Drive belt for vintage lathe

[Philip Davies]

Hope you can make this out, it’s very dark even with ordinary lighting.

The lathe is a Drummond 3&1/2” round bed lathe, acquired reasonably cheaply and I just want to check how it runs, without machining anything, before going further with accessories.

The belt is made up of strips of inner tube, 4 layers, glued with impact adhesive and then trimmed. The first, inside layer is one piece, the others are staggered. At present, the drive is from a Tormek sharpening machine, which runs nice and slowly, although probably without enough torque to cut anything.

In the top left you can see a bracket for a line shaft.

[olderdan]

HI Philip, round bed Drummond's are a nice old lathe. regards drive belts I have been using a poly V belt reversed with the flat side to the pulleys on my old South Bend for twenty years or so with no problems. They run very smoothly and grip well and come in all sizes (mine is 25mm wide) and they are quite cheap. Hope that helps.

[Philip Davies]

Thanks for the tip! You may be able to advise me, since the half nuts do not seem to engage with the lead screw. (I assume that the automatic feed is engaged with half nuts, but do not know) A likely cause is a jolt when it was taken here and there before it came to me. This does not matter much, though, considering I shall not be using it for screw cutting. Glad to know that some on HMT have had some experience with this type of lathe.

[olderdan]

HI Philip, round bed Drummond's do not have half nuts as the lead screw is permanently engaged with the saddle, feed is done with the hand wheel at tail stock end. There is a simple dog clutch to engage the gear train if fitted just under the headstock pulley.
If this is stuck it may be rust or just gummed up, It is worth stripping and cleaning any old machine before use.
Lathes & co have a lot of info on it just search round bed drummond and it will come up.