How to make you PM30MV real easy to crank up the headstock

[Harley80915]

Cranking the stock aluminum wheel to raise the headstock is a bit harder when your older like me. So I bought a chromed 10" cast iron wheel with crank handle from Ebay for about $75 and modified to fit my machine, and now it is easy to crank the head up. I drilled the hub wheel hole to correct size and milled off the back side of the hub to the same depth as original wheel hub. I used a 3mm? keyway broach cutter from Amazon, cut the keyway and it fit perfectly. Right now, the vernier marking collar removed from the back side of original wheel won't fit on the bigger wheel. Later, I will turn down the
back side of wheel on the lathe so the vernier marking collar will fit on the larger wheel. But if you are using a DRO, then you probably don't need it anyway.

 

[wrmiller]

Well done. Shortly after buying my Charter Oak 9x40 I replaced all the aluminum wheels with big cast iron ones. They do make a difference.