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camelback drill press flat belt questions

metalmagpie

Titanium
Joined
May 22, 2006
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Seattle
Still working on a Canedy Otto camelback. I'm getting there. I am the first guy to fit an electric motor to this machine - it was previously run with flat belting from overhead shafts. The electric motor will have a little pulley V-belted to a big pulley on a jackshaft along with the 4-step drive flat belt pulley. Then there is a flat belt that goes up to an overhead 4-step drive pulley. By moving the belt you can thus get 4 speeds. With backgear engaged you get 4 more speeds.

The flat belt that came with the machine is old, fabric, frayed, and stretched, thus loose. The first thing I'm wondering is about adding a belt tensioning capability to the machine. Think of setting the jackshaft on a stool below, then fitting a drive belt. If the belt got loose you could saw a little bit off each leg of the stool, and the belt would get tight again. Hope that makes sense. I can think of a few ways to design such a belt adjustment, but I'm wondering if anyone else has done this. It's common on lathes to be able to tighten the belt.

The other thing I'm wondering is about joining the belt. I'm quite inexperienced working with leather, and skiving the ends is a bit more than I want to take on, especially because if I screw it up, I'd have to buy a new leather belt. I don't much like those clips either, don't like the clacking noise they make. I'm actually thinking about hand stitching the belt as is depicted in How To Run A Lathe. They mention "round gut" for lacing. Now, I used to play tennis a long time ago. My racket was strung with round gut. They obviously still make tennis rackets, and I'm willing to bet there exists manmade round gut for stringing them. I don't know if that would be flexible enough - anyone have any idea? Failing that, some kind of strong waxed cord would also work, only I don't know where to buy any of that either.

Ideas? Thoughts?

metalmagpie
 
Why can't you use clipper metal laces? Easy to shorten when it stretches and it WILL stretch. For flat belts here I just use rubber round baler belting. Almost free for the asking as when a 25' baler belt goes, there is usually still a lot of good material left. I just cut the width and length I need and so far have gotten good results with Alligator lacing.
 
Measure the belt length you want, go to belt supplier, have them make up belt and give you some glue, then take it home and glue and glue it together. That's what I did, not hard to do. I used a rubber based belt much thinner than the original that didn't flex much. Forget leather belts they are a waste of time.
Ben
 
The toughest cord Ive used for belt lacing was Stihl whipper snipper cord.....the stuff just doesnt wear.....fishing line knots ,tho ,or they will undo......Incidentally ,for flatbelt machines Ive used polygroove belt from cars ...some of the V6 GM motors of the 80s/90s had miles of belt. Simply cut ,lace with Stihl cord,and run with the groove side to the pulley ...works a treat ,and is free.
 
Why can't you use clipper metal laces? Easy to shorten when it stretches and it WILL stretch. For flat belts here I just use rubber round baler belting. Almost free for the asking as when a 25' baler belt goes, there is usually still a lot of good material left. I just cut the width and length I need and so far have gotten good results with Alligator lacing.

I bet that would be good stuff.

Magpie, I'm with dundee. Any belt you make is gonna stretch. The tensioner IMO isn't worth it. I almost don't hear my lacing at all, and it's not distracting in the least bit. The gear noise is much higher in basically every gear but maybe low direct drive. The key is getting the right sized lacing. A lot is way too thick. With my #2 clipper and 3/16" belt, the lacing is almost below the surface, so the clack is very minimal.

Here is a tensioner idea. I don't have a better photo.

camelback tensioner.jpg
 
Still working on a Canedy Otto camelback. I'm getting there. I am the first guy to fit an electric motor to this machine - it was previously run with flat belting from overhead shafts. The electric motor will have a little pulley V-belted to a big pulley on a jackshaft along with the 4-step drive flat belt pulley. Then there is a flat belt that goes up to an overhead 4-step drive pulley. By moving the belt you can thus get 4 speeds. With backgear engaged you get 4 more speeds.

The flat belt that came with the machine is old, fabric, frayed, and stretched, thus loose. The first thing I'm wondering is about adding a belt tensioning capability to the machine. Think of setting the jackshaft on a stool below, then fitting a drive belt. If the belt got loose you could saw a little bit off each leg of the stool, and the belt would get tight again. Hope that makes sense. I can think of a few ways to design such a belt adjustment, but I'm wondering if anyone else has done this. It's common on lathes to be able to tighten the belt.

