Gear grease

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Mr Ron
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Location: Vancleave, Mississippi

Gear grease

Post by Mr Ron »

What is the proper grease for the gearbox of a Taiwanese metal cutting bandsaw? It is about 30 years old and still runs good.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
Downwindtracker2
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Re: Gear grease

Post by Downwindtracker2 »

When I opened the gear box on my well used 4x6, the worm was so sharp, my thin nitrile gloves got cut. One of the previous owners had installed a grease nipple on the cover. It seems the gear just cleared a path in the grease. So I replaced the TWS with less well used Rong Fu 4x6. On the Rong Fu I drilled and tapped a hole for a plug, so I could add oil. Rong Fu made the first imported 4x6s for Grizzly and BusyBee. It should be good for another 35 years.
A man of foolish pursuits, '91 BusyBee DF1224g lathe,'01 Advance RF-45 mill/drill,'68 Delta Toolmaker surface grinder,Miller250 mig,'83 8" Baldor grinder, plus sawdustmakers
Chip Maker
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Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:31 am
Location: Slinger Wi

Re: Gear grease

Post by Chip Maker »

Seems odd to me that you even have grease in the gear box. On my 4x 6 saw it has oil not grease. Maybe some models are different as I am not an expert on these saws. On another note why would you need to add oil all the time does it leak or did you add the plug just to fill after doing service ?
RMinMN
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Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2018 8:50 am

Re: Gear grease

Post by RMinMN »

There is special oil for worm gears because of the long contact of the gear with the worm. If I didn't have access to that, I'd probably use the same oil as the rear end of my tractor. If the pinion and ring gear can survive the usage a tractor gets for 40+ years, I think the worm in a bandsaw would too.
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warmstrong1955
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Re: Gear grease

Post by warmstrong1955 »

I have a Grizzly 5" x 6", which uses grease in the gearbox. The spec is not in the op manual, so I had to ask 'em.
Per Grizz; "Any multi-purpose lithium grease will work."

That doesn't mean your saw is the same....

Bill
Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.
John Evans
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Location: Phoenix ,AZ

Re: Gear grease

Post by John Evans »

Unless the box gets hot enough for the grease to flow it will channel and not lube anything assuming chassis grease is used. Get Thee to Tractor Supply or similar and get a tube of "picker head grease" NLG 00 which is a flowable grease ,think real thick oil. Also works great in old car steering boxes that leak out 90W gear oil.
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Downwindtracker2
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Location: B.C.

Re: Gear grease

Post by Downwindtracker2 »

Mine leaks when it's upright, so I will have to add. I've sillyconned the cover down. If I had been really ambitious I would have installed two, one for level, one for fill. Instead I only found one 1/4" instead of two 1/8 " plugs. So that's what it got.
A man of foolish pursuits, '91 BusyBee DF1224g lathe,'01 Advance RF-45 mill/drill,'68 Delta Toolmaker surface grinder,Miller250 mig,'83 8" Baldor grinder, plus sawdustmakers
John Hasler
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Location: Elmwood, Wisconsin

Re: Gear grease

Post by John Hasler »

RMinMN wrote: Sat Feb 24, 2018 8:06 am There is special oil for worm gears because of the long contact of the gear with the worm. If I didn't have access to that, I'd probably use the same oil as the rear end of my tractor. If the pinion and ring gear can survive the usage a tractor gets for 40+ years, I think the worm in a bandsaw would too.
The brass worm gear requires special treatment. Some EP additives will attack it, and it needs very high viscosity lubrication because of the sliding action.
Worms should use something like an ISO 680 oil but that would require sealing the gearbox. Some manufacturers cheap out and use flowable grease instead (and there is the fact that oil always leaks out eventually even from sealed boxes and 99% of owners will never add any). Then someone regreases with the heaviest axle grease they can find...

A flowable grease such as cornhead lube should work in unsealed gearboxes.
spro
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Re: Gear grease

Post by spro »

When I was using reduction boxes, I bought a supply of Browning oil. They made that oil for their worm and wheels. On another note, the insides of smaller drills and electric hand tools had an older grease. The grease would harden over time and "channel" -as has been said. That means there was no lubrication. I think that they were sealed cases because the grease (when new) was supposed to flow by the heat generated inside the sealed case. Nobody wanted a tool to be leaking "oil" yet nobody wanted to open up the case to find the grease had broken down and migrated past the bearings. It was rare but greasey oil on the commutators or film on the brushes is bad.
Right angle reduction drives have a vent, as do final drives. They are loaded by some OEM spec to the suggested lube expansion. If the vent is sealed, the oil will penetrate the gaskets or bearing seals. So, I think the filler fitting could be an adjustable vent when using proper oil.
John Hasler
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Re: Gear grease

Post by John Hasler »

spro writes:
> Right angle reduction drives have a vent, as do final drives. They are loaded by some OEM spec to the
> suggested lube expansion. If the vent is sealed, the oil will penetrate the gaskets or bearing seals.
> So, I think the filler fitting could be an adjustable vent when using proper oil.

On the right angle reducer I'm using I simply drilled a 1/16" hole in obscure place near what will be the top when it's installed rather than install a fancy vent device (I had to fabricate a cover anyway). If someone someday salvages it and tries to use it in a different orientation he'll get a surprise. If the saw turns out to be useless after four or five years I may be that someone.

My vertical (formerly horizontal) bandsaw has grease in the worm drive. I really should do something about that.
spro
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Re: Gear grease

Post by spro »

Well JH, glad you are here. I know you have something to add. Notice I mentioned "old grease" and these do separate over time and not what they used to be. They were probably fine for decades and I can't say they were wrong then. I liked that JE mentioned the NGL00 grease at Tractor supply because you can't find that at CarQuest or Advance Auto. Heck, not even NGL 01. They do have a sticky red synthetic which hopefully works proper.
spro
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Re: Gear grease

Post by spro »

When looking at a worm drive reduction unit sitting near my furnace, it is very old. The reason it is there instead of freezing garage, it needs to be loosened up. Noticing that it has individual oil cups for the out drive bearings, that means the internal lube wasn't supposed to get there.
The fill plugs on many things share the same NPT thread. The fill plug on many have a very small hole like jet hole in a carb. It can be at the top or outside one flat but it was there to be a vent. These are usually brass and get buggered up and a steel plug fits the thread. When that happens, the unit is leaking and gets replaced. Fortunately for me and others, they all didn't go into a dumpster.
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