The bearings I use are in this video are not angular contact bearings as I call them. They are tapered roller bearings. They are better choices than the ones I use here but these were inexpensive. You can get angular contact bearings sealed and avoid some of the issues I have. Do some research and you'll find plenty of good info about these lathes and the upgrades available. They are sites dedicated to these little lathes with far more experienced users than me.

well it's a lathe kzfaq.infoUgkxN9zrzkkhnjUF5PQbuA_B1gYdsfCu9k6z but it wasn't what i would have anticipated. Headstock, tailstock, carriage apron are manufactured from aluminum now not cast iron. The spindle diameter for the bearings is too small allowing for a few play in the spindle so I am using some blue Loctite to take out the play.

I enjoyed the upgrade and surely it will be better after you’re done.👍 Look forward to all the mini lathe mods👌👊🏻

Great Problem solving, Steve.....regards from Frankfurt/ Germany

Nice work Steve, and you can never go wrong with improving lubrication success. I will be interested to see the development of your outer seals you are designing, cheers!

Hi Steve, Having a mini lathe myself, your video has inspired me to improve it. Have watched all your other videos and learned a lot. Thanks. From the uk

Great video Steve. Thanks

Great video! Very well made and well detailed. Thanks!

Great job on the oilers, and good upgrade on the bearings. When you make your cover, machine it for an oil seal. Easily done and you should be able to find a standard seal to fit the shaft, and make the cover to fit the seal.

Hi Steve, Just found your KZfaq site, nice little job on the lube system for your mini lathe. it begs the question that always arises.. you need a lathe to fix a lathe 😉 👍

Hi Steve I just want to say I love you videos. As far as replacing the ball bearings with tapered roller bearings ( they are not called angular contact bearings) I believe timken makes the tapered roller bearings with rubber seals now. just contact a timken distributor with the proper sizes.and keep up the great videos.

Great idea to put the oilers on each bearing, it is much simpler than creating a sealed box. It is fun watch a real machinist improve these mini lathes.

I've got a German made molder with angular contact bearings, in matched sets, pre-loaded via a stack of star washers. They turn @ 6,000 rpm & carry 5+" dia. X 9" long steel heads, cantilevered, for years, grease lubricated. Seems like a pretty good system for moderate use, 8 hr/day. The matched set is on the working end. The belt drive end has a single floating, ball bearing that takes up the heat movement. Big, high production molders can use an oil mist system. I'm pretty sure you (& your great grand kids) can run your mini's bearings for a very long time. Of course they will have converted it to CNC, auto programmed by brain waves sent from their embedded computer communication device.

When seeing the arbor press again in this video, I remembered I wanted to comment back when you restored it. I have an old engineering manual which shows that the v-groove etc. on the underside is for mounting it directly to the right-hand end of a lathe´s ways, for convenience in pressing lathe arbors and mandrels in and out of parts. I seem to remember you wondered why the bottom of it looks the way it does. Nice video.

great project

Steve, I particularly like the slow, patient approach that you take. You don't assume that the viewer is an idiot or an old hand at the shop. I remember when I worked at a shop on LI, where you couldn't stop and think about what you were doing or going to do. It also didn't help that I wasn't the right ethnicity and the shop foreman though knowledgeable, got into this country via operation paperclip, as an also-ran, if you know what I mean. Keep doing what you are doing. You make this corona thing tolerable. Thanks.

Enjoyed...nice upgrade

@25:30 I can recommend two options for making tinning of small items much easier - use ordinary masking tape to hold the work [your copper tubing] down to your vise, or use masking tape to hold the solder pencil on the bench while you do your tinning. The 'tape pencil to bench' is particularly useful when doing repetitive task on many small parts. Stick another piece of tape to the bench directly under the tip of the pencil to catch the drips of solder and flux.

