Grease or oil or something else in here.

[jimbo84]

I’m not familiar with these nipples, they’re approx 1/2 the length of ‘standard’ ones.

They’re for the main spindle bearings on a horizontal mill. Pipes from them run down to the bearings.

It’s a mill badged up as Goseiger but they appear to have been a reseller of machines.

The mill itself looks the same as a shelden vernon but they don’t have these lubrication points on them so guessing they’re a retrofit.

 

[Dozzer]

Looks like an older style of grease fitting like you used to get on old cars with the syringe style grease gun
https://www.huyett.com/all-products...ccessories/grease-fittings/ball-type-fittings

 

[Memmeddu]

OIL USE ONLY OIL
Buy a dedicated grease gun fill it with oil and use it like if it has grease in it.
To many people destroyed machines using grease instead of oil

 

[jmp49]

+1 dont grease them, it will clog up all the internal oilways and cause issues. Oil in a oil gun for machine tools unless the maker specifies differently.
You can quickly make a oil gun from a normal grease gun by sealing up the space the cartridge goes and filling it with oil.
I use hvb46 on everything apart from in the gearbox of my lathe headstock, where I use what they specified (cant remember at mo...)

 

[6ply]

+1 dont grease them, it will clog up all the internal oilways and cause issues. Oil in a oil gun for machine tools unless the maker specifies differently.
You can quickly make a oil gun from a normal grease gun by sealing up the space the cartridge goes and filling it with oil.
I use hvb46 on everything apart from in the gearbox of my lathe headstock, where I use what they specified (cant remember at mo...)

@jimbo84 mentioned the nipples are for the main spindle bearings. No oil ways, axis slides, etc were mentioned. So I'm left wondering what type the spindle bearings are and whether grease might in fact be the required lubrication. Maybe!

 

[m_c]

Could be grease or oil on a spindle.

Do you know whether the bearings are likely to receive enough oil from splash lubrication within the gearbox?
If they're not likely to get enough oil, I'd be more inclined to give them a very occasional grease (we're talking a single pump, every few days worth of running, which even then is likely to be excessive!)
The biggest issue with greaseable spindle bearings, is being over greased, which is the main reason why any machine with greased spindle bearings designed/built in the past 30-40 years are far more likely to be greased for life.

If they're likely to receive enough oil, then I'd maybe give them a squirt or two of oil prior to using the machine if it's not been used for a while.

Bearings used at relatively slow speeds (which is what this mill likely is), don't actually need that much lubrication.

 

[jmp49]

I think its a rebadged sheldon that someone has added the grease nipples to also, in fact, it could be the very one discussed here :

Sheldon (Vernon) Model 0 Horizontal Mill Restoration.

Nice writeup, and pictures.:encourage:

www.hobby-machinist.com

That thread mentions a official lubrication chart in which the spindle bearings are greased with bearing grease but with no grease nipples, so packed on assembly to avoid overgreasing, and that poster was talking about adding the nipples to add the grease afterwards.
This is one of the exceptions that uses bearing grease, but its always important to know rather than just stick anything in, imho. I've seen a lot of ruined machines with the oil ways packed with hard grease where good intentioned people have made the assumption it was for grease to want to KNOW before I put a grease gun near anything. As I wrote

Oil in a oil gun for machine tools unless the maker specifies differently

I would sign up that forum and download that chart if you dont have it already as its probably useful elsewhere also.

For the nipples, I'd personally just replace them with standard ones if they unscrew if you dont have the correct gun fitting for them already.

 

[jimbo84]

Could be grease or oil on a spindle.

Do you know whether the bearings are likely to receive enough oil from splash lubrication within the gearbox?
If they're not likely to get enough oil, I'd be more inclined to give them a very occasional grease (we're talking a single pump, every few days worth of running, which even then is likely to be excessive!)
The biggest issue with greaseable spindle bearings, is being over greased, which is the main reason why any machine with greased spindle bearings designed/built in the past 30-40 years are far more likely to be greased for life.

If they're likely to receive enough oil, then I'd maybe give them a squirt or two of oil prior to using the machine if it's not been used for a while.

Bearings used at relatively slow speeds (which is what this mill likely is), don't actually need that much lubrication.

There’s no gearbox at the spindle. There was a gearbox in the bottom on some of them but this one has been modified to just run on belts/pulleys.

This is looking up from the bottom up to the spindle.

I think its a rebadged sheldon that someone has added the grease nipples to also, in fact, it could be the very one discussed here :

Sheldon (Vernon) Model 0 Horizontal Mill Restoration.

Nice writeup, and pictures.:encourage:

www.hobby-machinist.com

That thread mentions a official lubrication chart in which the spindle bearings are greased with bearing grease but with no grease nipples, so packed on assembly to avoid overgreasing, and that poster was talking about adding the nipples to add the grease afterwards.
This is one of the exceptions that uses bearing grease, but its always important to know rather than just stick anything in, imho. I've seen a lot of ruined machines with the oil ways packed with hard grease where good intentioned people have made the assumption it was for grease to want to KNOW before I put a grease gun near anything. As I wrote

I would sign up that forum and download that chart if you dont have it already as its probably useful elsewhere also.

For the nipples, I'd personally just replace them with standard ones if they unscrew if you dont have the correct gun fitting for them already.

Thanks for that, I’ll have a look at that thread. I may take the back cover off (relatively easy) and see what’s in them.

Looks like an older style of grease fitting like you used to get on old cars with the syringe style grease gun
https://www.huyett.com/all-products...ccessories/grease-fittings/ball-type-fittings

I do have an old grease gun and it does fit over them loosely.