Older Leblond Model 21

Deerslayer said:

Oil cups are long gone and someone has lost the manual lol.
I have been putting iso oil in every hole I can find in this lathe, some are just bolts but they got oiled to lol.

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I think the manual is on archive.org , when i got my baby 13 inch leblond I did a lot of searching for manuals for them.

Stuart

I could only find the dual drive manual their, i'm sure they had more , hummm (i just had a look)

I found this one, close but not quite , http://www.lostcreekmachine.com/PDF/runningaregal.pdf

Deerslayer said:

Ok I am having trouble under standing the deep reduction on this machine. I have it temporaried to spin a little and deep reduction causes either the leather belt or the motor belt to spin.
What I think is to engage deep reduction you disengage knob in plate behind chuck, then throw cam lever in rear? I can rotate it by hand but it turns really hard.
Also any one know what the great big lever on the front does? Best I can tell it moves something back and forth on the cam for deep reduction but I don't see any real purpose.

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I've got an old Leblond--not as old as yours, though. Mine's a 1924 15" Heavy Duty:



I can't say for sure, but the lever on mine that's just above the chuck and to the left is the clutch. It lets you stop the spindle with the motor running. You have to remember these machines were running off lineshaft, so operator needed the ability to stop spindle without shutting everyone else down, too.

My top spindle speed is 350rpm, so don't need so many horses. . . . Very likely you've got plain bearings like mine does. They aren't designed to run high rpm like more modern machines. I think mine's running on 2hp. . . . It might be 3hp, but it's no bigger than that for sure. I think 10hp would be overkill. Of course you're swinging a larger diameter, so would want to take that into account.

Jim

Deerslayer said:

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what's inside the step pulley that needs lube? I did as he said and found plug used a little mineral spirits and followed up with iso, haven't used back gear lately so I can't say better or worse? One thing I did have to do is cut a piece of pvc and make a spacer to hold back gear cam lever over a little in the back, if it rotates to far it touches the gears just slightly and makes a lot of noise not to mention gears tearing up!

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I went back and looked again at some of your photos. It appears that you have the typical setup for back gears. There are two gear guards on top of the headstock.. The smaller one on the left will cover the small spindle gear. This one is permanently (at least unless you pull the spindle) attached to the step pulley. The larger one on the right covers the large spindle gear (AKA bull gear). The bull gear is I presume keyed to the spindle, so that it and the spindle always run at the same speed. I can't find it in any of your photos but I presume that there is a pin that slides through the right side of the bull gear and into a hole in the right end of the spindle pulley.

With the pin connecting the bull gear to the pulley (and the back gears disengages from the two spindle gears), the bull gear is driven by the pulley and it and the spindle and the pulley all run at the same RPM. When you pull the pin out of the hole in the pulley (it should not come completely out of the bull gear unless something is amiss), the motor can still turn the pulley but the spindle should not turn. The pulley will have bushings on it's ID that must be kept oiled. With the direct drive pin pulled out, you engage the back gears. The pulley continues to turn at the same speeds as originally but the spindle will turn much slower. So in back gear, the pulley is turning typically 6 times faster than the spindle. And that is why you must oil the pulley. If you don't, you will quite quickly wear out the pulley bushings.