A long video Steve but worth every minute of it. You are doing some creative and innovative shop projects. You are doing a great job of presenting these projects to us. My best to you and your family.. Joe

I love your work! Although producing all over the world, SKF is a Swedish company (SKF stands for Svenska Kullagerfabriken).

Enjoyed Steve! That lap looks familiar ;-) ATB, Robin

Morning Steve great content on your wife's mini lathe lol I couldn't pass that one up from when you first acquired it and she wanted it. The oilers was a great idea and having a mini can be invaluable for many things

SKF is an old company and is my favorite brand. I have seen roller spindle bearings (Colchester) preloaded with strong springs mounted in a thick washer against the rear bearing and adj nut that compensate for expansion of a hot spindle. The rear bearing ID is slightly larger than the front to allow the bearing to slide easily when self.adjusting.

Always a treat spending my Saturday mornings here Steve. Thanks a bunch for another good post.

Good job Steve, great modifications for your little lathe and well thought out. As always your content is fantastic, keep up the good work. A Fan from Aus.

Find an oil seal that fits the spindle cover bore, then machine a steel insert to fit the spindle and oil seal bore. You can also machine a recess for an 'o' ring at the bearing side of the insert and be double sealed.. Its a common arrangement on motorcycle output shafts to seal the final drive.

Very astute.well done.👍

Nice video. Interesting mod to your small lathe. I have a "Raglan, Little John" Lathe, 5" x 24", made in Nottingham UK in the 1960's. The spindle runs on "Timken" taper roller bearings and the lubrication is done in a very similar way to your mod. Holes are drilled into the headstock directly above the bearings and fitted with the spring loaded balls. Squirt the oil in and gravity does the rest. I oil every time I use the lathe. There is a seal around the spindle which helps to retain some of the oil. Keep up the good work!

When you were starting the lapping process, I swear it looked like a doctor prepping a patient for a minor surgery...

Awesome video. Thanks for taking the time.

Geez, i really enjoy your channel. I love that there is no overwhelming music. just that peaceful sounds of your shop.

I like the oil tube idea, there's a bearing on my shaper that I should have done that with to get away from the open trough that it uses. At some point will pick up a mini lathe like that for here and spindle bearings will be one of the first things done to it. Thanks for sharing!

Eclipse is almost certainly made in Sheffield in the UK!

Very cool. Looking foward to the rest of this series.

Thanks for the great idea on the bearing oiler I put tapered bearings in my mini lathe this spring and was wondering how to lube the bearings

I made rope seals for mine and just used a good wheel bearing grease. Been working good for 4 years. Also I put in steal gears.

Hy Steve, why you do lube the bearings with oil? take grease ! like you would do at a heavy truck axle. greetings from germany walter

just a thought ... if you have the room ... use greased cord as packing seal as they used to use on the old turbine water wells on the farm ...

Oh yeah I did the tapered roller bearing swap a few years ago. Absolute world of difference!!!

Hi Steve like your upload, it shows a lot of skill and knowledge , but maybe it is missing the point.... the people own a mini lathe do not have a work shop like yours and the bucks to ask some one to make the tooling you did show ( if they had they could afford a good lathe ......) keep up the good work

I would suggest the joints of the lubricating system with a brass weld. instead of lead solder. Because the vibrations the lathe may produce may cause the lead soldered joints to crack.

I have a 6 inch atlas little lathe for my small projects, 60 years old and atlas used timkin bearings with oilers,, l like useing it as much as my 12 inch,,, less radical. The little guy has no movement at all on dail indicator needle on spindle, found another one last weekend for 100 bucks, lol,, all USA made , l have a 12 x 36 atlas also 60 years old and so precise ways are excacally the same with micrometer and caliper down all 54 inches of the ways, crazy I got another one with sane model number and no wear either but big surprises was in the rusted bucket with it,,, steady rest and follower rest and faceplate with 3 difference dogs and milling attachment,,, 400 dollars for everything and has quick change gear box and nice 3 and 4 jaw Chucks,,,l love the vintage tools. To buy and restore them back to new condition.

