June 28, 201114 yr I spent much of Sunday afternoon sanding end grain cutting boards. I was on the last side of the eleventh board and the conveyor belt on the sander separated at the seem so I had to stop. I have a new belt on order. Right now it looks like two weeks before it gets here. I am going to be sooooo far behind. Â Anyway while I was sanding I kept hearing a clicking noise that I had not heard before when running the sander. I could rotate the drum by hand and here the clicking sound. I am assuming that I have a bearing going bad, so while waiting on the conveyor belt I decided to replace the bearings. Â Got the out tonight, boy was that a small task. Anyway I am glad I took them out since they look nothing like the picture I saw of the Jet model. Mine is an older Performax. Â Here is a picture of the bearings. Â Â I really hope I didn't take these out for nothing. I can't really hear the noise in the bearings since I have them off. I did secure the motor and turned it on while it was disconnected and no noise coming from it. Oh well they are off now and I am going to see if I can located new bearings tomorrow. I did purchase the sander used so knowing that it has new bearings will be okay too. Â The bearings have a number of SST 50285 so I'll see if I can finds some. Â Any of you had to replace bearings in your drum sander? How about the conveyor belt? Â John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworks
June 28, 201114 yr Any good bearing supply house should be able to match up what you need. Try and get something made in the US or japan.Not sure if they will come with the inner race installed or if you will have to push out the ones you have and reinstall them. If you do, be careful to only push on the race and not the shield of the bearing. The person at the bearing supply house should be able to tell you if they come that way. If you cannot find a bearing supply house in your town, try Accurate bearing online. For sandpaper, I buy mine at Industrial Abrasives.http://www.industrialabrasives.com/They should be able to match up your belt for the feed there . Great folks, small family run business. Excellent product.Bob Kloeswww.bobkloes.com
June 28, 201114 yr Author Thanks Bob, I will check them out. Â I am hoping they can match them up and make this simple so I can get it back together, adjusted and back to sanding. Â By the way it was just kinda funny. On the dust cover it says, "Performax, Fine tools made in the U.S.A." Â On the rim of the bearing is says, China. John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
June 28, 201114 yr Check out the chain drive and/or the sprocket/belt driveWhile the motor and bearings are probably fine since you ran it and could hear it. I'd also check to see if the chain has any loose links and make sure nothing was hitting the drum like a chip or shard/splinter of wood. Was the sander sanding at angle or bouncing the drum? Then maybe the bearings are going. Spin them, any clicking? movement? Check end of drum bearing mounts. Anything loose? Look for rub marks in there on everything, that might give you a hint.
June 28, 201114 yr Author Mike, no chain drive or belt drive. Comes right out the end of the motor, has a coupling that connects to the shaft. I ran the motor with nothing connected to it and no noise coming from it. I could turn the bearings after I removed them and not hear any noise. Today I went to two shop to purchase new bearings and the guys at both places seem to think the bearings were okay. Since I had it apart, I went ahead and purchased new bearings to put on it. The drum would bounce some when you turned it off and it ran down, but it was sanding fine. As flat as I could tell. I guess when I get everything back together we will see if there was anything left over in the way of noise.  John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
June 28, 201114 yr What Mike said about the drum bouncing could mean a bad bearing housing too. Glad you replaced the bearings. It is good to do that when you have it apart. Look at the lovejoy coupling too. That is what they use for the coupling the motor and drum shaft. It might be bad. The bearing place should be able to get that for you too, or McMaster Carr. They are usually plastic. Check all the set screws too. Let us know how it goes. Bob Kloeswww.bobkloes.com
June 29, 201114 yr Author Will do Bob. I looked at the coupling and it seemed fine. I got the new bearings, but it will most likely be Saturday before I put it all back together. I want to make sure I have time to align everything when I start. This will give me a good chance to go through everything.  John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
June 29, 201114 yr Hope it all goes well. Chinese bearings are big now. Most bearing companies have plants there. It all depends on the specs for the bearings. Like anything, crud can come from here as well as there. Hope your sander runs like a top when you get done. I use my woodmaster a lot and can say it is like a tank. I had an older 37" preformax and it was simple to run. I didn't like the double drum on it though. The new company is called superbrush , I believe. Started by former employees of prefomax. Bob Kloeswww.bobkloes.com
