I am a true believer in lignum vitae

Posted on Tuesday, June 27th, 2017 and is filed under News

We  have several hydro stations that I have been employee for 38 years; we previously had lignum vitae in all of our lower bearings which are lubricated by the water in the earlier years.

In 1967 when I worked here in the summer while in high school, I recall us installing a new set of bearing blocks whereas this unit ran 11 months out of the year, in 2004 we took the bearing blocks out to machine the corners down from the wear from the shaft, they are still in service as of today.

We have replaced (experimenting)  several of our lower bearings with a plastic type material which we have to replace ever other year depending on the run time, simply because we had trouble finding the wood until we contacted you.

In 2008 we purchased a new set of blocks from you and installed them in one of our units that runs the best part of the year, (Luray Hydro Station) the last inspection (last summer) shows no wear on the material and I predict that I will be gone from here before this bearing is ever replaced, “Lignum vitae” the greatest material known to man kind in my opinion.