The Lathe - Part Deux

I know you've been waiting with bated breath for any news of the ongoing saga that is my little float making lathe. I was busy yesterday (monday) mostly about where I'm going, where I should be going and groceries. Because, you know, you need groceries. This noon, after bringing in some wood and cleaning up about the place, I decided to spend the afternoon working on the plastic lathe.

I got the headstock and the hand crank done. I had a beat up dremel handpiece with (on top of it) seized up bearings so I recuperated the shaft and found some flanged bearings of the right size in one of my parts boxes so that is what I used.

I did splurge for an O-ring though because I can't find the box where all my o-rings are. At 1.18$ though I'm not going to cry. The same o-ring will act as the drive belt once I get the motor mounted. That way going from motor driven to hand cranking is just a matter of flipping the o-ring from one pulley to the other.

About the pulleys. Since all my machine tools are still in storage at my parents place I had to devise a way to turn pulleys out of plastic sheet. Here's my solution. A cutter ground on the tip of a worn out file (they do wear out you know) clamped in a vise. The vise itseft is held to the table with only one clamp (this is important). The pulley blank goes in the drill press spindle. The C clamp acts as a pivot point so I can feed the cutter into the blank by tapping the vise with a small hammer at the appropriate point. Simple, no?

Only two sub assemblies are left. The tailstock and the motor mount but that will be for next time.