I was looking out for a decent new MT2 live centre at Harrogate, there wasn't much about. Chesters had two qualities, the better one looked quite good but I was discouraged from giving them my money by the surly staff response to my enquiries. I came away instead with a job lot of three used ones from a well known dealer, he went through all his pile & we agreed most weren't up to much but these three looked good except that they needed regrinding. I was going to take two but he ended up offering me the three for a fiver each. Anyway, today I set about regrinding the points. I've got the benefit of a proper T&C grinder, but the same could be done on any grinder with some sort of XY table. I set one up in the universal head at the right angle and hoped they would rotate with the friction from the grinding wheel. Unfortunately this only worked with a heavy feed, ok for a roughing pass but no good for finishing. After a bit of contemplation I glued up a bit of 4mm O-ring cord into a belt of about 400mm length. Then found that one of my cordless drills has a bit of a notch on the keyless chuck which is just deep enough to act as a sort of pulley to keep the O-ring belt in position, provided it's kept somewhere near into line. It wouldn't be much of a job to turn up a crude pulley if the chuck wasn't so considerately designed. Then looping the belt over the nose of the live centre, and holding the cordless drill in such a position that the chuck 'pulley' kept the belt pressed against the static body of the centre, I was able to spin the centre point at a suitable sort of speed. I then had just enough hands to hold the cordless drill while pulling the trigger and work the table feeds on the grinder, job done in 5 minutes after the preparatory work. Yes the belt does have a few notches ground in in where it slipped off as my concentration wandered from one part of the excercise to another, but it is still intact after regrinding all three. I didn't have any spare hands to take a picture, though!
Of course, if doing the job regularly a proper fixture would be worth making, but for a once-in-a-blue-moon job like this it would be a waste of time.
Tim