Sedgwick LK 400mm rip saw 1ph manual + advice

[Sando Calrissian]

Hello UK Workshop people,

I'm wondering if anyone can assist. I have an old single phase Sedgwick LK 400mm rip saw that I picked up late last year. I can't find a manual matching my saw layout. I purchased a PDF of one from Scott and Sargeant but, unfortunately, it doesn't match the layout of my saw. I'm in the middle of changing bearing and belts and could do with looking at an exploded diagram.

I've attached a picture of the internals to aid identification.

Any help would be much appreciated!

thanks,

Sandy
(Long time reader who has finally got round to becoming a member)

 

[Against_The_Grain]

That’s a very early LK from around the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. I don’t believe Sedgwick did any manuals or diagrams for their machines back then, I’ve certainly never seen any and there’s plenty of these machines about. You could try emailing Sedgwick directly but most likely they will ignore your email, they’re not the best for customer support.

Nice solid and simple machine, bearings will likely be imperial so likely a bit spendy to replace, the belts could be taken to a agricultural supplier or similar and they have gizmos for measuring the length and belt type to find a suitable replacement. As you’ve got three belts running on the same pulleys ensure that you get a “matched set” of belts so that all the lengths are identical and you don’t have one tight belt and two slack ones as they can vary from batch to batch.

 

[Sando Calrissian]

Hello and thank you very much for taking the time to reply!

I think you're bang on with what you've said. I got in touch with Sedgwick many months back, by email and phone (they never replied to any emails despite asking me to send pictures and details on my issues through by email!)

Anyway, they weren't able to help as they didn't have any manuals for machines of this age. The most they could say was that the spindle assembly, which I sent them pictures of, looked to be correct.

To detail the issue I was having, I decided to replace the bearings while I had the top off the saw to replace the drive belts, which were split and worn. I went to a specialist bearing shop near me with the old bearings and got replacements, which were, as you rightly predicted above, much more expensive than I expected! On reassembly, the whole spindle would bind when i tightened the pulley holding nut on (even just to finger tight!). I disassembled and reassembled numerous times to see if I was missing something or just putting the thing back together incorrectly (hence the request for a manual). Eventually I decided to put one of the old bearings back in, the one adjacent to the pulley, to see if it was an issue with my new bearings. This yielded slightly more success. With the pulley nut moderately tight I was now able to turn the whole spindle by hand, although there was still a fair bit of resistance that seems more that it should be. As this was the best I could get it and the other old bearing was knackered during removal, meaning I couldn't reassemble to 'untampered with condition', I stuck with this solution and put the new belts on and returned the top and motor to the cabinet. The saw runs and seems happy enough to my inexperienced eyes. Perhaps I have the added bonus that it stops nice a quickly! I am annoyed I didn't just leave the old bearings in and just replaced the belts, but hey ho a bit late for that.

If anyone has any ideas why I was getting this binding issue i'd love to hear them. The best I can come up with is that the face of the new bearing was a slightly difference design to the old one. When studying the face of the pulley it seemed to have small ridges and depressions that lined up with the profile of the old bearing. On reassembly with the new bearing these 'wear marks?' were then contacting with the face of the new bearing and locking the assembly? It seems like these faces shouldn't be close enough to contact anyway and perhaps I was missing a small spacer or similar between pulley and bearing?

I am very annoyed I didn't take pictures on initial disassembly of the spindle, although I did take a close up picture before disassembly and, on comparison of these, the gap between the inside pulley face and the bearing housing looks to be identical to my now reassembled spindle. Sedgwick also said the spindle assembly looked to be correct in the pictures i sent them.

I am a bit lost, but the saw seems to be working well and i'm not overly keen on removing the top again! However, I'm interested to know if I am a total numpty and missed something that was staring me in the face. Happy to upload some pictures if anyone is interested in having a look...

thanks again and sorry for the long spiel^,

Sandy

 

[Against_The_Grain]

It seems like these faces shouldn't be close enough to contact anyway and perhaps I was missing a small spacer or similar between pulley and bearing?

That would be my guess unless the alignment between the two bearings was not great with Sedgwick not being the most accurate manufacturer in the world, you find this when people put standard deep groove ball bearings in place of bearings that were originally self-aligning ball bearings because the self-aligning ones are designed for applications where the alignment isn't exact and can be tilted slightly. Possibly the supplier only measured the bearing without checking the specification as a deep groove and a self-aligning will be exactly the same size but usually you can tell the difference just by looking at them. Do you still have the old bearing and does it have any identification marks on the edge of the raceways? Deep groove bearings need to be aligned perfectly to work properly and not fail prematurely. More than likely you just possibly need a shim between the pulley and the inner raceway of the bearing to push the pulley out slightly so that it's not bearing against the outer raceway at all.

I am a bit lost, but the saw seems to be working well and i'm not overly keen on removing the top again!

The best way to work on these is to turn the machine over onto its table on a pallet, and then lift the base off, rather than trying to lift around 80kg of cast iron off the base, they can be tricky to flip over though!

 

[deema]

It’s a long number of years ago I last refurbished that vintage of the LK. I also had one myself, brilliant kit.
I don’t unfortunately have a manual for that vintage saw, just the next iteration. Could you post photos of the bearings, and the assembly. I seem to think that you need shim washers to space things properly.