June 29, 201114 yr Here's a shocker Bob. John and I have been looking at the original bearings and according to the SST spec sheet, they're stainless. I didn't think you could harden stainless enough to make bearings from them. Learn something every day.Bob Kloes said: Hope it all goes well. Chinese bearings are big now. Most bearing companies have plants there. It all depends on the specs for the bearings. Like anything, crud can come from here as well as there. Hope your sander runs like a top when you get done. I use my woodmaster a lot and can say it is like a tank. I had an older 37" preformax and it was simple to run. I didn't like the double drum on it though. The new company is called superbrush , I believe. Started by former employees of prefomax.Bob Kloeswww.bobkloes.com Ron DudelstonAbove and Beyond WoodWorks
June 29, 201114 yr Stainless bearings? Wow, that is a new one on me. I agree with what you said, didn't think it would ever be hard enough. I know they have new steel for tools that is as hard as carbide, but takes the sharpest of edges. I know knife makers are using it and so are router bit companies. I know a fellow in Georgia was making chisels out of it. Very pricey, but excellent stuff. Bob Kloeswww.bobkloes.com
June 30, 201114 yr There are two different kinds of "stainless." There's the 300 Series which has Chromium in it to make it "non-magnetic."Then there's 400 Series wich has no chromium, therefore making it "magnetic."Alloys can be added to the 300 Series to give certain properties. Generally, stainless is a low-carbon material. 400 Series usually has more carbon in it to provide hardening abilities.  When I worked at Iowa's only Nuclear Power Plant, the design of the Plant used a lot of lwo-carbon 300 Series stainless to mitigate IGSCC. (Inter-Granular Stress Corrosion Cracking.) I would guess that John2s bearings are made from 400 Series materials.Larry
June 30, 201114 yr Author Well I didn't run across this information until today when I was actually reading the manual to get ready to put this back together and align everything. ROTATING DRUM BEARINGS Bearings should be replaced when they allow excessive play of the drum, make excessive noise, or otherwise indicate failure. Note that if clicking noises in the bearings are a problem, rotating may be a solution instead of replacement, Rotate as follows: 1. Loosen the set screws in the bearing collar (See Fig. 22) ~ Leave the Allen wrench in one of the set screws, Rotate the drum within the bearing and tighten the set screws. If unable to rotate drum, remove set screws, apply penetrating oil and let soak, then rotate shaft in bearing. 2. If the clicking persists) or if the drum shaft is tight in the bearing and cannot rotate, loosen the two bolts holding the bearing and the flange for the bearing. Now repeat Step 1 . .Aiter the drum is rotated within the bearing, tighten the flanges first and then the set screws. NOTE: It is necessary to realign the Tension Rollers after rotating the drum bearings (See Fig. 27). After the machine has run for one-half hour} stop to check that the set screws and bearing bolts are tight. Oh well, I already have the new bearings now so I will just replace them, but I hopefully will file this away for the future.  John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
June 30, 201114 yr Stick the "old" bearings in a safe place. Never can tell when you might need them. By the way, is this a corollary to Murphy's Law? Ron DudelstonAbove and Beyond WoodWorks
June 30, 201114 yr Author Could be. Who knows. Also got an update on the conveyor belt tracking. It was delivered to Florence today at 9:00am so I hope I will have it tomorrow. I could get this all back together Saturday.John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
June 30, 201114 yr I would vote to clean up the old bearings very well, and do the conversion as stated by Performax. This will confirm the repair of the "clicking" sound. Then repackage the new bearings for use later. Who knows.. The old bearings might be better than the replacements.Just what would do..Larry
July 1, 201114 yr Author Got home this afternoon and the conveyor belt was here, so Saturday I will get started putting it back together and getting everything aligned. I am impressed with the delivery of the belt. I was afraid it was going to be another week before it got here. John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
July 1, 201114 yr naw, no parallel to murphy on this one. After hearing it has a lovejoy connection I would suspect that but you can only test it with a load on it. Wish i had a schematic, might make it easier to find the culprit. Question though, if it was sanding fine and flat, what else besides the weird noise made you pull it? By the way, you didn't tape the edges of the sanding belt down when you put it on and maybe one of those pieces of tape came loose?Â
July 3, 201114 yr Author Drum sander is back together. Still got a little bit of twiking to do, but for the most part all is good. I put the new bearing in and no more clicking. It runs a lot smoother also. Maybe it was worst than I realized. Also got the new conveyor belt on. Boy this one seems a lot lighter weight than the one that was on there. May explain why it was 49.00 instead of 93.00. I'll give it a try and if it doesn't last I will go with the more expensive one next time. I have got a little bit of adjustment to do on the guide roller in front of and behind the drum. I am seeing some very slight snipe. Didn't have that before, and it is very slight, so I am close, but I had a few other things to get done today, so I will go back to that tomorrow afternoon. Just glad to have it back and ready to run.John MoodyJohn Moody Woodworkshttp://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com
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