the blocks to form the bearing
journal. Even fitted with oil holes.
Pretty unique I thought. I posted
pictured on PM at the time, and
a local guy messaged me and
invited himself over to come look
at these bearings. Not wanting
to purchase anything, just he was
interested in the bearings and
also the unique mill. He ended up
being a pretty cool guy and we have
been friends for 20 years.
Eventually when I moved, I gave
my friend the David Pond mill and
after sitting in his shop for a while,
he donated it to a local museum
where it is today.
So these wood and babbit bearing
blocks were responsible for connecting
me with a good friend that I would not
have had otherwise. This friend really
has influenced my in my love of
machines. Years later, he sold me
his Rockford hydraulic openside planer.
All because of wood bearings.
You just never know in life.

-Doozer

[boslab]

Reminds me of a visit the the Greenwich royal observatory when I lived in London, I’d spent weeks trudging round museums, science was my favourite, anyway the Harrison clocks were on display, beautiful things but what I didn’t know was all the predecessors to H1, etc were made by mr Harrison out of wood
quite a feat to make accurate clocks , and apparently they were ( but not as reliable as he wanted) the bearings were our old friend, Lignum.
there’s a good book about it it’s called Longitude by dava sobel, it’s on Amazon, there’s a video dramatisation done by the bbc I think also worth a watch ( pun)
all his prototypes were wood, not surprising as he was a cabinet maker and joiner.
chatting to a mate he reckoned that most of the big clocks like the one up the Big Ben clock tower have lots of wooden bits too.
oh and carvers mallets were traditionally lignum as it’s the densest wood on earth
( 1.25 tons per cubic meter, my favourite metal fact, osmium is 22.5 tons per cubic metre fascinatingly)
it makes me think, there is so much wonder in the world, I sometimes think it’s wasted on us, I told a guy that once and he said so fing what, who cares enough to make you cry,
mark

[SVS]

Sorta proves that “stupid damn kids” were stupid BEFORE the smart phone was invented…..

[RB211]

I will tell you an interesting story about wooden bearings. My grandfather, who was born in the late 1800's spent his entire life in a small village about 60 miles south of Algonquin Park in Ontario. His grandfather, who was one of the pioneers to that area in Ontario told my grandfather this story. In my great, great grandfathers youth, there was very little finished metal available. Finished metal products were made in England, came up the St. Lawrence Seaway, up Lake Ontario, and was shipped north by horse and wagon from Belleville. Belleville was a port on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A man wanted to build a sawmill in a very small village called St. Ola near where my great grandfather lived. A 48" circular saw blade and shaft were sent from England, and eventually made it's way north to St Ola. The bearings were wooden blocks, and they were greased with ---wait for it----bear grease. The river that provided a power source for the sawmill was shut off by "stop-logs" when the mill was not in use, the water being diverted away from the mill and over a dam. On Halloween night, my evil minded great great grandfather and some cronies (who were all about 14 at the time) decided it would be great fun to open the stop-logs and let the mill run as a Halloween prank. Not a good move!! The bear grease man was not in attendance, the turning metal shaft ran dry and set the bearing blocks on fire from friction, and the sawmill burned to the ground.---Brian

That's horrible!

[brian Rupnow]

I will tell you an interesting story about wooden bearings. My grandfather, who was born in the late 1800's spent his entire life in a small village about 60 miles south of Algonquin Park in Ontario. His grandfather, who was one of the pioneers to that area in Ontario told my grandfather this story. In my great, great grandfathers youth, there was very little finished metal available. Finished metal products were made in England, came up the St. Lawrence Seaway, up Lake Ontario, and was shipped north by horse and wagon from Belleville. Belleville was a port on the north shore of Lake Ontario. A man wanted to build a sawmill in a very small village called St. Ola near where my great grandfather lived. A 48" circular saw blade and shaft were sent from England, and eventually made it's way north to St Ola. The bearings were wooden blocks, and they were greased with ---wait for it----bear grease. The river that provided a power source for the sawmill was shut off by "stop-logs" when the mill was not in use, the water being diverted away from the mill and over a dam. On Halloween night, my evil minded great great grandfather and some cronies (who were all about 14 at the time) decided it would be great fun to open the stop-logs and let the mill run as a Halloween prank. Not a good move!! The bear grease man was not in attendance, the turning metal shaft ran dry and set the bearing blocks on fire from friction, and the sawmill burned to the ground.---Brian

[A.K. Boomer]

or 60+ lbs is way better

https://www.scmp.com/video/asia/3150820/thai-fisherman-finds-whale-vomit-worth-over-us1-million

[A.K. Boomer]

This is an interesting topic and don't get me wrong I applaud Ma Nature in every way esp. when she still can give us a run for our money with stuff to this very day, until of course it's counter productive to her and almost makes a certain species of tree extinct....

Topic reminds me of the perfume industry --- is stinky old Ambergris (Wale poop/vomit lubricant) still the best damn thing to attach a perfume note too? even though synthetics have taken over much of the task? wanna get the perfume people all up and arms bring that one up on their site and stand back with some popcorn...

well just checked on e-bay and looks like it's going for about 25 to 30 bucks a gram,,,

their are people who have found 10 lb chunks washed up on the beach and then retired lol

and of course im sure allot of Whales killed just to dig the stuff out of their guts... in that case - im all for the synthetics, even if it don't work quite as well...

[A.K. Boomer]

Not a fan of whisker-biscuits AK? Have you ever had those UHMW pads destroy the fletching on an arrow?

LOL necessity is the mother of invention - bisker wiscuits are one of the worst idea's ever created, the first compound bow I bought came with one and could not believe people actually try to shoot and be accurate with them,
within about a week I had my new design up and running and yes one arrow got the tail end of the fletch slightly "disconnected" in fact it's this one down below - I simply glued it back on and readusted the knock, as you can see the arrows fletching has a radical spiral to it,

that's what got me - - you have to have this one adjusted perfect for clearance.... there was a slight possible advantage to it - you could just catch all three tails and instead of having to wait for the arrows flight to rifle it down it's path the rotation was instant right out of the gate lol

that in itself could be an invention within the invention, I find stuff like this out all the time with inventing as it leads to other avenues that I did not initially see....

[Tom S]

Not a fan of whisker-biscuits AK? Have you ever had those UHMW pads destroy the fletching on an arrow?

This is just one company of hundreds out there producing plastic bearings for specific applications (including shipping and agriculture)

this particular company has over 55 different types of plastics for various purposes and needs,

at the very least very informative young lady speaking and showing different designs most of which wood could not even be considered - only about 5 minutes...

https://youtu.be/KblADSqgvf8

I've dealt a bit with Igus and have been provided samples by them in the past. Great company to work with and they know their stuff when it comes to plastic bearing applications. They also do many small machine components such as gears, linear bearings, cable carriers, actuators, lead screws, and stepper motors all based around their bearing technology. You can even purchase bar stock and 3D printing filament of their plastic offerings to make your own designs.