Jim Wilkins wrote:
On Jul 3, 8:56 pm, "Michael Koblic" wrote:
Jim Wilkins wrote:
...

I am not sure I understand. How is the 4L belt dimension relevant to
the Taig? Are you saying I should change the whole drive train to
4L? Isn't it a bit big for the machine?

--
Michael Koblic

Why would you want to change the rest of the transmission to the Taig
style? An oversized motor and belts will cost you a little extra
electricity but you can easily make them slip to not overstress the
lathe.

1/2" pulleys and 3/4/5L vee belts are the only drive components
readily available from hardware stores on weekends, at least around
here. And they work well with small electric and gas motors. If you
build drives from surplus rather than carefully engineering them, it's
very helpful to have very few variations of shaft size and belt type,
so you can recycle the growing collection of spares when you move on
to air compressors and bandsaws.

Ah. I see the problem. We are talking at cross-purposes. The original
question I posed was about how critical the grooves were on the pulleys for
the *3M* belt (on the Taig). At that point Don N. and I were discussing how
to reduce the speed of the Taig. I quoted the wooden pulley as an example of
my next-to-nothing experience with making pulleys and wondering how
difficult it would be to make a custom pulley for the Taig.

The RedNeck lathe is a separate issue (coming along nicely, just got its own
stand and I have just semi-designed a toolpost for it).

BTW the belting on the RedNeck is part 4L (link belt - my best friend!) and
the part K-profile purely because those were the pulleys on the original
drill press. Given the choice they would all be 4L.

--
Michael Koblic
Campbell River, BC