Turning Bronze Bushings on the Metal Lathe

I needed to turn a few bronze bushings for a John Deere zero turn mower - the originals are made of plastic and wear out quickly so I turned a few new ones out of Oilite bronze on the metal lathe. A quick little lathe job...

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[dannyl]

Thanks you. Nice job.
My wife said I need a shield to keep me from eating chips when I am watching machining videos. Happy Labor day weekend.

[PhilG]

When I was in the bearing business we learned the Oil-lite bearings were *sintered* Bronze or brass. Powder metal heated to *almost* the melting point. Not quite "cast" as such, hence the porosity. I don't remember if they were already oiled (long time ago). Still wouldn't hurt to soak them in oil before use. Here's an interesting tidbit: At another job we sold Roper pumps. The ones we had in stock came with Bronze bushings but sometimes depending on what the customer was pumping we took those out and put in Graphite bushings. Now you couldn't press those bearings in because they'd shatter! The trick was to *tap* them into place with a Compothane dead blow hammer. Plastic, filled loosely with lead shot. Sounds counterintuitive but if you hit them dead square and *just* hard enough the bushing would creep into place. Had to hit it several times to seat them. Every strike had to be perfect or the bushing would shatter! I was the only guy that could do it consistently (after some practice). Now the graphite bearings were stocked two floors up from the workshop so I would take FIVE when I went to swap a set (of four). Most of the time I wound up taking the fifth one back but every now and then (usually on the *last* hit) one would go *pop*! @#$%!

[martinkscott]

I work in a engineering factory and we do lots of brass parts, we have cnc machines with twin turrets which blitz parts like that, back when I first started I had to machine parts manually thou 👍🏻👍🏻

[kenny]

My very first job when I got my first home lathe. I made 4 bushing for my Cub Cadet Zero turn front wheel spindles. I used a cheap Chinese lathe, and also used aluminum scrap I had. The bushings replaced plastic ones, and worked for several years, or at least until I wore the rest of the mower out. Good video as always.

[CharlieParker]

Your channel is such a pleasure to watch and always shows us how to improve our techniques thank you for sharing you knowledge with us Keith...

[assessor]

A simple yet highly useful project. I will never forget my GR. XIi machine shop teacher showing us a piece of Oilite Bronze. To demonstrate the material, he heated it with a torch and you could clearly see the oil bubbling out of the bronze.

[rexmyers]

As always, I learned a lot. Thanks, Keith

[Otingocni]

i was drooling at your cart load of quick change tool blocks...

[reynaldovalle]

Wow great video. I enjoyed it beautiful to see you can make those bushings. God bless you and your family and friends and everyone..

[Dr_Xyzt]

Bronze bushings are awesome! Such a simple way of pivoting something, especially if you have an oil pressure driven system.

[bigredracer]

3.3K+👍 thanks again for taking us all along with you for the great work

[rodhenry]

Great video Keith, Thanks for sharing!!

[gregwarner]

Excellent material for low speed moderately loaded bearings. I would set up an old vacuum hose near the work to carry the tiny chips away.

[taunusmechanics]

There are polished inserts available for Aluminium, they also work great on Brass and Bronze.
Little curly Chips, no Spray and a terrific finish.

[thedoctor]

Thanks for that video Keith. I have to make similar bushings for my Snapper mower. I was going to make them out of Delrin, but now I'm thinking of going with Oilite after seeing your video.

[bcbloc]

Weird, I don't recognize those as a John Deere part. Must be from a model we don't sell many of in my area. Yep I see they are used on the Lowes/Homedepot grade smallest zero turn. They must have been a problem as they went to ball bearings on newer serial numbers. Looks like they turned the spindles down to accept the bearings so a possible solution if these don't hold up. Am127304 is the bearing $9.81 ea versus $4.34 for the poly ones as of 9-7-2020

[chuckinwyoming]

Keith suffering from bronze dandruff... plastic shield to the rescue!

[buckinthetree]

Nearly all heavy equipment manufacturers have moved into using UHMW or other products such as Dupont's Vespel for a lot of their bushing and wear strip applications. One of the leading causes or premature wear on equipment was lack of lubrication. Bronze still likes petroleum lubricant that attracts dirt and dust that act like sand paper during movement. These newer plastics are engineered to just leave it alone and don't touch it. While people blame manufacturers for making things cheaply by using plastic, the fact is they are trying to improve on some out dated technology. It's been my experience that if a manufacturer used a plastic to not lubricate it. It will only attract dirt and cause premature wear.

[davidfarrell]

it's lovely to watch this done the proper way.

[GeorgeWMays]

Thanks. Appreciated. Yet another enjoyable and instructive video.