Bad vibrations.

[woodndesign]

Oooh Les, A tidy heap of bits, did you get the manual. Did we' (not just me) ... give you confidence .. Hope you're bearing up.

Of any roller bearing, you can't beat a pair of Tapered roller bearings (Timken at that) a good nipple, 1lb of Castrol LM grease and a grease gun .. Little and often ... sealed for life .. short one at that, given the speeds a bearing can run up too .. would anyone drive their Car on just the pre-oiled bearings  ....  some have or tried too.

Tapered roller bearings can take large axial forces and they are good thrust bearings, which will sustain large radial forces ... so when you tighten up that spindle ..  plain roller bearings if you can't preloaded are likely to float, vibrate or wear on the sides of the raceways if loaded ... Then a bearing is down to the manufacturer specification, so not really changeable.

Cheers  Dewi

[Les Symonds]

Conclusion....
The link to Pyatt bearings proved very useful. Derek and Wendy were very helpful, they despatched the new bearings (and a new poly-vee belt) immediately and I was able to fix my lathe 2 days after I'd paid them. There was a misunderstanding about the cost and I ended up paying them £25 per bearing, when it should have been £25 for the two. Derek spotted this and sent me a cheque by return.

The manual that I bought for £25 from lathes.co.uk was rather disappointing. It was simply copies of a couple of versions of the instruction booklet that Coronet/Record used to supply with the lathes when new, but you really couldn't call them manuals as they don't refer to any repair processes and the only maintenance issue that they touch on is changing a belt. Furthermore, the 'Manual' was padded out with about 30 pages of photocopies of old advertisements for Coronet and record attachments and tools. I've exercised my rights as an internet purchaser, and returned the document for a full refund.

As for the lathe.....it now works much better and I get far less chatter. I'll have to accept that a basic lathe, as cheap as this, is always going to suffer some degree of vibration being transmitted back through the tools, but I can cope with that for now. As for the future; I'll be saving up my pennies once I start selling my bowls etc, in the hope that one day I spot a bargain on e-bay.

Thanks, everyone, for all the technical help. It's a job that I don't think I would have tackled without the reassurance that you guys have given. You've probably saved me more than what I paid for the lathe in the first place!

Cheers ... Les

[John D Smith]

Hi Les, I am pleased you managed to get things sorted out and my link to Derek Pyatt was of some use now get the shavings flying and the Till ringing up the cash. 
                        Regards John