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Leather or Rubber

Menessis

Aluminum
Joined
Feb 23, 2011
Location
Ontario Canada
Its time to start thinking about belts.

Pros and Cons:

Stitch or glue? Leather slips if I make a mistake where as the rubber...not so much! If I have to remove the head stock for any reason I can reuse the leather belt. Any thing else to consider?

Where do I get these from?

Thanks
Menessis
 
The guy I bought my lathe from had installed a 5-rib serpentine belt... He didn't cut it, so the spindle had to be removed to do it. I like it. Adjusted the belt once, and haven't touched it since.
 
I used some rubber belting from Rural King, seems to be for round balers. I cut it lengthwise in half, skived the ends, so the clips were pretty well flush. It runs very quietly and has a lot of grip.
 
Since I Don't know if the leather belt is the proper size does anyone know what the proper size is? I can measure the length but what about the width?

Thanks
Menessis
 
Back in the 70's I bought a belt for my 10K that was slit from conveyor belting and fastened with Clipper lacing. About 4 years ago the lacing ripped out of the belting. Couldn't find anyone local to install new Clipper lacing so I bought a synthetic belt on line.
Conclusions:
1. The conveyor belting did a great job for many years and never needed belt dressing.
2. The synthetic belt I bought on line would not transmit enough torque to be useful. I sprayed the inside of the belt with spray adhesive (I could not find a source for belt dressing). I need to reapply the adhesive every few month to keep it working right.
 
After working with South Bend lathes and their flat belt systems for ..... oh my.....65 years now I have to say that the best belt seems to be the automotive serpentine belt, run with the grooves toward the pulleys. These belts grip very well without heavy tension and if overloaded, they will slip and prevent you from tearing something up. In the case where you have a bench model lathe you can use an endless belt if you can find one the right length and if you don't mind removing the spindle and the countershaft to install the belt. In the case of the under mount drives, you have to splice the belt because you can't get it on any other way.

I tried all the magic glue potions for skived and glued joints but ended up concluding that the best splice is the laced splice using the pattern found in How to Run a Lathe and using punched, not drilled, holes in the belt. My last laced splice using monofilament line is now approaching 10 years of service and no sign of trouble.
 








 
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