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 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. I may try the original pulley again sometime - although I have figured out a sensible countershaft arrangement to work with this single pulley.

Final job is to make a new  end nut (5/8” BSW). In the end I used a piece of plastic (nylon). Once the lathe is sorted out - I’d like to redo this with a nice bit of brass.

Initially I used my Wizard lathe to bore it out so I could tap it 5/8” BSW. However I didn’t get the thread straight enough - so I rebored it further to a clearance fit.

The front was turned down to match an aluminium ring that was already just about the right size and the back turned down and slit to take a hose clip.

In the picture below I’m turning down the rim of the aluminium ring so only the central part makes contact with the back of the bearing.

A little superglue holds the ring and plastic together

The final result. A quick test shows the whole assembly hangs together fine.

This should have been the end of this page - but careful checking shows the front of the spindle catches very slightly on the split bearing. This will definitely cause vibration - so I’m going to insert a precise brass ring between the two which hopefully will make it run just that little bit smoother.

All text and images Copyright © 2000-2010 Roland Givan, unless otherwise stated. All Rights Reserved. Game artwork copyright their respective publishers.

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