[TowerTalk] Cheap thrust bearings...$10 or less

Mike Ryan mryan001 at tampabay.rr.com
Fri Oct 14 13:41:35 PDT 2011


What Terri also did not mention is that these bearings that he uses are good
for use high atop mountain top sites used by VHF/UHF rovers...where it is
colder than my mother-in-law's stare. ...and believe me that's cold. -Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of K8RI on TT
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 2:54 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Cheap thrust bearings...$10 or less

On 10/14/2011 6:55 AM, Cqtestk4xs at aol.com wrote:
> When I had about a dozen side mounted antennas I thought the cost  of
> thrust bearings would wind up costing about $1000 or more.  My solution,
at
> least for the lighter beams was to use the PVC toilet flange cut for two
> inches.  I made a "sandwich" from two of them back to back connected  by a
very
> short piece of PVC.  The top plate was the "meat" of the  sandwich.

Mine were a bit more simple.  I simply reamed out a "T" so the rotating 
part of the side arm was a slip fit and ran them dry.  Yes, they ended 
up with some surface rust on the cast iron "T's"but they worked fine 
even if they didn't look all that great.  With the side arm mounted on a 
2' extension it gave almost 260 to 280 degrees of rotation.
>
> Of course, the  "thrust bearing" could  not be tightened around the mast,
> but that was not an issue since the mast was  short and the beams were
light.
>   I successfully used this setup for small  tribanders and up to 6 element
> 10 meter beams for years at my old QTH.  By  the way, total cost was
around
> five bucks from your local Home Depot.  The  price probably has gone up
but
> it surely beats paying $140 for  a Rohn  t-bearing..especially for small
> beams.

I've pretty much sworn off those as so many better alternatives (that 
cost far less) have been listed on here in just the last week.  Terry's 
suggestion is far superior to even the Yaesu thrust bearing, which at 
least runs smooth and looks good.

The same company makes a pillow block mount which would work well for 
these side mounts.

A little machining for a mount and wheel bearings make outstanding 
thrust bearings.

73

Roger (K8RI)


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