Beautiful job fitting the oil lines. I've looked at variants of mini lathe headstocks a few times and why not just pour resin in the bottom to seal it then use oil in the head stock as the oil will help tremendously in reducing resonance from the head / bearing wear??? Does your lathe have a geared headstock?

You might consider a full-face cartridge mask. I was doing a similar job with fiberglass and the airborne glass made it into my eyes. Thankfully I could flush them out and was ok..but never again.

Never had any trouble with the Standard bearings !!

I know you were up in the air, but glad you posted this.

wow Steve thats an impressive workshop. Now getting back to step 1 !

Steve - I would think a tire bearing seal would work great in sealing the bearing from outside materials.

Thermowells also isolate the thermocouple from the process while allowing for good heat transfer. I really enjoy your videos.

I also would recommend getting a set of steel gears to replace the plastic ones, you can get them at Little Machine Shop or make them yourself. Keep up the good work I look forward each week to you youtube post.

There has to be hundeds of guys that can find this useful. Great way of working through it. It will be interesting to see what else you do. Thanks for sharing

Like your out-of-the-box thinking on the mini-lathe, Steve! Nice example of lapping, and love the oilers on the headstock.

You, being a professional, surely never crash the lathe. If you were to crash it though, the high-low gears will shear, and you’ll have to tear it all down again to replace them. I’d suggest buying the metal gears now. Also the single biggest improvement I made to my mini-lathe was bolting it down to a very solid surface. Took almost all the chatter out. Thanks as always!

Hey Steve, do you need a daisy wheel for that arbor press? I have a NOS Dake wheel left from a project I built. You are welcome to it. I think it's the same size as the original unit on my matching Greenard.

If you don't find a correct size lip seal, consider a felt seal and also a plastic (industrial ) spacer. In hindsight, the oil tubes can also be plastic, screwed with clips and an elbow to channel oil to the bearings.

Looks like a reasonable up grade. Like the oiler system.

Holy work Batman, just use every cloth lol. Awesome job, keep the videos coming!

Steve, excellent video thanks for sharing.!.!.!.

Hello Steve, great videos and mix of different machining processes. The 'Eclipse' magnetic block is an English brand from the UK, and possibly made in Sheffield,. Eclipse is a brand with a long history. Keep up the good work!

Thanks Steve, only just started watching and liked already. Oh year, First! :)

Enjoyed the upgrade video!

Mr. Summers thank you for sharing, excellent work, better, and more ideas for my mini G4000. It seems that the modifications for the mini lathes never ends, if one day I like to sale I will charge for every mod that I have made, LoL. Good works, excellent video, thank you. From the distance (Montevideo) have a good day, and please be safe.

Does it really matter to seal to backside since it has its own cover? My idea was to drill angular holes in the bearing retaining plates down to the bearing for oil lube. Quick and easy. Maybe even use a little silicone to seal the bearing back plates to headstock itself to ensure oil runs through the bearing before leaking out

I think I would have used a soft "silver bearing" solder for the Oilers. That works at low temperatures very similar to lead solder, but is WAY stronger. However, once the oilers are in place they will never see any stress so I agree that the lead solder is "good enough". As I was watching you I was thinking that a hobbiest wanting to rebuild a larger lathe would be wise to obtain one of these mini lathes and do some of the modifications to gain experience before tackling a larger machine rebuild.

I did this mod to my mini lathe and mini mill they both also have 3ph motors on them and all metal gears now with VFDs and the mini lathe has an electronic lead screw on it now

Hi Steve, Thanks for this video. Want to make the mod to my lathe. May place the oilers in the plastic shields if there is enough room. Will keep an eye for the second video on the adjustment method you design.

Nice upgrade Steve ... like lube the pipework straight on to the bearings ... from over here 🇬🇧🇬🇧

You and this old Tony are the best.