The other thing I'm wondering is about joining the belt. I'm quite inexperienced working with leather, and skiving the ends is a bit more than I want to take on, especially because if I screw it up, I'd have to buy a new leather belt. I don't much like those clips either, don't like the clacking noise they make. I'm actually thinking about hand stitching the belt as is depicted in How To Run A Lathe. They mention "round gut" for lacing. Now, I used to play tennis a long time ago. My racket was strung with round gut. They obviously still make tennis rackets, and I'm willing to bet there exists manmade round gut for stringing them. I don't know if that would be flexible enough - anyone have any idea? Failing that, some kind of strong waxed cord would also work, only I don't know where to buy any of that either.

Ideas? Thoughts?

metalmagpie

You are doing the first-ever conversion? You have "license to be clever" so... there's is no compelling reason to have to have any splice at all.

By doing some "Engineering" you should be able to route the belt run such that pulling one shaft for-sure, two, maybe, allows a belt install/change.

OR.. unbolt an outboard-end pillow-block support.

Whatever it takes to make unspliced belt change possible.

And the problem no longer even exists.

Rig it so the length fits a standard "serpentine" AKA PolyVee or MicroVee the auto parts stores carry, and run it, as suggested, the slightly "squishy" ribs INWARD.
Those grip Old Skewl crowned flat belt pulleys really, really, well.

Decent tensioning, "built in" to yu new plan, it could be 20 years before you next need to pull a shaft or end support to replace the belt.

Or even longer? Doubt you will be drilling 3 shifts a day with this old warhorse.

No splice required. You are NOT limited by where the OEM belt was routed.

Make it better. If, for example, it straddled a casting and had to be spliced? Just route your new belting so it no longer has that problem.

The shafting will still go round and round. It is in the nature of such things.

:D
 
I do the leather belt.

Best to start with new leather - but this can be pricey. Old will work, however, and it is what they mostly used "in the day."

Determine your length of belt with a tape measure. Don't forget extra for overlap. You want a scarf about four inches long - and to stretch the belt about 2"

Clamp the belt onto the end of a board and mark out the 4 inches. The cut end of the belt should match the cut end of the board. Sand the scarf area using a belt sander beginning at the cut and working your way back to the 4" line by degrees. You will know when you've reached the proper "outboard" depth when you start to cut into the board. This will go pretty quickly as you're not removing much belt.

Do the belt other end similarly not forgetting the two scarfs have to come together as a match (I have sanded the WRONG side of the belt in my rush to completion, a mistake that is disappointing but not fatal - the joint can still be completed as I describe below.)

I use Weldwood Contact Cement to glue the scarf together. Use this like you would glue any wood pieces, painting on a layer of cement and letting it dry to "dry touch" on both the mating faces of the scarf. A second layer will help if the first layer tends to "soak in." You want it to look glossy - but be dry to the touch.

Then - put the pieces together. You get 1-1/2 chances to do this right so be sure of your alignment by lining the belt up along the edge of the bench. When the glue coated surfaces stick, they tend to STICK. There is a little easing of adjustment allowed - at first.

Formica would normally be put down with its contact cement by use of a "J-roller." You can do this if you wish as it gives a very good bond and pushes the "inequalities" of the glue covered surface together. But I don't own a J-roller so I use ordinary Jorgensen Wood Clamps. Blocks of wood and "C" clamps will work possibly even better since you don't have to futz with the jaw angularity.

Leave it overnight - should be ready to go the next day.

These are more or less the instructions given to me by Page Belting Co. of Concord, NH, an old-time provider of belting who are now out of business (unfortunately} The only difference he spoke of a low angle block plane to remove the belt material in preparing the scarf. I tried that but I like sanding with a belt sander better.

Page said to put the belt on "smooth side in" - but some here prefer the rough side. I usually do smooth.

I also use "Clipper" Belt lacing - have the machine to do it and have used it - but if I have a belt of frequent "close contact" such as at a lathe headstock, then I will glue up a scarf joint.

The belt WILL stretch if left tensioned between the pulleys. You want to take the belt OFF the pulleys when it is not being used.

If too tight, try putting Neat's Foot Oil onto the belt to soften and allow it to stretch a bit.

Joe in NH
 
Very heavy waxed cord can be found at your local shoe repair store. It's what I've used on my SB 10K underdrive lathe, where you have to cut the belt or pull the spindle.
 
Sorry, I should have mentioned that rubber baler belting has thick rubber on the inside with a tiny diamond pattern to grip the hay or straw. I simply sand down a little where the lacing goes so it is flush or slightly below the surface. No clicks from the lacing against the sheaves!
 
