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glacially slow machine shop build

I'm about to buy lacing clips to shorten the belt for the lathe to reflect the height of the new motor mount. Belt is just under 3.5" so I can buy supplies for 7" baler belting and just use half.

Seems like people used hammers to install belt lacing for a century or so and then over the past 30yr or so using purpose built clamps/vises/jigs that let you precisely set the depth became standard. I can get a die/jig to do 4" belt for $60.

Can I get away with just using a hammer? Belt will only see 5hp to start (with eventual upgrade to 15hpr) but does have to do some pretty tight wraps around some 2" diameter idler pulleys
 
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If you don't go 200# gorilla on it, yeah, absolutely you can use a hammer.

No direct experience, but I wouldn't be making a jig to make a single belt. Use a vise and/or hammer to get it right.
 
Spent today working on the shelves. Got the sides done and got my welders up off the table. Still need to do the one on the back wall and get the totes of car parts off the table.

Now that it's above chest height the amperage adjustment lock on the stick welder is a million times more ergonomic to open and close. Got the sleeves and threaded rod in the mail for the lathe belt idlers. Still waiting on the idler pulleys themselves. Also got the tail lights and tachometer for the Hough

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Got the new instrument panel laid out for the loader but I can't do anything with it because I'm waiting on plasma tips in the mail. Yes that is the lid to an old server that I'll be using. :flipoff2:

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Here's what $100ish of idler pulleys, spacers and threaded rod looks like.

I've got like 1/16 of clearance between the belts. This gives me damn near a full wrap on both the lathe pulley and the transmission pulley.


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Built a new seat mount for the Hough today. Makes it much easier to get in and out of the machine. The old seat was a square frame that stuck out about an inch in front of the tabs where the seat frame bolts to the loader frame and left no room for your feet when getting in and out. I still need to mount the seat back but I need to do some pretty drastic modifications to the cowl before I can do that.

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A little more shop organization. Also not pictured is I finally put one of those big rubberized hooks in the wall right below it to coil up my welding cable on.

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Got the rough shape of the dash ready. It's installed backwards for this picture. Tach will be on the far left in the final assembly.

Gave up waiting for the plasma tips and just did the dash board on the Bridgeport with hole saws. Not pleased that I had to spend $30 on hole saws though. I tried using one of those adjustable two point hole cutters before I bought the hole saws and it was comically bad. After 10min of setup to ensure that both tips were the same distance from the center one of them fucked off into a spiral.

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Strapped some rims to the lathe as a jig to build a trailer axle.

Got it tacked in place, measured runout at four points along the circumference of the tube and the numbers are as follows (all measurements in thou and I zeroed the dial indicator at 12:00 each time I moved it down the tube)
pointleftmiddleright
12:00000
3:0059-13
6:0015-26-66
9:002-34-57

So this tells me that the spindles aren't centered but they're not in the same direction and are otherwise very close to parallel. I never checked the tube for straightness (but it was new when I got it) and never checked the wall thickness for uniformity so I'm happy with that. Time to burn it in and see what I get.

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I'll post spindle and hub pics later but lets see if anyone can guess the axle.
 
One end half way done. Not the best cap pass but I was fighting to do a wider pass than the rod wanted. I'll let it cool fully before grinding it smooth and filling in that last bit of undercut on the left side. I find it's less grinding work to do it that way. I'm not at all worried about the crater since it's well above the height of the tube and will get ground down.

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Here's the hub. Sure don't look modern.

Axle is countersunk for cone washers.

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SLOWPOKE693 said:
HO 72 hubs?
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Nope, came out of a Ford but you've got the year range kind of right. Hint: the bearings are made by the same people who made the axle.

Edit: Timken rear end out of a '53 F250
 
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Got the other side done. I was able to do a better job filling the V with a stringer so that saved me a pass and probably some grinding because it put the cover pass a little lower.

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Looked through some manuals and was able to find a spec for the max lateral run-out for steel rim on an 1995 Mercury villager and it's 0.030"

I think I'm gonna lay a fat bead of weld on the middle of the high part of the axle and see if I can't get this a little more in shape.

Edit: got a pringles lid sized area of tube glowing red with the carbon car, stuck a wet rag on it, came back when it was cool. Runout is now 0.065" :homer:

Edit 2: I wound up figuring out the heat bending thing and getting the runout mostly in control. Got it down to ~.040 but all on one side so I'll just stick the spring perches on it so that that side gets flattened out by the weight.
 
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Worked on the on-off switch for the lathe today. The pipe sticking out the front gets supported by a bracket. The pipe nipple is just my handle for now. I'll make something nicer later.

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The switch has this odd handle like it was made to attach to a coupler. I've never seen a switch like this before.

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The green pipe in the first pic used to be like 12ft long and go the whole length of the lathe so you could turn it on from anywhere. That wasn't gonna work for my application so I ditched the pipe except for just enough to reach the support bracket that the switch bolts to that supports the pipe.
I added the 3/4 pipe bung to the OD of the coupler. That wasn't there before. Pics of the lathe installed in the last guys place are earlier in the thread.
 
Finished the motor mount for the lathe Saturday. Motor is nowhere near aligned but it should tolerate it since it's a V-belt. If it doesn't then I'll fix it. Now I just need to cut and join the belt, install the carriage, fix the oiling system, install the electrical.

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Your gonna want to get that v belt way straighter. As soon as you put some hp into the cut they are gonna get tossed off. Nothing worse than a spindle stopping mid cut, thats a guarantee tool breaker.
 
Yeah, that vbelt at best would be worn out super fast, then be thrown off during load.
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
Yeah, that vbelt at best would be worn out super fast, then be thrown off during load.
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Agreed, best case is you keep it super light load and you burn through the belts stupid fast. otherwise it will throw the belts if you load it up.

On my ute I had about 5mm of misalignment on the power steering pump, but still parallel, and it wore out a belt in about 6 months. But what was more annoying was having to retention it every couple of weeks. I fixed it now :rolleyes:
 
arse_sidewards said:
Here's what $100ish of idler pulleys, spacers and threaded rod looks like.
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wtf dude just ask in GCC and someone'll send you a flat rate box full of those
there's always a pile of them sitting around at every shop that does timing belts
 
[486 said:
;n289451]

wtf dude just ask in GCC and someone'll send you a flat rate box full of those
there's always a pile of them sitting around at every shop that does timing belts
Click to expand...

I thought about grabbing some at the junkyard but since I have three cars that use these and the belts usually outlast the idlers I figured it would be wise to have new ones on the lathe so I can grab them if I need them. :laughing:
 
Fixed the lathe motor alignment with shims. No pics because I'm waiting on belts. The ones that were on there before were borderline too tight and they are way too tight now.
 
Started working on the Hough again. Built and painted a seat mount.

Built a dashboard then decided to go a different direction and build a different one.

My friend used his CNC wood router to cut O-ring grooves in the carb to governor adapter. No reason to be fucking around with gaskets for an intake manifold with a simple circular bore.

Nothing I have spins fast enough for that and I don't have small enough milling bits and the lathe isn't running yet so he got the job.

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