Another reason not to split the honing block until the last is that the clearance hole makes a great tapping guide. Looking good. Thanks for sharing.

Great video on lapping. Thanks

Great Video Mr Summers! That little hook rule is sweet. I’m a bit of a B&S junkie so I’m probably biased. I sure wish I had a big boy lathe to help me work on my toy one 🤣 -Joe

Nice to see you using the mill Steve. How did you ever get by without it.

I just got a job making ss 5" mandrels with .040 diameters and .0005 tolerance. I'm going to make a mini tool post grinder. I want to buy a mini and dedicate it to this job that repeats itself week after week. Question is are the ways on a mini lathe machined well enough to hold .0005 tolerance for 5""?

Obviously this is an old video, but did you consider adding some type of seal to the front and back of the housing, add fill and drain holes and then fill the whole caboodle with a lightweight oil? Would mean no regular oiling, just intermittent oil changes, and you'd have the gears bathed in oil too.

Is it not posible to mount a oilseal in there?

Good modifications . Cheers .

More little lathe video's. How to do big work on them and how to work more accurately. Part of that you are doing now. Love the content, one of my favs.

i had not seen this before, great stuff, subbed ;)

My new favorite channel.

Round broom type shaft wiper.

The angular contact single row ball bearings are advantageous for that application as they are available as sealed bearings and are more than rigid enough for that little machine

I don't know who sharpened that big drill bit but I wish they would fix all my bits to cut like that

22:22 hmmm so that's why the Hubble space telescope had mirror issues :P

Great video, thanks Steve.

Very enjoyable video, thanks

Kluber grease would have been a better option for the bearings and probably for the gears too?

I have the same lathe, and I recently changed the drive gears to metal, instead of oil in mine, all I did was drill a grease nipple into the top side and filled it with grease, took a lot of noise out and have had no troubles since. Just and idea for anyone!

Is the head slightly out of true on the mill? since it didn't leave a mark from the backside of the face mill...Love the vids

Why not use an oil seal and use the cover plate as a retainer? Check with C/R, they make a Scotts seal plus where the deal rotates with the shaft and the outside is fixed in the retainer.

Wow very neat 👍

Steve I’m new here so I have a very basic question. Given the equipment you have is the mini lathe just a hobby for you or do you see it playing some part in your shop?

If you are going to make a bush for want of a better word over the back taper roller bearing and it's cover why not make it from Ally and put a groove inside to take a neoprene O ring ? Just a bit of grease or oil on it every year and that then will completely keep the crap out of it Steve. Over the pond here in England 6.8 mm is the tapping size drill for M8 not 6.7 mm

Hey 👋 Great video thanks. About the bearing’s, are you sure they’re made in Germany? The reason I’m interested is that I’m Swedish, and SKF as far as I know, stands for Svenska Kullagerfabriken, which translates to The Wedding Ball bearing factory. Which BTW is a Swedish invention

To keep chips and shmoo out of the bearings- How about just like a simple spring loaded accordion like boot which goes out past the dia. of the hole in the case which receives the shaft? Or a thick felt bushing or wiper of some sort.

36:15 nice low range wobble on those gears! The upgrades should make it way more rigid. I would think with some searching you could find some lip seals to close that headstock up with.

Great Video Steve!! Maybe if you look through a National Seal Catalog you'll get lucky and find a shaft seal you can pop in there. If you can find the right I.D. you can adjust the bore of your bearing retainer to accommodate the O.D. of the shaft seal. Just a thought, Best of Luck...............................

What does it say that the first thing to come to my mind for precision lapping was ALSO satellite telescope lens!

Maybe it would be better to make a new one from the beginning. Good job!!

Grate job. I AM from Brazil.

A possible alternative is to make dummy spindle centres, 60 degree "D" bit to scrape centre holes true.Bench centres are best and a good tenths dial or digital indicator.File the high areas and lap.Oil mist lubrication maybe,works on 2 strokes at 10 p.s.i. Nice video !!!