Shopsmith Forums

How can you tell if you have a double or single bearing quill. Is the second bearing all the way to the back or is it a couple inches into the back of the tube, if you are looking inside? I hope that made sense.

Jeff

The 2'nd bearing is a couple inches up inside the quill, not at the end. Stick a long screwdriver or rod into the back of the quill and mark it where it stops, then check the rod against the side of the quill to see how far down you went. There's a video on theSawdust Sessionswhere Nick demonstrates this.

Nick Engler has demonstrated a very simple method, that is, after you have removed the quill from the headstock. He simply stuck the end of the long Shopsmith "T" wrench into the back of the quill. If it goes in a long ways, then the quill is single bearing, if it only goes in a short distance, it has two bearings.

however, make sure that the allen wrench is tight to the outside egde of the hole in the quill as there is a "hat" shaped washer that the wrench may hit and let you think you are at the bearing. wiggle the allen wrench a little to see if it will go deeper.

Thank you I will check it out.

The best way is to remove the quill from the head stock. Grab the shaft at the teeth end of the quill and move it up and down. If you can hear the shaft hitting the quill housing you have a single bearing quill. You should not hear any noise from a double bearing quill because there should be close to zero play between the shaft and quill housing. The bearings are spaced about 3 inches apart on 2 bearing quills.

I did all these tests and still not completely sure. I tried to poke the allen wrench down and could only go a couple of inches. There is a little bit of play but not enough to fit the allen wrench down past two inches. Looks like I could fit something down further if I used something thin like a razor blade (if it was long enough).

You can always remove the snap ring and tap the shaft out of the quill.

I think my Mark V was built in 1982, but I bought it used, so could have been replaced with double bearing before I got it. Looks exaclty like the picture of the double bearing that bucksaw provided. Thanks for the help guys.

Jeff