Just curious but did You use a model 310 Sheldon? I hear that it was a production laminate trimmer, but the 7310 (the one I have) replaced It in the retail market. The 310 being much better, but I use that bolt on the 7310 to mount It to My slide, and the 310 has the clamp mount design. Besides that I saw one one site where It said those were discontinued. Not sure If It's true just saw It on a site carrying It, so that may mean the site discontinued carrying, and not that they actually halted production.
I was right in the middle of turning shafts, started picking up some chatter, thought the bit was getting dull, so went a bought some more of them, and still the same thing, even with My usual speed settings that usually work great. after playing with the feed and spindle rates I couldn't find a sweet spot, so I started thinking the new bits may not be as sharp, as they were a different brand then I normally get, and didn't feel as sharp. I knew My bearings were on the way out, but It had been still working fine. That was yesterday, then today I get up slap a shaft between centers and run a pass off. It turned out smooth as usual, ran a couple more light passes, and started picking up more. I thought maybe that was due to the shaft getting smaller and pushing off more. Well at the end of one pass I heard noise that sounded like someone dropping a piece of rebar on the concrete, then It went away for a inch and came back right at the end of the pass. I turned the router off, spun the bit by hand and it was rough sounding. I then tore It apart & the armature had a nice hit in It, but It didn't seem to be the problem, and the bearings didn't seem to have enough play for It to hit the sides, It turned out to be the front bearing that was bad, so I put it back together, and I guess after cooling the bearings got a little smoother feeling, and they didn't seem to have any major slop, so I did something stupid just to see If the router was causing the chatter I was getting, and I ran a pass with It cooled down, again smooth cut until It got to the big end of the shaft then picked some up, ran another pass and it picked It up in about 3 places in the shaft, so seems like what's happening is the when the bearings heat up It gets worse. They have to be shot out, just surprising what little slop they have. If that front one didn't grind when It gets hot, It may have been hard to tell.
Anyway I think Dave mentioned they have a rubber housing for the bearings, and indeed Mine had a rubber housing for the back bearing, I didn't pull the front one though, as I had already realized it was the bad one.
I may try putting new bearings in It and using for something else, but I need to get a new one for tapering right now.
The Porter Cable router is so noisy I cannot stand to be in the same room with it for very long. Also the Kress setup is real nice too, if you want to upgrade and save a penny or two.
