V-belt angles

Further to my previous post of some months ago, my on-going search for a "K" size belts has proved more difficult than I had imagined.

To recap, K-belts are common in the small drill presses which are ubiquitous in most tool stores. Not so the belt replacements. The crossection is 5/16" width and 1/4" (or 7/32") depth with the usual angle of 38 degrees.

The nearest I found is this belt by Gates:

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which, however, has an angle of 60 degrees.

The question then is: Is this belt likely to perform satisfactorily in a sheave designed for a 38 degree belt?

Reply to
Michael Koblic
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I am not much help. I could not find much on K belts except here.

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And the K belts there are polyribbed belts. However they also list Harvester belts which are a different angle from the usual Vee belts.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

Thanks. I had a look. Their pictures will not load here and I am not sure about the poly-belt widths. But I shall e-mail them. I also had a look here:

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Their M-section belts are the same dimension as my K-section. However, when I e-mailed them they said their belts are for "light duty only". I am waiting for clarification. Another promising solution may be Busy Bee: They show a limited selection of K-belts on their web site but when e-mailed they implied they might be able to get other lengths. Again, I am waiting for clarification

Reply to
Michael Koblic

The Durabelt link shows urethane belting Michael. Some urethane belt products are supplied on a spool/roll. In case you aren't familiar with this type of belting system, the material is supplied on rolls, and the user cuts it to length (undersize for proper tension) then "welds" the ends together.

I don't care for the stuff since it's so stretchy, but it has it's place in light duty applications. The urethane is harder than RTV silicone, but not quite as hard as hot glue sticks. The urethane does hold up fairly well, as far as wear goes, if the pulleys are smooth.

The welding is done by placing the ends in a fixture to align them, with a sort-of soldering iron-type heater between the ends. The tip on the iron is a thin flat plate. When the urethane is hot enough, the tip is slid out and the ends are pressed together. After trimming away any excess, the belt is ready for use.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

My guess is that the belt is used because of fairly small pulley diameters. You might try looking at the Harbor Freight web site and seeing if there is a drill press similar to yours there. Harbor Freight has on line user manuals with illustrated parts breakdown and they do sell replacement parts. If there are some likely suspects, I could see if the local store has that model and measure the belt.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

For those who are still remotely interested:

1) I e-mailed the Canadian Tire customer service as they sell one of the drill presses in question. I sent the product number and all. The response was a telephone number of "the manufacturer". I phoned today only to find that it belongs to Mastercraft (the name under which CT sell their tools). The woman there took down the product number and told me that "they have no information on this product at this time" (the drill press with that number is on their web site!). Somewhat stunned I got her to repeat and clarify, whereupon she got snotty and said that they "may have the information next week". 2) I found the manufacturer of one of the three drill presses' belts called "Mountainrope" - in China needless to say. A nice web site though, choice of Chinese and English. A nice map of their dealers around the world. There seems to be only one in the North America - somewhere like midwest. The reason I am not sure is that the English part did not work on the map: The city is marked by Chinese ideograms which I translate as "Beautiful country" Could it be Chicago? Anyway, I am waiting for the response to my e-mail.

This has become a bit of a sport...

Reply to
Michael Koblic

I checked the Harbor Freight web site. Their 5 speed inexpensive drillpress uses a K26 belt.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

What do you expect from the modern Canadian Tire Corp., they have diversified their product line to the point where they had to open a new subsidiary (Partsource) to actually sell auto parts. Now, if it's Financial services you are looking for! Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

Have you tried looking through Grizzly's drill presses?

They usually have decent manuals and parts. See:

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Not the cheapest source though...

Reply to
Leon Fisk

One of the problems with Harbor Freight and Grizzly is that they do not ship to Canada. OTOH what other use is a daughter in NY :-) ? I may have to reach into those sources as well.

Meanwhile I have e-mailed Black and Decker who do a similar drill press. This was not a simple effort either: To find the part number of the v-belt is simple enough, however, no details on the belt size etc. are available. To navigate the maze of customer support and actually send an e-mail to Black and Decker (and not DeWalt as happens if you follow the links) took a while.

I have also decided to irritate Canadian Tire and asked for the same information about one of their *other* drill presses, one "made by" Jobmate. And guess what, they sent me an identical e-mail to the first one with the identical phone number for Mastercraft! After resting in a darkened room I shall make the phone call - again.

BTW "Beautiful country" is apparently a Chinese name for America, not a city.

The things you learn...

Reply to
Michael Koblic

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