Champion post drill?

Got another oldie. This one is a Champion No. 97 post drill. It looks a lot like the red one on this page:

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has a longer driveshaft with two flat belt pulleys on it. The table was broken in half back where it bolts onto the support, but today Ernie did a fantastic TIG weld on it using nickel rod, ran a tap through to chase out the rust, and the original threads still work. An amazing weld. What an artist.

Anyway, there are a couple of things about this drill press (which is in pieces) I don't understand. I don't get the bit about the 2 flat belt pulleys. Here's a pic of a similar machine with one flat belt pulley, and you can see the length on the driveshaft where another one goes.

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Also, the machine is missing the thrust bearing entirely, and it doesn't look like the same setup as a No. 90, shown on this page:
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Here's a tantalizing fragment:
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It mentions no. 97s and one says it has a tight and a loose pulley and something about 250 rpm. Hoo boy this has my curiosity going bigtime! It says the tool weighs 175 pounds which seems about right - lot of cast iron in this pup.

Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks,

Grant Erwin Kirkland, Washington

Reply to
Grant Erwin
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Reply to
Don Young

So let me get this straight. The line shaft is running, the drill spindle is turning, you throw the feed into neutral, and then what? put a hook on the belt and just hork it over? I believe you, but I can't imagine how you'd actually shift a flat belt while it's running. I have a flat belt running my lathe and it's pretty tight, and if I monkey around with it much it will catch something and throw it.

Grant

D> The two pulleys are likely for a tight and loose pulley system where the

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Flat belts from a line shaft aren't supposed to be run tight - A loose belt wraps around more of the pulleys providing more driving force/friction, it also means that if your lathe jams, the belt will slip instead of buggering up your lathe. - It's also supposed to cause less stress and wear on the bearings and shafts, but I doubt this will be significant in a hobby shop, as opposed to a 24hr-a-day production shop

Any number of pre WWII diy/home workshop books (perhaps only UK ones) go into great about driving hobby shops from lineshafts, usually powered by old lawn mower/motorbike engines.

I can scan/OCR some pages if anyone is interested. - They are out of copyright.

-- BigEgg

Reply to
bigegg

It seems odd that a lineshaft drill would run constantly if the quill needs to be raised by a handwheel, then the pawl reset to power feed when the next hole position is ready to drill. Sure, we use the common modern drill presses without needing to stop them because we can just release the quill feed pinion handle.

I have one of the old post drills, but it doesn't have any pulleys for lineshaft drive. There is a flywheel pulley with a rough cast V belt groove in it. Mine is a 2 speed model (manufacturer unknown), and the operator moves the handle from one side to the other to change speeds.

If you haven't drilled steel with a post drill before, you'll be surprised how well the power feed works to make holes quickly. It operates somewhat like the Cole drill, except the post drills aren't as rigid, in that the table column isn't an integral part of the upper frame (the post drill column is more for just positioning the table).

WB ............

was

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Reply to
Wild Bill

One of my neighbours has a workshop behind the house, both built around 1900. It's still powered by the original Crossley 6hp gas engine, six foot flywheel and all. Couple of big lathes and a drill in there, all running off flat belt lineshafts.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

No hook, you use a belt shifter (basically a round piece of wood) and slide the belt over to the other pulley. VERY common in line shaft drives. Some equipment even came with a "belt shifter" on it, in those cases it looks more like a belt guide mounted on a pivot with the belt running between the top posts of the guide. When you wanted to stop the tool you threw the belt to the loose pulley. Want to start it up again, you grabbed the shifter and knocked the belt over to the tight pulley. Doesn't take much to shift the belt as long as you have a good belt that has a tight laced seam.

Reply to
Steve W.

Ah, I'm getting it. The correct term is "fast and loose pulleys" -- a term reminiscent of some women I've known .. other people mention "loose and tight pulleys", same difference. If anyone's curious, see the page

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GWE

Reply to
Grant Erwin

Here in the US, Popular Mechanics magazine once ran an article about a more modern lineshaft system: a freestanding bench with homeshop machines down each side of it, with one motor under the table and a lineshaft down the middle of the table's surface. The drive was V-belts instead of flat belts, with idler wheels on levers to clutch each machine into action. The idea, of course, was to save on expensive motors, in a day when machines didn't automatically sell with an integral motor, and when 1/2 horsepower motors weren't so readily available in old appliances.

A number of my colleagues in rural southern Oregon and northern California are either off the grid entirely, or have shop buildings with very limited electrical capacity. So I've seen a number of power hammers run by gas engines, often the old one-cylinder farm engines from the 1920's. (One of them is so loud you actually cannot hear whether the power hammer is in use or not--IMHO he should build a muffler for it!)

Conrad Hodson

Reply to
Conrad Hodson

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