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The headstock is very simple but I was never very impressed with the 3 step cone pulley. From the minute I set eyes on it - it looked wonky and unfortunately the lathe did vibrate annoyingly when running.
I managed to remove the chuck and backplate quite easily but the spindle wouldn’t push through from the front. It was clear I had to remove the back nut and the brass spacing ring between the nut and the rear bearing.
Not being able to get the nut to unscrew I resorted to clamping both the end nut and the spacing ring with an adjustable spanners/wrenches and hacksawing the spindle through with an HSS blade.
With the nut and the spacer ring removed the spindle was easily knocked out with a mallet.
I happened to have a couple of nice aluminium single pulleys with a central hole very close in size (about .5mm) to the original pulley. Fortunately the original pulley didn’t fit tightly but instead relied on a sleeve insert which I reused.
I also had a to cut down an M5 machine screw to turn into a set screw for the new pulley.
After a little adjustment of the set screw and the addition of a hose clip or two the new pulley worked fairly well. Its a bit limited with only 1 speed so I’ll probably build a counter shaft at some point although for the moment 1 speed in the 500-1000 RPM range will probably do.
The new pulley however did show up just how much of the vibration problem was down the the V belt and I will replace this belt as a matter of urgency.
Final job will be to make an end nut (5/8” BSW) for the spindle and refit the spacing ring - once I’ve shortened it suitably.
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