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Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 15:02:34 :
In Reply to: I think they are still availbale... posted by Chriscase [76.212.215.52] on Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 14:11:40 :
I put water in the trough, started it up, and was about half through sharpening the knife when it cracked. I didn't hit it or press particularly hard. The way it kind of opened up on the outside edge is like there was some residual stress in it. It could be that the babbit center wasn't intended for use as a bearing but the Boice Crane engineers cleverly decided to use it as such, with a rubber drive roller running on the rim of the wheel, so as to avoid all the complication of having to seal the wheel shaft through the wet gritty sides of the trough and provide a separate speed-reduction mechanism. Although I usually think of 1940s & '50s shop tools a being high quality cast iron, Boice Crane hasn't really impressed me. The parts are stamped sheet metal and one pot-metal die casting, and the bearings even the high-speed shaft's bearings are just holes in the die casting or a steel shaft to go through and a pair of little holes that serve as oil cups. That shaft gets fairly warm during operation, and all in all it seems like the combination of grinding wheel grit and open plain bearings is not something that will make for long life. Still, it cost a lot less than the Chinese ones everyone sells with the plastic worm drive gear, and it does do a nice job on good chisels.
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