Help obtaining a pulley

[Whitley]

While reassembling my lathe after modification and overhaul, I manage to break the belt pulley (that's brittle aluminium for you). Does anyone know where I can get a replacement on from? I can find plenty of suppliers for pulley for the motor end, but not one with, for want of a better expression, a big hole.

 

[Russell]

Which brand of lathe is it. Unfortunately they all have different spindle diameters I have ordered these in the past for customers and Draper usually carry stock for their lathes so if you measure the spindle size and the width of the key way I shall check for you.

 

[colin macdiarmid]

try this company they maybe able to help
http://www.powertoolspares.com/parts1.p ... earch.y=10

 

[Whitley]

Which brand of lathe is it. Unfortunately they all have different spindle diameters I have ordered these in the past for customers and Draper usually carry stock for their lathes so if you measure the spindle size and the width of the key way I shall check for you.

Thanks for the reply Russell, the main problem is I don't know the brand of lathe. Let me explain. It is a vintage lathe, built, and I mean built, sometime during, or shortly after the First World War. I have spend the past two years trying to find clues as to who made it. All I can tell you is that as the headstock spindle has a whitworth thread, it is almost certainly British.

I suspect the pulley that I broke wasn't original equipment as it didn't fit to the end of the shaft, which is why I broke it (that and I hit it too hard . I suspect the original was probably steel or even cast and was changed when a 'new' motor was fitted (long before I bought the lathe).
The shaft is very slightly tapered, has no key way, and is held in place by a grub screw. 25mm-26mm over a length of 55mm. The pulley has two drives, although I would prefer the replacement to have three if possible, so when I change speeds the belt stays in alignment instead of being slightly off centre.

PS. I forgot to mention, the overall diameter is 57mm

 

[CHJ]

Whitley, have a look amongst spares for other equipments to see if you can locate suitable pulley diameters, Pillar Drills, Bandsaws etc. boring out the middle to suit your shaft or sleeving it to fit is not a major cost or time problem.

Making one from scratch would not be cheap, even for a hobby turner to do. A piece of mild steel bar 2 1/2" dia 3" long would set you back about £6.25 aluminium about £9.40 and up to about £10 carriage if not passing supplier.

Machining could be 1-2 days dependant on lathe capability and available tooling in the average home shop, cutting deep vee grooves is time consuming on most small lathes.

 

[Whitley]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions, I did think about asking a friend (blacksmith/engineer) to turn me a bespoke one, but after some head scratching, I though why not try to repair the pulley? I used chemical metal (plastic padding type stuff) to bond the broken bit to the pulley, and built up a sort of buttress on the outside. Then I replaced the pulley back onto the lathe (it is a 2 groove pulley) and turned the excess chemical metal off. I haven't tried turning any wood yet, as the lathe is still under restoration/modification, but I have run the lathe empty on both grooves at all three speeds with no adverse affects.
I will still get a replacement pulley, but it is not so despite now.

 

[dickm]

Before getting someone to turn out a special pulley for you, it might be worth measuring the exact taper, and then consulting one of the engineering reference books to see if it happens to be a recognised standard. (Even on a lathe that old, it's possible that a standard part was used) If you can identify the taper, then a good bearing/power-transmission supplier might be able to track down an appropriate pulley for you. BeeLine in Milton Keynes used to be very helpful on things like this, and presumably there are others like them.
Another possible is a wanted ad on the homeworkshop website. It's used by some <very> helpful engineering people who seem to come up with answers to the most obscure questions.