George wrote:
Still waiting and drooling until March for mine, but the complaints about
motor shafts keep gnawing on me. I notice from the manual that the cam
tensioner is nearest the motor, while the most-used pulleys - for me anyway,
are at the other end.

I have never tried taking the pulleys off the spindle but it looks possible.

However, I have never found the slowest belt settings to be much use. My
feeling is that the last two pulleys on the motor shaft are way too
small and they do not create enough 'bite' to be able to drive the belt
without slipping. This is especially so on large unroughed pieces of
work that you need to be able to drive slowly and be able to cope with
the percussive effect of roughing down, which of course is just where
one would use those belt positions.

It has always been my contention that this, coupled with the leverage
problem you have already identified, is part of the problem of the
snapping drive shafts. If the belt slips, as it tends to do on those
last two positions, the temptation is to apply more tension on the cam,
which of course puts more stress on the motor spindle.

If you were relying on being able to use those belt settings for your
turning, I think I would seek further advise before buying this lathe.
Personally I have never found it a problem and have always been able to
use a faster belt setting and slow down with the DC motor. But most of
my work is small. Overall I am very happy with this lathe, but if you
plan on doing a lot of turnings at the limit of its capacity, you may
want to think again. Thats probably true for any lathe.


--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toolrest/