Thread: drill press pulley problem?

Originally Posted by jhovel

One thing worth trying might be to isolate each potential imbalance: take the motor pulley right off and run the motor in its own. If no vibration, reinstall pulley but not belt. If still no vibration, install belt to only centre pulley (and hold it tight manually). ...
Joe

WARNING: Do not hold tight with fingers or hand near moving belts or pulleys. Unsafe. I have herd of too many people who can no longer count ten full fingers.

Good warning Handyjack! Belts and V-pulleys are very unforgiving.
Do be careful, Matt.

I actually didn't mean "hanging on to it with your hand", rather for example "use a shifter to lever the arm under the intermediate pully to hold the belt tight by hand on the other end of the shifter".
'manually' as opposed to 'using clamps' or other mechanical devices.
The advantage of holding and therefore feeling the tension has the advantage of providing you with direct information about virbrations and their source, by varying the force used.

I will try hard to be more specific and descriptive in future - so as not to lead anyone towards avoidable accidents.

Matt: please keep us informed about your findings and solutions as you go. THis sort of issue is very educational to many of us interested in older machinery.

Cheers,
Joe

hi guys,
back from a week away and heading back into the shed tomorrow to try out all of the above fixes... hopefully a week to leave the inox to work is what it will need to get that idler floating again!
I'll try to keep the fingers and pulleys separate as well....
cheers
matt

VICTORY!
a bit of tapping, swearing and a week of inox soaking finally released the idler,
scubbed it lubed and replaced... smoothed the DP noise out in a big way. leveled the belts,motor pulley was out in a big way...
however....
still got minor vibration, will replace the belts but have a feeling its coming from the motor, I can see definite chuck wobble as well....hmmm
just started a few experiments with a dynamic stabiliser - a length of springy material, I used ali bar and a weight moved along it to cancel out the vibration..looks promising..
results to follow....
cheers
Matt