Flat Belt Lacing Woe...

Thanks everyone for all your input.
I wound up whipping up a quick jig to align and set the lacing buckles in the belt.
Flat Belt 1.jpg
Heres the jig, belt and the "Alligator brand" lacing buckles. as you can see its very simple. The kerf in the middle was cut on a chop saw after the battens were screwed to the base. The "anvil" is a piece of nominal 1"X ⅛" steel flat stock and the "tool" is a piece of 1" square tubing.
Flat Belt 2.jpg
The Alligator buckle pinned together with a decapitated 6 penny brad.
Flat Belt 3.jpg
The buckle is held in the center by the brad which extends into the kerf on both ends.
Flat belt 4.jpg
The belt is pushed into the the buckle from both directions and clamped in place. The tool is place on top of the buckle and under the ram of an Arbor Press.
Flat Belt 5.jpg
Presto! the buckle is set and perfectly square to the ends of the belt.
At this point, my cellphone died and I couldn't record the subsequent steps:
Peen the buckle to flush it to the belt.
Grind the edges of the buckle shy of the edge of the belt, finish with wire wheel.
Flat Belt 6.jpg
A quick recharge of the cell, for a snap of the belt mounted on the lathe.

A couple of notes:
I also used the jig on the chop saw, to square the end of the belt and cut it to length.
Running the lathe revealed no "clack clack" sound? I attributed this to grinding the edges of the buckle shy of the belt. It seems, the typical sound must be caused by the edge of the buckel hitting the edge of the next step of pulley, not by the flat of the buckle hitting the face of the pulley?

Flat Belt 1.jpg Flat Belt 2.jpg Flat Belt 3.jpg Flat belt 4.jpg Flat Belt 5.jpg Flat Belt 6.jpg
 
Or, you could just do this. Front and back photos. This is the belt I use on my 9" and 10K.

Thats how i do mine, it has worked well for me but I've only used it on a small bench lathe. I use a waxed twine that goes in a sowing awel (humm spelling?)

It always seems a bit strange using a drill on leather.

:)

Stuart
 
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