Review

The hand wheel of the apron had some play so I’ve ordered new bearings, and yesterday removed the front part of the appron.

Probably the previous owner was working on this, as none of the bolts were properly tightened. Also, as can be seen, a genuine attempt had been made to lubricate it with grease. That probably explains why the handwheel bearing was already worn. The entire apron looked almost brand new. I used it on and off for two months, and this is the wear that can be seen now. I replaced the handwheel bearing and checked the oil flow, which is now working properly again. What remains is to find a good oil gun¹….

A few more pictures:

Assembled.

Detail of the half nuts.

Everything looks as good as new. Not bad for a machine that is almost 57 years old at the time of writing this blog entry!

1. Postscript from 2026: Actually, I have never bought an oil gun. The ones from Myford are quite expensive. Instead, I converted all the grease nipples to standard metric ones and use this: to put the oil in. It works remarkably well. The rubber hose at the end is a fuel hose from a small motorcycle. ↩