Rledonne wrote:I have a Mills 10 cent diamond front. This is my first machine. It seems to be running very slow. Is there anything I can do to speed the timing up? Sorry if this has been asked before.
Rledonne wrote:Thank you very much for the information! I’ll go to hime Depot tomorrow and grab some 3 in 1. I’ll let you know how it works! Thanks again Ross
marsonion wrote:Rledonne wrote:Thank you very much for the information! I’ll go to hime Depot tomorrow and grab some 3 in 1. I’ll let you know how it works! Thanks again Ross
You're welcome! But, I forgot to mention: if your machine appears sluggish on account of the reels barely spinning, there are parts that specifically influence that. Look for the reel brake wires, which you'll find in a row across the middle-rear of the mechanism, held in place and tensioned by wingnuts. These wires ride the reel hubs and their purpose is to smooth the reel stop action, to prevent an ugly shock to the mechanism which can result when a very fast-spinning reel is suddenly jammed to a halt by the reel stop. Try loosening the tension on all of these wires by adjusting those wingnuts and then see how your cycle looks; you may see fit to selectively re-tension them if any of the reels keep spinning too fast and then stop in an objectionable, "herky-jerky" sort of way.
JPCass wrote:In my limited experience, it's been fairly common for the grease on the reel shaft (axle) to be old and hard. If the reels don't spin freely with the brake wires pulled back (the machine cycle can be stopped at the very beginning, leaving them loose, by grabbing the clock fan), then they need to be taken off and everything needs to be cleaned and lubricated, including degreasing inside the reel hubs with swabs or spray - the last machine I got had been broken down by someone, but they hadn't cleaned the hubs and there was still enough hard old grease to impede proper spinning
Also, rather than bending the clock fan, I'd try cleaning the clock. If I recall it comes off fairly easily and can be degreased in a small container either by soaking or spraying, and then re-lubricated with light oil.
I use penetrating lubricant like WD-40 or in severe cases Liquid Wrench, to unbind and test machines that are going to be broken down and re-lubricated before long anyway. It's best to hand apply it and not spray, particularly given the paper reels on a slot (unless the bundle is off), but it occurs to me that in the case of the clock, that's located in a corner of the mechanism where it would probably be possible to spray pointing away from the machine, or at least down towards the base, and draining onto newspaper.
marsonion wrote:Of course you're right: that's the proper thing to do in the course of a full-on mech restoration... but I sure didn't want to scare-off a beginner by even suggesting anything like tearing down or removing parts from his machine right off the bat. From his words, it sounds like his slot is cycling OK, just not very enthusiastically, so I suggested proceeding very easily and gently by limbering up the old lube a bit (for the clock too) and seeing how that looks. Your suggestion to release the brake wires, stop the clock and spin the reels manually is also the perfect way to spread some refreshing light oil into the reel shaft, too. If it turns out his mech is so far-gone or corroded that it truly needs more invasive efforts, then, again, I agree with your approach 100%.
JPCass wrote:And you're right - having grown up tearing mechanisms of various sorts down, I forget that not everyone is ready to dive into such things.
What do you think of the idea of, say, tipping the machine back a bit on some newspaper, spraying the clock down with something like WD-40, and letting it drain, as a way to try to clean and temporarily lube it?
The last couple of machines I've worked on had very sticky old grease on the axle and hubs, so I don't think that the reels would have spun properly until those were pretty thoroughly cleaned. Was that atypical, or could it have been addressed by letting something like WD-40 or even Liquid Wrench soak in longer?
marsonion wrote:Since the OP hasn't responded in over two weeks, I'm afraid I may have scared him off regardless.
At any rate, I think it's hard to tell without being there or at least seeing a few images to determine whether a mech needs a tear-down or not. For cleaning purposes, it's a good thing that clocks are typically so easy to pull and replace; the last one I did, simply dropped it into a can of mineral spirits (with some lacquer thinner mixed in) overnight, and it came out smooth as new after a touch of oil. With regard to WD-40 however-- though I've never observed it myself-- there's a sort of caveat about using it for slots, probably best explained here by Don Creekmore:
http://antiqueslotmachine.blogspot.com/ ... chine.html
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