Sunday, October 26, 2008

Driving the Lathe

I've been asked how I drive this lathe, since it's made to be line-shaft driven. The answer is in the image below:
I added a cantilevered track for a motor to slide on. I can slide the motor back and forth to make the belt drive sheave line up with the different diameter pulleys on the lathe headstock. The track runs the full length of the lathe because the headstock on this lathe can travel. Really. I can slide the headstock down to the tailstock end to do off-board turning. It's an interesting way to do things. The weight of the motor takes care of the tensioning on the drive. It works surprisingly well. The steel was all surplus, as was the wiring and the motor, so the whole thing was thrown together in a couple of hours for little to no money. It's ugly, but it works. I'll spiffy it up a bit.

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