I am old enough to have 'come up' in shops using a combination of lineshafting and electric motor 'conversion' drives on flat belt driven machine tools. The slap of belting and the click of the lacing hooks is a natural sound, something that 'comes with the territory' of owning and using old flat belt driven machine tools. Personally, I like the sounds of flat belting slapping and lacing hooks clicking. But, that's my own preference. Old machine tools, by their very nature, are going to have a variety of sounds- open gearing on a 'camelback' drill, even with open gear lube on the teeth, will add its own sound. Throw in the back gears and get additional sounds, particularly when open spur gearing is run unloaded. There is often a little random additional sound from the gear lash when spur gearing is run unloaded.

I run belt lacing hooks on my flat belt driven machine tools. Easy enough to put in, and easy enough to 'take a piece out' if a belt stretches and 'takes a set', becoming too slack for transmitting much, if any, power. As a kid attending Brooklyn Technical HS in the 60's, we still had quite a bit of lineshaft driven machine tools. We were taught to care for flat belting, and one thing that was done was to 'take the belts down' over holidays and summers. The belting was 'run off the pulleys' using a stick or wrench handle, and when the lineshafting stopped spinning, the belts were hung on wire hooks to keep them off the oil shafting. In the old machine shops I worked in, we used to take the belts down over weekends and holidays, and in muggy summer weather, we often took belts down overnight. Leather belting will stretch from humidity in the air, and if left with tension on for any length of time, will 'take a set'. Every shop had a set of belt splicing tools- a Clipper belt lacer, and a Clipper belt cutter (a kind of guillotine hand shear you could carry around to where you needed to shorten a belt). Taking a piece out of a sloppy and stretched belt was a regular occurance.

I got my Cincinnati-Bickford camelback drill well over 25 years ago. It had a loose and sloppy 2" flat leather belt, old as the hills. I figured I'd take the slack out of that belt and cut about 2" out of it. Along the way, I've accumulated assorted lacing hooks, a Clipper belt lacing machine, and a belt cutting shear. I put a new set of hooks on the old flat belt after taking 2" out, and the belt was nice and tight again. I always take that belt down (i.e., run it off the pulleys) when the drill is not in use. I use my camelback drill on an irregular basis and it sits idle for weeks at a time in an unheated garage. In 25 years, that old flat belt has never given me any further problem, running and pulling the drill press nicely, even on heavy work. By contrast, the 1" flat belt for the power feeds is also as old as the main belt, but it was slack and sloppy ages before I got that drill press. Someone smeared thick black belt dressing onto that belt and the cone pulleys for the power quill feed. Sloppy as it is, that belt does the job with the added benefit of slipping if things get overloaded. Even with that slipping feed belt, I blew apart a 1 1/4" counterbore years ago, feeding into 5160 locomotive spring material to open a hole to final size.

Old flat belt driven machinery is what it is. A camelback drill has plain bearings, and lots of other oiling points. It has open gearing. I made up a pump oil can with an extended spout made from 1/4" diameter stainless steel tubing. I machined a nozzle and silbrazed it to the tip of this extended spout. This oil can lets me reach and get into the oiling points on my camelback drill a lot easier. I joke that to drill a hole with my camelback drill, I spend 5 minutes oiling it, a couple of minutes "putting up" the main belt, and another 5-10 minutes 'dogging' the work to the table. I keep a few 1 gallon olive oil tins by the camelback drill with assorted tee nuts, studs, slotted dogs (clamping links), flange-nuts, and some odds and ends of cutoff steel and hardwood. A camelback drill is not your little round column vee belt driven drill. It develops a lot more torque, and clamping work to the table or at least bolting a stop bar to the table is a 'must'. These drills also have a lot of 'stored energy' in their drivelines due to the inertia of the rotating parts. Even in an emergency, there is no stopping these drills instantly, they coast down. If you are hanging onto a job and the drill grabs, a camelback drill is going to wind the job, the vise it was in, and you along with it. Even if you can reach the switch to kill the motor, if you are wound up or pinned by the drill having grabbed the work, the coast-down of the drill will continue to wind or pin and crush whatever part of you it has hold of. An 'emergency stop' switch is not going to be too effective with this type of machine tool.

