Hi All, A friend of mine has a small lathe which has flat-belt pulleys, but no belt. Is this stuff available anywhere? If not, is there any option other than replacing the pulleys with V-belt pattern? Thanks for any suggestions, Richard
Richard Tony at lathes.co.uk used to advertise flat belting and the tools to join it, I believe he would hire the tool out. Worth checking out his website to see if he still does it. Martin
Is that the technical term for those long lapped joints (skive) ? I have a flat belt issue looming as well, and it has to be made in place. Are these hot presses small items you can use for insitu bonding ?
Not to argue against skived or clipped joints, but I recently butted and harness stitched up a belt. See the instructions in the South Bend "How to run a Lathe", if you have it. If not, I could probably describe it. I used to make the leather sheathes for my knives, back in my knifemaking days, so harness stitch is not a big deal for me, definitely easier than a skive joint. YMMV
I've just found 5-1/2 foot of 4.8mm diameter leather belting. Seems in reasonable nick considering the age it must be - suspect it might be ex-sewing machine. Anyone in need?
Yes, Skiving is the term for the long lapped joints. The belts supplied these days are often a "grass" green, about an 1" wide, but this can vary to suit requirements.
It's common that these belts need to be fixed round the mandrel etc without taking the machine apart.
What you do is measure round the top and bottom pulleys to get an overall length, this measurement is given to the belt company, who skive the ends so that when jointed, the belt is to your size.
The hot press is a hand held device that runs off 240 volts mains. All it does is speed up the gluing process. Cures the glue in minutes, so production can get back on track. Yes, it is used with the belt insitu.
You can just glue the ends of the belt together with the supplied adhesive, clamp it up square and tight, and leave for 24 hours to cure.
Thanks, thats good news. In this case the short belt enters and exits via different holes in the headstock casting - no amount of taking apart will avoid the need to make the belt in situ - so I am very pleased to hear the tool can be offered up to the lathe, though I am not sure I understand how the joint is made and stays flexible. It must be a rubber adhesive I suppose.
No Adrian, thats just what I am trying to avoid. The previous owner said he had tried that and it was not a good idea on small diameter pulleys (this one is about 4" and only about a foot away from the motor). It was noisy and didn't give smooth drive. Thats why this skived belt joint attracted my attention. Thanks to this excellent thread the mystery now appears solved (and it seems I have been saved the cost of renting the hot press too).
Now I am looking forward to doing a little skiving !
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