Hi All
I'm new here and haven't read everything but I thought I'd share a tip that I use for driving my old Southbend lathe.
I machine a lot of large diameter parts, well....if 5" dia can be considered large. Of course my 1" flat leather belt is long gone, replaced by a more modern synthetic laminated belt....strong like a bull....but slippery...ie not much grip. I struggled for a while....and not really wanting to go to vee-belts, or even taking my lathe apart....I decided to try to improve the grip (never mind that spray goo!!) My first attempt was to put "rescue tape" on all 6 pulleys.....worked like an absolute charm.....and the lathe got quiet!! Suddenly I could actually put the lathe to work....depth of cuts were much better. The rescue tape (sometimes called plumber's tape) is silicone and it would tear away under too much load.....but waaaay better than what I had so I just kept replacing the tape as/when required, every few weeks. Then I saw 3M electrical rubber tape in a big box hardware store (you can guess) and that was the ticket!! This stuff is for binding electrical connections, its about 3/4" wide and "self sticks" as you over-wrap it on itself. Its lasting me about 6 to 8 months, works very well. So try it out.....you can finally get your lathe to do real work on large diameters.
I hope this works for you....my contribution.
Wayne
I'm new here and haven't read everything but I thought I'd share a tip that I use for driving my old Southbend lathe.
I machine a lot of large diameter parts, well....if 5" dia can be considered large. Of course my 1" flat leather belt is long gone, replaced by a more modern synthetic laminated belt....strong like a bull....but slippery...ie not much grip. I struggled for a while....and not really wanting to go to vee-belts, or even taking my lathe apart....I decided to try to improve the grip (never mind that spray goo!!) My first attempt was to put "rescue tape" on all 6 pulleys.....worked like an absolute charm.....and the lathe got quiet!! Suddenly I could actually put the lathe to work....depth of cuts were much better. The rescue tape (sometimes called plumber's tape) is silicone and it would tear away under too much load.....but waaaay better than what I had so I just kept replacing the tape as/when required, every few weeks. Then I saw 3M electrical rubber tape in a big box hardware store (you can guess) and that was the ticket!! This stuff is for binding electrical connections, its about 3/4" wide and "self sticks" as you over-wrap it on itself. Its lasting me about 6 to 8 months, works very well. So try it out.....you can finally get your lathe to do real work on large diameters.
I hope this works for you....my contribution.
Wayne
