Carve King assembly tip!

[retrosmith]

Simply put, CHECK YOUR BEARINGS!  


I got all of my wheels assembled and installed and went to adjust them and found one of the bearings frozen up, wouldn't move at all.  Took it all apart, couldn't get it to break loose.  Pryed the rubber shield off to look at it and the balls and the cage were rusted solid.   $#&*(#&*(!!!   Managed to get it out without damaging the wheel or the other bearing but it would have been a lot easier if I'd checked them all first.

THEN, when I installed the first X-axis lead screw, it came into the pillow block bearing at a pretty serious angle.  Obviously I thought I'd messed up the alignment on the anti-backlash block somehow.  Since I couldn't get to the screws to adjust it at that point, I took that whole piece off by removing the upper V-wheels and proceeded to level out the lead screw again.  Got it perfect, put it all back together, threaded the lead screw through the backlash nut again and up to the pillow block... ANGLE WAS OFF!  I finally figured out that the bearing inside the pillow block was crooked!  When the bearing hit the front brace it sat level against it, but the pillow block was forced to sit at an angle.  Laid the pillow block on my bench, found a socket the size of the outer race on it and tapped it in with a mallet.  Checked the others and ANOTHER one was crooked.  

The lesson here?  Don't assume because all the parts are new that they either work correctly or are assembled correctly.  

CHECK YOUR BEARINGS!

[Derek the Admin]

Good catch. Yes the pillow block bearings allow adjustment. I should probably mention that in the instructions.

As to the rusted bearing. Do you need another? The rust thing probably happened in our shop. We had a big bin of bearings that we didn't know had caught water from a roof leak! Basically a packer was grabbing bearings and said "there's water in the bottom of this bin". It was a big bin of bearings and I had to throw away a bunch of them (basically anything that was near the water that had accumulated). Looks like that one slipped through.
Let me know if you need a replacement

[retrosmith]

Aug 15, 2017 1:09:18 GMT Derek the Admin said:

Good catch. Yes the pillow block bearings allow adjustment. I should probably mention that in the instructions.

As to the rusted bearing. Do you need another? The rust thing probably happened in our shop. We had a big bin of bearings that we didn't know had caught water from a roof leak! Basically a packer was grabbing bearings and said "there's water in the bottom of this bin". It was a big bin of bearings and I had to throw away a bunch of them (basically anything that was near the water that had accumulated). Looks like that one slipped through.
Let me know if you need a replacement

Actually, as luck would have it the kit came with one extra bearing.  Once I extracted the rusted one from the V-wheel and popped the extra one in I was good to go.  Appreciate the offer though!  

[activereality]

Derek,

You honestly don't get better customer service than when a replacement is offered without even the question being asked! Thank you for being such a great person and awesome company owner!

Aaron

[Derek the Admin]

Aug 15, 2017 14:12:58 GMT activereality said:

Derek,

You honestly don't get better customer service than when a replacement is offered without even the question being asked! Thank you for being such a great person and awesome company owner!

Aaron

Thanks Aaron. I appreciate the kind words. I just believe in taking care of the customer.

[retrosmith]

Hell, the replacement *came with the defective part*! That's like... proactive psychic customer service. Creepy and cool at the same time.