Posted by David Sherman on Monday, September 26, 2005 at 3:49PM :
In Reply to: Belt Pulley Stuff! posted by Dave Maher on Sunday, September 25, 2005 at 9:25PM :
Old belt-driven shop equipment is always worth looking at. While it doesn't have the convenient features of modern stuff, what it does have lots of heavy cast iron, which means it runs smooth and steady, and simple mechanisms that rarely break and are easy to work on. The machines were made to run all day every day for decades, so long as they're kept oiled, and will easily outlast any modern home shop tools. They all have poured babbit bearings. If the bearings are worn out, it's not very hard to pour new ones. There's some skill to it, but the speeds are slow compared to automotive engine bearings, and they're very forgiving of rough pours. I have an old P.B.Yates 4-sided planer/moulder that I have yet to set up and use, but the guy I bought it from made all the flooring and siding for his house on it. Its 4 cutter heads and feed rollers all run off flat belts. The thing weighs about 6000 lbs so I'm sure it'll be rock-steady when it's running. The previous owner re-poured the tricky bearings for the main cutter head, which are about 10" long, but I should probably pour new bearings for the jack-shaft that powers all the various drive belts. Another option, depending on the configuration of the machine, is to find modern pillow blocks that fit the shaft and can be bolted onto the frame somehow.
It's not hard to convert these old machines to electric power either. The easiest way is to turn a small well-crowned flat pulley that will fit a suitable electric motor. You can even turn such a pulley on a wood lathe, using hard wood such as a maple burl. The pulley will need to be small because the line shafting in old factories turned quite a bit slower than a common 4-pole electric motor. The slightly harder method is to mount a large v-belt pulley on the machine in place of the flat pulley, and run it via 4-belts from an electric motor.