Thread: Adapting pulleys

I've done similar when fitting pulley clusters to my lathe by making copper bushes. (Copper, 'cos it's what I had available and I'm not tooled up to work with harder metals. ) It has lasted over some 5 years of use and abuse...

However, in my case the cluster was mounted with grub screws; I doubt this'd work with keyed pulleys.

Thanks Skew, in my case I the spindle diameter is about 10 mm and the diameter of the pulley bore is around 17 mm, how do I "layer" the copper up so that it makes up all that space?

To make your pulleys work with your motor you really need to turn down a bush to take the pulley then drill the bush to 10mm for the motor shaft.
What you could do is to approach a Forum metal man and see if someone can help you. Its a rather simple turning job. Surely some one could help you out.
What do you use the strained tomatoes for?(sorry for being nosey)

Hi Rod,

My mother likes to make her own tomato sauce but the manual machine is slow work. I imagine that the bush would still have to be secured with grub screws, I didn't want to invest too much time in this project with bushes because there's every chance that the pulley will spin too fast and render the machine ineffective and possibly dangerous. Video of what I'm trying to do Papa's tomato sauce machine - YouTube

The bush needs to be one piece and pretty much an interference fit in the pulley; I turned mine from a small block on my wood lathe. (Hence the choice of copper.)

After turning, I fitted it everything together on the drive shaft and carefully marked the ends of the bush/pulley so I could re-align them again after disassembly. Then tightened the grub screws - being a cluster, there were several - so that they scored their positions on the bush, pulled everything apart and drilled out the holes for the grubs screws with a bit slightly larger than the OD of the grub screw thread.

Reassemble, preferably with slightly longer grub screws - this is where the alignment marks come in really handy - and Bob's yer uncle!

I guess I could've drilled ID holes in the bush, fitted it to the cluster and then run the appropriate tap thru the pulley/bush so the thread ran all the way thru, but in the past I've had problems with that. (Mainly if the bush moves slightly in the pulley when fitting the assembly to the shaft, misaligning the threads. A metal worker I ain't. )

Thanks Skew for the explanation, I had forgot that you can buy blocks of copper, the only copper around my place is in the form of 1/2 and 3/4 inch pipe. Great that you can use the wood lathe to make your bushings, and interesting that they would hold up over time.

As for having a local switch. I have one from Timbecon on my bandsaw. They call it a safety switch, and it's just a box with a paddle switch on it, and a lead with a plug, and a short lead with a socket on it. Most places would sell something similar for router tables I suspect

Originally Posted by petersemple

As for having a local switch. I have one from Timbecon on my bandsaw. They call it a safety switch, and it's just a box with a paddle switch on it, and a lead with a plug, and a short lead with a socket on it. Most places would sell something similar for router tables I suspect

Thanks Peter, I know the types of switches you mean but haven't seen them around much. I was hoping to be able to use an ordinary light switch as that's what I have lying around.

Light switch could be done, but it would be more complex than just plugging it all together. You would need to know how to safely wire it up. The switch that I replaced on my bandsaw was a standard single light switch.

If you are looking to power up a hand tool, take a lesson from my grandfather. He decided to 'help' my grandmother by making her a power cake mixer, before such things were available. So he connected an electric motor he 'acquired' from somewhere to her hand mixer, hooked it up to power and proceeded to coat the ceiling, 4 walls and the floor with her supply of Christmas pudding mix. After my grandmother cleaned up the mess, my grandfather was 'excused' from assisting any more with food preparation.

I should add that he was a very experienced industrial confectioner & built several houses using power tools that he designed and built himself. But just not hand tools.

So, if you proceed with this project, work out your speed reduction until the RPM is no greater than you can crank the separator by hand. Or look forward to a long day cleaning the kitchen floor, walls and ceiling.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Originally Posted by bsrlee

If you are looking to power up a hand tool, take a lesson from my grandfather. He decided to 'help' my grandmother by making her a power cake mixer, before such things were available. So he connected an electric motor he 'acquired' from somewhere to her hand mixer, hooked it up to power and proceeded to coat the ceiling, 4 walls and the floor with her supply of Christmas pudding mix. After my grandmother cleaned up the mess, my grandfather was 'excused' from assisting any more with food preparation.

I should add that he was a very experienced industrial confectioner & built several houses using power tools that he designed and built himself. But just not hand tools.

So, if you proceed with this project, work out your speed reduction until the RPM is no greater than you can crank the separator by hand. Or look forward to a long day cleaning the kitchen floor, walls and ceiling.

Don't say you weren't warned.

All connected up but the machine spins a trifle fast, I've used the biggest pulley I have, to slow it down any more means I'll have to make one out of wood. I reckon it's spinning about 240 rpm at the moment.

Originally Posted by petersemple

Light switch could be done, but it would be more complex than just plugging it all together. You would need to know how to safely wire it up. The switch that I replaced on my bandsaw was a standard single light switch.

Peter, my light switch has 3 holes in it to receive wires but no information on what goes where. Anyone have any further information on how to wire this up to the motor?

Originally Posted by Tiger

All connected up but the machine spins a trifle fast, I've used the biggest pulley I have, to slow it down any more means I'll have to make one out of wood. I reckon it's spinning about 240 rpm at the moment.

How fast would you like it to spin? Ya got an appropriate shaft and some trunnions lying around in that box of pulleys?

Probably not, but it's worth asking. 'Cos by adding a lay shaft and a second belt, you should be able to drop the rpm down to anywhere between 24-120rpm with ease. Depending on pulley selection, of course.

Nah don't have any other shafts etc would have to make them. After testing the motor out again I think that it's probably ok speedwise. It's only a 1/8th HP motor, once actual tomatoes are run through the machine it will probably slow down a little more.

The motor has some exposed wiring and I will make a box to cover everything, the sticking point is the switch which will make everything a lot safer but I'm still not sure how to do this. I searched the forum here and what I'm after shouldn't be difficult, this post by Cliff is what I'm trying to do https://www.woodworkforums.com/f13/buffing-wheel-37708/