Trough and Threads for Oiling Bronze Organ Bearings?

[warmstrong1955]

Nothing like a pic or three Ken!
Nice! Good link!

Bill

[dly31]

Have any of you heard of this type of lubrication in other machinery? It is beyond bizarre. I assume they did it because sealed bearings had not been invented yet.

I suspect it was because anti-friction ball and roller bearings tend to introduce more vibration and noise than plain bearings do. Much high precision machinery such as jewelers lathes, grinders and jig borers use plain bearings for the spindles.

[ken572]

Good Morning Steve

So are you playing, Green Onions yet

To tweek your memory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Onions

It sounds Very Cool on a Hammond

Ken.

[SteveHGraham]

No, but I do have a new motor capacitor on the way.

[silence dogood]

I repaired electronic organs for over 15 years and many a Hammond. Never had a bearing go bad nor have I heard one going bad. We got our oil from Hammond and it was called, get this, Hammond oil. It was a very fine light oil 10w? similar to sewing machine oil. Do not use 3in-one or WD-40. About 8 to 10 drops per cup every six months is fine. You'll know it if there is too little, because you will hear a squealing noise. Add some oil and if it persists, take the cover off and take something like a hypodermic to the felt of the offending bearing. Do not fill the cups, too much oil will cause a problem called motor boating when the vibrato is turned on. There is another reason for that too, but right now if you see oil dripping underneath the generators, you got a problem. The oil has got inside the scanner (that round thing next to the running motor). You have to take apart the scanner, clean it in a solvent, and put it back together. It was a common problem, and I got so that I could do the whole job in a couple of hours. Those old Hammonds were a tough machine and fun.
Mark

[ken572]

I repaired electronic organs for over 15 years and many a Hammond. Never had a bearing go bad nor have I heard one going bad. We got our oil from Hammond and it was called, get this, Hammond oil. It was a very fine light oil 10w? similar to sewing machine oil. Do not use 3in-one or WD-40. About 8 to 10 drops per cup every six months is fine. You'll know it if there is too little, because you will hear a squealing noise. Add some oil and if it persists, take the cover off and take something like a hypodermic to the felt of the offending bearing. Do not fill the cups, too much oil will cause a problem called motor boating when the vibrato is turned on. There is another reason for that too, but right now if you see oil dripping underneath the generators, you got a problem. The oil has got inside the scanner (that round thing next to the running motor). You have to take apart the scanner, clean it in a solvent, and put it back together. It was a common problem, and I got so that I could do the whole job in a couple of hours. Those old Hammonds were a tough machine and fun.
Mark

Good Morning

(Mark)silence dogood,

Very Nice and Informative write up. Thanks.

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Ken.

[SteveHGraham]

Thanks for the info, Mark. I don't know how I would get to the bearings to oil them. There is a big felt pad over them, plus a sheet of what appears to be brass.

The hooting noise is gone, and the new capacitor solved the vibrato issue, so I think everything is working. I used air tool oil.

[silence dogood]

Thanks for the complements, guys, you made my day. Steve what model is that organ? I still have many of my Hammond service manuals and even the tech notes that Hammond would print. I'm glad and not surprise that replacing a capacitor fixed your problem. Now here is a little something about the old style capacitors. They were waxed coated and a light tan color. If areas of the caps show dark brown, the wax in all liky hood has broken down and moisture is able to get in and mess things up. I always replace them with the redish orange epoxy coated mylars made by Sprague. Just make sure that they are the same ratings. You should be able to lift the felt pad. Just be careful of the wires and you should be able to see inside. Air tool oil, interesting, yeah, that should work.
Mark

[silence dogood]

Steve, you got me thinking on the oil, so I did some research. Unfortunately, the secret of what is Hammond oil must have gone with Lauren Hammond's grave. You could buy it on the net, but I don't trust it. There have been people who have used refrigerator compressor oil and some have used drug store mineral oil with good results. I personally think that it should be a light (10w) good quality oil that will not gum up. It seems to me that air tool oil should work, I just never heard of any one using it.
Mark

[SteveHGraham]

The organ is an E-133. I found a manual online, complete with directions on converting to B-3-style percussion. These things are real bargains. I paid a hundred bucks.

[WesG]

You should be able to directly lubricate the bearings on your E100 by accessing the generator from the bottom. There is a fiberglass mat clipped to the bottom of it which you must remove first. The easiest way is to just flip the organ upside down. Don't try this on a model with a spring-mounted generator!

There is no danger in over-oiling the generator. The vibrato scanner should not be over-oiled, as it can cause a motorboating problem as describe. This happens when the phenolic insulators become saturated with oil and stop insulating. You can mitigate this problem by painting the inside of the vibrato scanner housing, there was a Hammond TSB to this effect in the 1970s. Many organs have a tub to feed the vibrato separately from the generator. I'm not sure if your E100 is one of these. The E100 also has a self-starting motor with little spring-loaded cups at each end. These cups lead to felt pads around Oilite bearings. These motors need about 10-12 drops of oil at each at year. That reminds me, there was also a TSB on modifying the earlier vibrato scanner tubs, the longer oiling tube was to be clipped and the thread routed to the shorter tube.

Hammond oil is an additive-free turbine oil of some kind. It's very, very light weight. You can use white industrial sewing machine oil (Alpha Sew, Singer) if you want to buy it by the bucket. I use the "house brand" from Tonewheelgeneral.com. I would not recommend tool oil as I suspect it may contain zinc or molybdenum disulphide, both of which could problems with the oiling pores in the bearings. If you want a spec from the "horse's mouth", google around the Hammond model G, the US Army published oiling specs for those back in the war. The oil spec'd then was a gun oil, and an oil of the same specs is still being made today.

BTW - as to "why" - keep in mind that the first generator rolled off the assembly line in 1934!

Wes

[ken572]

The organ is an E-133. I found a manual online, complete with directions on converting to B-3-style percussion. These things are real bargains. I paid a hundred bucks.

Good Morning Steve

Your Hamond E-133, soon will be completed.
Now with all that Hamond experience under your belt,
might I suggest a Hamond X-66 as your next project
It will totally blow you away. The best of the best I.M.H.O.

http://theatreorgans.com/hammond/x66/lang1/x66.html

Price in mid 1965 was approx $10,000.00 plus tax.

Ken.