Sorry to have digressed, but I figure a word to the wise can't hurt. As I wrote, I came up in shops where flat belting was all over the place, and the sounds of belting and lineshafting are music to my ears, but that's just me. In a true lineshaft driven shop, there is a certain music when the lineshafting is in motion. The spokes of the larger pulleys fan the air with a soft whirr. Steel wire rings are often placed on the spans of lineshafting to keep the shafting clean of the grunge from airborne dirt (sawdust if in a woodworking mill, leather dust from the belting, or airborne grinding dust) mixed with oil that migrates out of the lineshaft 'hanger boxes'. As the shafting is transmitting power, it takes an additional deflection due to belt pull, and this combines with the static deflection due to the weight of the pulleys. This deflection causes the wire rings to dance up and back along the spans of shafting, adding a little clinking sound. The belting, particularly wide belts with long runs, tends to slap softly. Then, the clicking of the lacing hooks adds to the music. On belting made up with a belt lacing machine, the hooks are usually pressed into the leather belting so not too much of them is standing proud. The clicking is not a particularly loud sound, but then, I am hard of hearing after over 50 years around machinery and powerplants. When I was a little boy, my parents took me to a woodworking shop run by lineshafting. The owner of the shop was an Amish man, and he was a kindly man with a long white beard who showed me a Stuart model steam engine he'd built. It ran on compressed air alongside his desk, belted to the movement from a music box. He took me on a tour of his woodworking shop. The smell of the fresh cut pine and other woods coupled with the sounds of the lineshafting and belting and the kindly oldtimer (or so it seemed to me back then) with his white beard and Biblical quotes on his office wall all made a lasting impression on me. As little boy, I decided that heaven must be a place peopled with men like that Amish man, men in long white beards and overalls, and heaven had to have a lineshaft driven shop with the sounds of the flat belting and lineshafting. It's been over 60 years since that visit to that shop, and at odd moments, my vision of the hereafter has not changed a whole lot. As I said, to some of us, the sounds of flat belting working and the click of the lacing hooks is sheer music. To others, it is simply noise, but 'to each their own', and differences are what make our world what it is.
 
I have found that oddly, the best belt grip is with a polished pulley, and the smooth side of the belt, smoother the better. With a good belt kept treated with a softening agent, (belt not hard and slippery), it grips about like your very slightly damp hand grips a polished handrail, which is really well, a rip-the-skin-off grip.

The belts in lineshaft work were not made super tight, as far as I know, just tight enough and the belt sag tension took care of it.

OK, you do not want to hear the clip clicking. I have to say that I do not mind it a bit, and even like it. It's a kind of old-timey sound to me, but your mileage may vary.
 
To tighten the belt after is takes a set, wrap the pulleys with friction tape ( I know it sounds lame but that how it was done in the day I know, I ran one when I was 6 years old until I bought the shop from my dad 20 years later and got a newer drill)...Phil
 
OK, you do not want to hear the clip clicking. I have to say that I do not mind it a bit, and even like it. It's a kind of old-timey sound to me, but your mileage may vary.

I am with JST. The rhythmic clicking of the lacing is like music to me. When you don't hear it...something is wrong.
 
I fitted a v pulley to the top shaft of my 21" Buffalo and put a Dodge m37 transmission and three phase reversible motor on the bottom.... Used a B series belt.. Not original but no clicakaty clack and no slipping belt...Love it for drilling, reaming, tapping holes..Been that way for about 20 years now.....Cheers; Mike in Louisiana
 

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I fitted a v pulley to the top shaft of my 21" Buffalo and put a Dodge m37 transmission and three phase reversible motor on the bottom.... Used a B series belt.. Not original but no clicakaty clack and no slipping belt...Love it for drilling, reaming, tapping holes..Been that way for about 20 years now.....Cheers; Mike in Louisiana

And there yah have it. One of MANY ways to eliminate a problem rather than let it bug yah at all.
 
Im so economical that I dont even buy V belts.....I cut and join what I have with Stihl snipper cord........beats paying for new ones ,and also beats dismantling some old machines to fit a V belt.........lots of old stuff meant for flat belts doesnt adapt to endless belts at all.
 
I'm so economical that I dont even buy V belts.....I cut and join what I have with Stihl snipper cord........beats paying for new ones ,and also beats dismantling some old machines to fit a V belt.........lots of old stuff meant for flat belts doesnt adapt to endless belts at all.

I took your advice and laced it up according to the South Bend instructions. So far it works fine. I cut more than I could imagine out of the belt and now it's nice and tight. It was difficult to get onto the sheaves at first but now it's a little easier.

I got some Stihl trimmer cord but couldn't figure out how to knot it. I used waxed linen thread from the craft store.

metalmagpie

lacing.jpg
 








 
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