Thread: Hercus Model 0

My mill suffered the same fate as Bob's, albeit before I owned it and I suspect not as badly. When I removed the spindle the damage was, however, evident. It didn't require treatment, and all told it wasn't too bad. I suspect the recessed oil nipple was the reason this area is not serviced correctly, as there was no way my grease gun's (ie now oil gun) coupler could service that nipple and was the reason I replaced it with a longer one. If it was running in grease I'm quite sure it would be fine so long as serviced regularly.

As far as the stuck bull gear, I had a rather lengthy thread running on HSM about this but it's probably worth repeating here.

The bull gear is an interference fit on the spindle and will need to be heated in order to remove it. Sadly the manual doesn't say that and implies it can just be "held back with a block of wood". Pig's #####!! Mine required some mighty hard hits on the spindle even with the bull gear heated. Next time however I will heat it to a higher temperature.

Reinstalling however can be very tricky as there's no way to restrain the bull gear. The solution is to put the spindle in the freezer and the bull gear in an oven. I took my gear to 175 C so as not to damage the paint. The combination of the two meant the bull gear simply slid on up to the shoulder and shrunk when cooled so it was very easy. Hopefully that tip may help those who need to remove their spindle, as sooner or later you WILL need to remove it (to change the belt).

Pete

Pete ,

The fellow that owned my ARL before me replaced the bull gear at some stage as a result him losing a couple of teeth from the original. He must have decided to forego the block of wood and resort to a steel faced hammer to drive out and then drive back in the spindle for both ends were damaged. The advantage of owning a pair of lathes is the ability to repair one with the other. I turned off the mess from the rear end and used a Dremel set up in the toolpost to clean up the nose. The sort of thing that can simply be avoided with a bit of thought.

I can recall clearly the stress and sweat involved in trying to remove my mill spindle. I might have sworn a little bit too. I had a similar experience trying to remove the horizontal arbor from the spindle when I first acquired it. I resorted to making a puller and using a blow torch to extract it. Draw bars don't need to be tightened with a two foot crescent.

Bob.