Flexable Drive Shaft

[hemmjo]

My shop is small. Not much room for lots of different machines.
My lathe is the most useful.
I tend to make attachments for it when I can.

I have an old Black and Decker belt sander that was my dads.
It is designed to put an electric drill into for a power source.
But then it slides around on the bench or goes too fast and heats parts too much.
Mounting it on the lathe gives a solid mount. speed control, quick and easy switch
from tool post to disk sander.

A flexible shaft drives the sander and avoids the necessity
of making a precession mount to line up the centers

I made a flex shaft using a piece of broken pressure washer hose.

An adapter for each end that is a snug press fit into the braided steel reinforced
hose worked well. There is not much torque involved

The adapters are the same on each end, except the sander end has set screws.
No sizes are provided as everyone's situation will be different. By trial and error, 0.020" press fit
is adequate for my situation. Notice the small section on the end of the adapter
to aid in getting it started straight



The ends were pressed in while holding the hose TIGHTLY in my collet chuck.



Use the set screws to attach to the sander. Then hold the other end in the chuck



The set up is quick and easy, when necessary



Yes I know grit is not good for machine tools. Details on that solution later. Along with attaching the sander to the cross slide.
Lathe Belt Sander Attachment

[DIYer]

Thanks hemmjo! We've added your Flexible Driveshaft to our Lathe Accessories category,
as well as to your builder page: hemmjo's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Flexible Driveshaft by hemmjo

tags: lathe, sander, driveshaft