Bearings Upgrade?

[TonyL]

I am 2 years away from my first 1221's warranty expiration and I just replaced them with their OEM bearings (and runs beautifully), but I hear a lot you folks talk about better quality bearings. I would be interested in your opinions as to which one you think /know are better and how to ensure compatibility.

Thanks for reading and teaching!

 

[Curly]

Take the old ones to a bearing supply place and they will look at the numbers and be able to cross reference them to other brands they sell and tell you if they have better grades. Better the grade in the same brand the higher the price and for a basic wood lathe the best possible bearings may cost more than the lathe. If there are no numbers they can measure them and come up with the same info.

 

[TonyL]

Thanks Pete. Maybe those Jet OEM aren't so bad .

 

[Curly]

They may be using good bearings to begin with. China makes good bearings too if the manufactures want to pay for them so even bearings made in Japan, USA or Europe may not be any better. If you only changed you bearings because you had it apart to change the belt you may have wasted some money. Did you think to put a second belt over the pulley and tape it away so that if the belt quits you have one ready to go?

 

[campzeke]

Tony, Help me understand. Were you having a problem with you lathe or replacing the bearings as a preventative maintenance task.

 

[TonyL]

I had some clicking that Jet said may be the belt or the bearings. They didn't think it was the bearings because I never heard or felt any screeching. Given that I had to remove the spindle to change the belt, I thought why not change the bearings? So I don't know if the clicking was emanating from the belt or the bearings, but there was no way that I was going to take it apart again to replace the bearings if the belt was the source of the clicking.

I had the clicking about 6 months into owning the lathe (it is now a little over 3 years old). When I called Jet back then, they instructed me to re-set the grub screws on the pulleys. This fixed the clicking back then. Even though the issue was corrected, they sent me two bearings, a new belt, and a bunch of other screws for free. So I had everything.

So now all is good. I was just asking about better bearings for after the expiration of the warranty.

 

[Herb G]

I had to replace some bearings in a drill press once.
I got some thru a guy I knew at a local supply house.
He ordered me the highest grade available at the time.

The bearings were made in Czechoslovakia of all places.
That was 35 years ago.
Oh yeah, the drill press is still running like a top.