Originally Posted by
Mikegenwood
You don't need to remove the horizontal top shaft to replace the belt. You can cut and splice the belt once it's around the shaft. It's easy. See pic. Works great. Furthermore the T&S is an awesome machine and replacing the 50 year old plastic gears is easy and so worth it to get another 50 years out of the machine. There are many youtube videos on the subject
I second that and am thinking I might try out your method as well as document in a video and post on Youtube if I can.
What's wrong with spending another $100-$200 to get a great machine that will have gears that will last at least another 25 years I'm guessing? If they lasted 50 years, then the rebuild should last that long with the plastic parts.
Also, once I get more confident machining metal on my mini-lathe, I've set a goal to make some of these plastic parts in metal. At least brass. Seems if the parts are re-machined in metal to specification, then the machines might last as long as the antique designs. I have seen one or two machinists offer to machine some parts on the Facebook groups. I'll come back and post once I find them as I don't quite have the time now to search for.
Thanks for sharing the belt design. Did you do the pinning and then slip around the bottom gear once all pinned together?
I'm also wondering what kind of adhesive might help out as well... something like the 3M Scotch-Weld PR series (note the different numbers have different set time and other properties) used very carefully. That stuff is so impressive on tires used alone, including side walls of tires like the YT channel sixtyfiveford demonstrated, I'm wondering how will perform without the pins.