That would be me looking for parts for a currently working mill belonging to a friend. About ten years ago I set up his mill on concrete, powered it with a Mack truck engine and converted the feed works to hydraulic. Nothing was done to the carriage at the time. I am now in the process of figuring out all the things that are wrong with the carriage on this mill and whether fixing rather than replacing the carriage is the thing to do.
The axles have worn through the babbit and into the cast iron of the pillow blocks and the flat bottomed v-groove in the guide wheels is worn so that the wheel is riding on the top of the guide rail rather than the sloped sides. There is wear on the bolsters and knees that make it a problem to saw square cants as well. The plan is/was to machine the groove in the wheels 1/8 to 1/4" deeper so that the wheels ride on the sides of the rail and replace the axles, use ball bearing pillow blocks instead of the babbit bearings, and mill the bolsters and knees and install some stainless wear strips. I am advised by Frank that it would be a bad idea to jigger with the wheels for fear of weakening them. The axles would be replaced with the same size( 1 11/16") shafting but ball bearing pillow blocks of this size are quite a bit smaller than the existing plain bearings. I don't know if this smaller bearing package is going to be a problem. This may not be the place for intuitive engineering.
So, maybe a whole other carriage would be a better idea, if I can find one.
Leo Plas
