The Home Machinist!

The way the tensioner on this style of lathe works it has a broad tolerance for what constitutes a decent fit. Really, the only place that the 787 was too tight was the lowest of the three high speeds which is 720 rpm. Once it was moved into the middle and top speeds it was long enough. It was just ...

Yes, the Z-787 is a metric belt. Interestingly, the 3Lxxx designation as used in the manual is Imperial. A 3L320 is 32”. So far, I think the problem was just that the undersized belt was the culprit. Having to stay around the house this week, off to Motion Industries next week for new bearings.

Just went through this debate myself. The first choice was a nice ball bearing chuck of a recognized manufacturer. After looking at “the bay” for a while at used chucks, the price of a new South Bend chuck and mandrel looked more appealing. It’s not the South Bend of old but they were new parts with...

Harold, another option might be to have the lifting cable made up by a sailboat rigging shop. You have several in the Seattle area. They can swage any number of terminal fittings onto the straight end of wire rope. That would create an attachment that is compact with high strength. The fitting is te...

Yes, I refer to the manual frequently. The belts that came with the lathe seem to both be original equipment. They’re both Asian in origin. The dates of manufacture are consistent with the date of the lathe’s manufacture. The shorter belt is for the low speed range. It’s not marked with its size tha...

Bill, I noticed that with the replacement. It came from NAPA and has a slightly different cross section than the original belts but it still fits the grooves adequately. When I was a puppy I worked in industrial and oilfield supply and got a good education on belts through Gates. They covered cross ...

I have some Channel Lock brand that are pretty decent except for the problem with very small snap rings as Whateg0 described. Beware of the stamped ones that don't have interchangeable pins. I had one of those of adequate size snap when I was installing an AR-15 barrel snap ring. It hit the end of t...

On the voltage test at 560 rpm, the highest of the low speeds, the voltage dipped from 123 to 117 momentarily. When I went to change belts I realized I had forgotten that I had a new belt. The original high speed belt that came with the lathe was so tight that no tensioner was needed and in fact I f...

I'll swap the breaker with another in the shop. They're all less than 2 years old and this is the first one that has ever tripped. Two have never even had a load on them. Easy enough to TRY to measure the voltage during startup but when it trips the lathe hardly moves. It's almost instantaneous. I'l...

Maybe I've over-thought this. This is the last paragraph I typed but I moved it to the top. Could the motor's start capacitor be getting weak? It's 10 years old. I only have a volt meter; no way to measure peak startup power consumption. This is the second lathe with which I've had this problem. In ...

Mr. Ron, that seems to be one of the great things about lathes from ships. Most were not used heavily.

Just a little Grizzly G9972Z, 11"x26". The cabinet base is made from 1.75" thick engineered beam ripped down to 3.5" wide and it has 8 levelers to keep things solid. The floor was not leveled well in that corner. I leveled the base before adding the cabinet carcass and marked the locations of the co...