Tips/Techniques Lana's garter belt

Tips/Techniques

wmetfab

Well-Known Member
Hello all,
Been kinda busy with woodwork projects so I havent posted Lana's love letters recently
In my blind lust, I dont know how, but a crucial detail slipped past me.
There was no drive belt!
IDK why or how the belt was missing off the shaft.
There was no evidence of rubber dust, belt shards, no nothing to indicate the belt had rubbed or otherwise worn off or broken
The only thing I can think of it was purposely cut off. Only one possible clue, there were some minor impact marks on the slotted nut that tighthens the main shaft.
I was left scratching my head, absolutely not relishing the thought of pulling the shaft and bearings apart to slip on a new B belt...there was a bit of a dark cloud above me.
After a couple days I searched around and saw a post for segmented belt on another machine forum.
I had known of them in the past but completely forgotten their existence.
I was skeptical at first and weighed the merits of an endless belt vs. segmented. Apparently, a segment belt does not transmit vibration same as an endless belt, it isolates the entireity from the few segments that contact the pulley. And mostly, I didnt have to perform major surgery on Lana... that thought was a major turn off :(
Lots of offshore offerings from the genie in the bottle but I didnt want to go there.
After a couple days searching the major power transmission manufacturers I decided on this accu-link belt from Megadyne corp.
Why? It was made in USA and could buy it in a 4 ft length, only had to waste 3 links.
Other offerings were sold in 6 ft+ lenghts but by far the lowest cost at only $8 per foot was from a company called Agri sales inc.
Total cost incl. shipping $42 USD
I have a freight warehouse in Wa. State only 7 mins from my place so that works out well for all my US freight. At the border, cbsa guy looked at the invoice and growled at me to get lost.. tax freee!... :)
Installation took minutes the hardest part was the belt was curved wrong way backwards, once i threaded it thru and got it to stay put re linking the 2 tabs was pretty easy with needle nose vise grips and needle nose pliers.
 

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wmetfab

Well-Known Member
Thanks Proulx,
I read about that, it was definitely one of my considerations, but I thought that for maybe the 5% of the time the machine would run reversed that it was a reasonable trade off
 

Susquatch

Ultra Member
Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
After a couple days searching the major power transmission manufacturers I decided on this accu-link belt from Megadyne corp.

I actually prefer link belts. They are not designed to run in reverse but they can in a pinch. You just have to accept some slippage. You can get them in many different designs than the ones shown in your photos. I prefer the low profile variety.
 

Garyt

Active Member
Thank you both :)
I have run a link belt on my table saw for years like how smooth it runs but it does not last for ever. Had a issue a year or so ago and needed to replace a few segments and found the original leftover segments were so different from the ones that had been on for 10+ years that I had to buy a whole new belt. But it is a link belt.
Gary
 

wmetfab

Well-Known Member
Thanks Gary :)
Im not a serious machinist like lots of the others here, im just a hack... lol
I got my lathe as a support for my other hobby of lapidary machine restortion. I think the belt will last as long as im still alive!.. lol
 

wmetfab

Well-Known Member
There were other belts I would have prefered to buy but some were only sold in 100 ft rolls with no distributors for smaller
Some others were sold in 6-8 ft lenghts, and more expensive, I didnt want to pay to waste material
There was a CDN distributor of the same belt but it was almost 2x the price canada post freight was stupid.
At the end of the day the clincher was that I thought the green color was really cool!... Lol..
 
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