I was reading some posts about makeshift bearing journal repairs and there were surprisingly few mentions of babbit metal. Our early American railroad westward expansion was built with babbit bearings. The unique feature of this material was easy field repairs without needing machine shop equipment or having to keep a large inventory of spare parts. My grandfather use to often talk about this metal. In today's times with shortages all over, maybe it's time to re-visit this material.
There are many different variations of babbit alloys for high speed, low speed, heavy loads, ect.. If I remember right, the metal expands slightly when it solidifies, so it adheres well to clean and properly prepared bearing case bores. Sometimes these bearing case bores were just rough cast using green sand molds at the cast iron foundry with no machining needed before the babbit was poured in. The shafts were simply coated with some greasy release material or special paint, centered in the bore and the metal poured in. Clay was often used to seal the bottom and any gaps, and if an oil hole was needed, a coated steel, or iron rod was inserted before pouring. After pouring, and when cooled, the shaft was removed easily if everything was done right, and the proper clearances were hand scraped into the bearing bore, along with smoothing out any imperfections.
Also, the metal was extensively recycled in the field. When a bearing got excessively worn, the old metal was removed, often by melting, then it was re-melted and some extra metal added to make up for metal lost from wear and any melting slag, then re-poured back into the bearing case to form the renewed bearing.
If babbit can support locomotives weighing more than 100 tons, it ought to work well for any emergency Lister repair if you choose the correct alloy, and I believe the early Lister's actually did use babbit. Henry Ford was likely responsible for the demise of the widespread use of this metal because he needed interchangeable parts for his auto manufacturing. Although babbit was used in the early replaceable bearings, it was not well suited for thin coatings inside replaceable steel bearing shells.
Sometimes modern technology throw's the baby out with the bathwater. Seldom does new technology actually completely eliminate the use or need for all of the older technologies. There is always some nich that only one type of technology does the best. We should think of new technology as adding another useful tool to the technology "toolbox", but not going and hastefully dumping out all of the other tools that will always have some special uses.
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