26-02-2014, 09:57 PM
Hi,
Only half an hour on the lathe this afternoon before rain stopped play and I put the car away.
I decided to make a start on the bed planning to get it ready for its new paint then I could paint all the big items at one go to save a lot of time. The belt idler pulley is buried in the end of the bed at the head-stock end and as this looked rough it needed to come out. It appeared to be locked into place with a single machine screw through the bed casting as seen in the picture?
Fortunately I have plenty of experience in stripping machines and although I slackened this screw right off I didn't start pounding on the end of the pulley shaft in the way a novice would most likely do; I poked around a bit and sure enough found another machine screw which I loosened and a bit more poking around revealed a third machine screw which again was loosened. Now it was an easy job to punch the end of the shaft using a hammer and aluminium drift; the shaft was punched out far enough for me to grip and pull it free by hand causing no damage.
This sort of job is what usually catches a novice out; remove the obvious machine screw and have at the shaft end with hammer and drift and when it doesn't move as expected hit it even harder resulting in either a distorted shaft end or a fractured casting; the two extra screws were found to be in a pair of collars. Pulling the shaft out by hand the collars and pulley dropped safely onto the bench. I started to clean these items then down came the rain so I knocked off for the day but I plan to do more work on the bed tomorrow. I would bet this idler pulley hasn't been touched since the lathe was first put together in the factory but at least it was still spinning freely on its phosphor bronze plain bearings.
I'm now in for some very dirty work and a lot of de-greasing but it's going to be fun.
Kind regards, Col.
Only half an hour on the lathe this afternoon before rain stopped play and I put the car away.
I decided to make a start on the bed planning to get it ready for its new paint then I could paint all the big items at one go to save a lot of time. The belt idler pulley is buried in the end of the bed at the head-stock end and as this looked rough it needed to come out. It appeared to be locked into place with a single machine screw through the bed casting as seen in the picture?
Fortunately I have plenty of experience in stripping machines and although I slackened this screw right off I didn't start pounding on the end of the pulley shaft in the way a novice would most likely do; I poked around a bit and sure enough found another machine screw which I loosened and a bit more poking around revealed a third machine screw which again was loosened. Now it was an easy job to punch the end of the shaft using a hammer and aluminium drift; the shaft was punched out far enough for me to grip and pull it free by hand causing no damage.
This sort of job is what usually catches a novice out; remove the obvious machine screw and have at the shaft end with hammer and drift and when it doesn't move as expected hit it even harder resulting in either a distorted shaft end or a fractured casting; the two extra screws were found to be in a pair of collars. Pulling the shaft out by hand the collars and pulley dropped safely onto the bench. I started to clean these items then down came the rain so I knocked off for the day but I plan to do more work on the bed tomorrow. I would bet this idler pulley hasn't been touched since the lathe was first put together in the factory but at least it was still spinning freely on its phosphor bronze plain bearings.
I'm now in for some very dirty work and a lot of de-greasing but it's going to be fun.
Kind regards, Col.
Happiness is a wreck of a cabinet to restore.
