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Nichols Horizontal Mill, 2020 rebuild, Part 3:



Unfortunately, one of the other issues I ran across in this project was the spindle bearings were somewhat worse off than
I'd realized. I can't honestly recall if they were that bad when I first rebuilt the machine, or if they'd gotten that way in the
years afterward, , but either way, they weren't in the best of shape. The problem here is that at the moment, replacements
are some $250 each. I didn't have that much to spare at the time, so I cleaned and reassembled everything as-is.

Proper replacement will have to wait 'til I can afford that much in bearings.



So for the moment, it's not ideal, but it's back together.



I then set the preload to "that should be about right" and installed the rear dust cap.



The handle, power buttons, head stop rod and a couple new zerks round out the job.



After that, more detail painting. The right-hand end table cap...



The never-before-painted outboard arbor support arm...



And the knee elevating handle.



While those were drying, I enlisted a passerby and had him help me reinstall the knee...



And then pressure-washed all the grinding schmutz off the freshly-ground table casting.



I also pried off the table-way dovetail bar, cleaned out from under it, chased the threads and reassembled.






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