OP
jabberwoki
Well-known member
Looks great.
The hills hoist in the background makes me home sick.
The hills hoist in the background makes me home sick.
The pictures don’t do it any justice it looks so much better I real life, it looks like I will be able to install a needle roller thrust race on the cone pulley on the gear end it will take all the force from turning and bronze shims on the chuck end to take up the slack, I can’t find any locally so will need to order from online and still need a motor would a modern 3hp be big enough, the modern motors don’t seem to have the same amount of torque the old school ones did Craig
There is a victor lawn mower somewhere around to make you want to come back to your roots, how long have you been awol
No problem Craig. I don't have a lot of flat belt experience so maybe you can get some other opinions. I've got a 2" belt on my drill press with no tensioner, and it will bog the motor down, but in a sudden jam, slip and the motor will keep running. So it's just right. I know the south bend guys can only do about 1/2 HP on their 1" belts. 1HP is capable of doing a decent amount of work, especially on something that runs as slow as that.
I'm glad to see you saving the old girl, not a lot of sliding gap beds around. Did you ever figure out what brand it is?
ORC , when you coming up north?
Thanks ORC, I have the cone drive assembly ready to attach to the lathe, once fitted the assembly pivots using the weight of the motor to give the belt its tension, I am aiming to get the final top speed of the chuck to 500rpm and then using the cone drive to slow it down when required, is this speed too fast for the bronze bearings, the headstock, I need to check the tolerance of these bearings even though they feel so smooth but I’m waiting for the thrust bearing and some shims to complete this, and today I’m removing the carriage as the feed engage “clutch” is sticking, she engages easy but when you dis engage the lever the clutch is sticking, just needs a cleaning I suspect, thanks everyone for reading my post and adding very much appreciated help Craig
ORC that Sidney is a beautiful lathe is it yours Craig
500 would definitely be on the high side for the the old Barnes with plain bearings. The lower speeds will probably be much more useful most of the time unless you're turning really small diameters. Very nice to have that gap bed capability and why slow speeds are so useful on that lathe.
Thanks Craig, I put up a few pics of my Sidney 17" heavy pattern lathe in post #9 in this thread. I restored Sid about 12 years ago.
The countershaft with driving cone pulley on Sid spins at 190 rpm as the spec sheet recommended and I've never wished it would go faster. I can get down under 10 rpm with that set up which I often do. Ed.
Different strokes for different folks. I never get much below 50. Even threading I prefer to do around 100+. 500 is probably pushing it but might be ok for limited use with consistent lubrication.
Yeah will do soon, I`ve got bait out on another machine just waiting for the seller to get hungry enough to take it.
By the way they aint my gov.
Definitely makes a difference what you mostly do on your lathe. I seldom thread on my Sidney except with a tap or die and like it slow for that. Threading jobs go to one of my smaller lathes, Hardinge or Hendey, with reversing lead screw and quick tool withdraw features which makes the job go much faster.
Mostly my Sidney gets stuck cleaning up the nasty castings and weldments, often with interrupted cuts like on the bottom of a vise. Sid has the swing for those jobs especially because of the factory risers it has. I just figured with the gap bed on Craig's Barnes kicking his swing up to 24" he may enjoy slower speeds. Maybe not.
Here is a pic of the speed chart that came with my Sidney. With double back gears the speeds range from 13 to 285 with an input of 190 rpm and from 16 to 360 if I were to boost the countershaft rpm to 240. At one time I considered mounting two different size shieves on the input shaft so I could have the full speed range available. Ed.


After lusting at many of the lathes in this thread I think I finally have one maybe worthy enough to post. This my 1947 American Pacemaker 16x54 now sitting in its spot in the machine bay.
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I did a little maths and using the cone pulley assembly that came with the lathe and a steeped pulley I have to install on the motor I will get 354rpm top speed on the small steeped motor pulley and down to 64rpm slowest speed without using the back gears and then I think the back gears reduce it another 7:1 so down to 9.7 rpm, if I use the next size of the steeped pulley on the motor It will double everything. I will order the thrust bearings for the headstock tomorrow Craig
Hi Duker that looks like a nice solid lathe is it for home use or production of sorts, and where are all the tools and **** you need to trip over to get access to your lathe, I must clean my shed tomorrow Craig
Nice Pacemaker Duker. Also a manageable size for such a serious and robust lathe. Ed.
That Barnes is looking good Craig. Sounds like you've got your drive sorted out. Ed.
D--I am green with envy.![]()
Here is a picture of my south bend with my walker turner drill press
thanks