In article
,
Jim Wilkins wrote:

On Dec 31, 5:49*pm, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
...
There is a good chance that the shaft is ordinary mild steel, as Delta
was making these by the million for small dollars. *If mild steel, a
leaded steel (like 12L14) would work dandy. *

Touch the old shaft to a grinder and look at the sparks. *This will tell
you if the shaft is alloy steel.

Joe Gwinn

The original shaft from my 10" Delta files and sparks like mild steel,
and the pulley setscrew dug deeply into it. The end shows that it was
cut to length with a bandsaw.

Bingo. I suspected as much. It's cheaper for Delta to make this part
big enough that ordinary steel is good enough, so that's what they did.


You could make it from solid drill rod the size of the bearings and
sleeve the pulley bore on the large end. I found out the hard way that
drill rod needs annealing after a TIG weld.

There are lots of alloys used to make drill rod, and some are air
hardening.

I would just make the new axle from 12L14 (which is a bit stronger than
ordinary mild steel like 1018), and put the money and effort into good
bearings and accurate fitting to the shaft, so no repeat drama.


Joe Gwinn