The Worrall Geared Head was one of the premiere pan and tilt tools around the world for decades due to its silent, smooth, and accurate operation, and its ability to support extremely heavy cameras like the Mitchell BNC. When this unit arrived, it had a hitch in the tilt axis and a very large bump in the pan axis. The problem with the pan axis was just dried grease. Once that was cleaned, the pan axis ran smoothly. The tilt axis, however, had some nasty gouges and dents in the upper and lower tilt rails.
While operational, you could feel the lumps and bumps in the tilt axis. In the included pictures, you can see examples of a few of the damaged areas before they were reconditioned. The process was straightforward: Both upper and lower tilt rails were removed. All the damage was marked, and a long laborious attack with very fine finishing files, emery cloth, machine scraping tools, and Scotch Brite pads was mounted. Once the high spots were removed, the tilt axis was reassembled and, while operating tilt, fine adjustments were made to the rails until as many of the rough spots were removed as possible. The tilt axis now runs acceptably smooth from one end to the other. More to come next week.
