Thread: HELP!!!!!! with pulleys.

Thanks for the info Paul, very informative, after getting the beast fired up today the flat belt caused far too much vibration.

I'll try glueing the belt together and if that doesnt work then i'll see about one of those belts you mentioned.

The head stock box also needs to be stiffen alot more and theres a few other tweaks I'm thinking of doing to dampen the vibration if the different belt doesnt work.

I've also attached a short clip of the lathe in action.

Ross.

Folks, have a question for anyone who cares to put their thoughts forward.

At the moment the jack shaft and motor are fixed to boards hinged to the headstock body. The problem is this is causing far to much vibration making the lathe unusable.

I was wondering what your thoughts would be on fixing the motor and jackshaft then using tensioners on both belts.

Looking forward to your ideas,

Ross.

Big update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After my last post I got a PM from asking if I'd like him to come over and see if the problems could be worked out.

He came over last Sunday and positioned the jackshaft and motor in different positions and with some temporary bracing a great improvement was achieved.

left after explaining where to put the bracing and i've spent the week pulling everything apart and glueing and screwing it all back together.

I've routed a piece of "T" channel into the bottom part of the tailstock bed and with a bolt and nut the bed can be moved then locked in place.

Over the next few weeks it will all be filled and sanded then have a coat of paint and it'll be finished.

I put a piece of timber in the lathe yesterday morning that was off centre and while the head stock stayed as solid as a rock the tail stock bed whipped itself into a frenzy so with more 25mm thick ply applied at either end to brace it and more bracing under the torsion box the whole thing is rock solid and most importantly, usable.

A big thankyou to and those of you who gave advice and to Jim who put me onto the lathe in the first place.

I now have a lathe that will turn just over 1200mm long and bowls just on 500mm in diameter

Thanks for looking,

Ross.

Is much better. Looking good.

Gday Folks,

Thought I'd post some updates on the lathe.

The sliding bed sat on a built up platform but I found there was a certain amount of play in that set up so that's been changed to two 150kg rated full extension draw slides and is now so solid the whole lathe rocks when I grab the tail stock and try to move it side to side. Blocks of ply were added on both sides of the slide and the main body to attach the drawer slides. Picture one, two and three of this update shows this improvement.

The jack shaft assembly has also been modified. The original set up, while a great improvement, was let down by the hinges that eventually had too much play in them and allowed/created further vibration. I found some very heavy duty hinges from a gate assembly from my old ute tray back, welded a cross bar between them and botled the jack shaft to the hinges, solid as a rock now. Picture 4 shows that.

Also installed a handwheel and a perspex and ply guard to cover the head stock, got sick of being sprayed by grease from bearings.

Now, I do have a question. I started a thread a couple of days about camlocks thinking that may be the way to lock the sliding bed in place. While the links Fred posted were great I realise now that a simpler way could be better. I have been using a G clamp on the blocks either side of the drawer slides until now but am looking for something more permenant.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Ross.

Hello,

Am very interested in your wooden pulleys.

In my web searches I have seen 3 ways of making them.

1. On a lathe

2. Using a table saw

3. Using a router

As I am making a lathe option 1 is not viable. Or rather it will be a genuine "bootstrap" operation with the first job of the new lathe being to make some more pulleys for itself.

How did you make your pulleys, is there a 4th method ?

Bill

Hi Bill,

I turned them on another lathe