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BuiltWithNOF
Headstock

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.

The original headstock

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.

Nut on the end of the spindle

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.

Removing the brass ring from around the steel shaft

With the nut and the spacer ring removed the spindle was easily knocked out with a mallet.

Knocking out the spindle

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.

New pulley on left and old on right

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.

New pulley fitted

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.
 

All text and images Copyright © 2000-2008 Roland Givan, unless otherwise stated. All Rights Reserved. Game artwork copyright their respective publishers.

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