So I just had a $200 piece of wood badly damaged by my X axis bearings sticking (plus 20 hours of prep work down the drain). Second time this “sticking” has happened, very frustrating. I’ve purchased the recommended Vactra oil, but have yet to use it because my Shapeoko has only about 20 hours of run time. The first time this happened, I forced the bearings unstuck, and rolling them back and forth, it appeared that sawdust caused the jam (as I rolled each one, sawdust pooped out and the bearing got freer and freer). I can’t keep the dust boot on for my current project because it has steep sides. This second time, I tried vacuuming the guides and bearings every so often during the run, but it still happened. So, three questions:
- Any insight on how to keep this issue from happening again?
- Is the machine not usable without the dust boot, and I just missed this information?
- Has anyone successfully taken the bearings off (for cleaning) and gotten them back on? I searched and found very little information on the bearings. I read the linear rail maintenance PDF.