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Vintage Delta 46-700 Repair

Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
290
Likes
199
Location
Quad Cities, IL
I bought this lathe probably 25 years ago and likely haven’t used it 5 hours. Now that my turning interest has been rekindled I’ve likely put 20 hour on it. During this time it kept getting more noisy with lots of vibration. It would only get up to half the speed nit should.

As most of you know the Reeves drive was a weakbush design on these lathes. I found the motor pulley worn out with the sliding half of the pulley flopping around. These parts are long discontinued.

My new Jet 1640 is on backorder for a couple more weeks and I’d already gifted the Delta to my son after the Jet arrives. So I had to fix it!

The center of the outer pulley was badly wallowed out and the bushing it rides on bad too. I machined the bushing back to round. Then I bored the id of the pulley it about 0.150o” oversized. Next I turned a steel insert 0.002” oversized for an interference fit in the pulley. Heating the pulley to approx 250 degrees allowed me to press the bushing into the pulley. Once cooled I bored the id to fit the bushing with just enough clearance to slide.

All back together now and running well. Wish I’d thought to take pictures.
 

john lucas

AAW Forum Expert
Joined
Apr 26, 2004
Messages
8,321
Likes
3,576
Location
Cookeville, TN
cool. I got rid of my boat anchor about 25 years ago. They had to back order the pulley parts. that was the second time I had to replace the pulleys in 2 years and I did not turn a lot in those days. Frustrated I ordered a Nova Comet, the first real mini lathe of that erra other than Bonnie Kleins. It ran so smooth my turning improved over night. I sold the Delta as soon as I got it repaired.
 

Tom Gall

TOTW Team
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Messages
956
Likes
1,761
Location
Hillsborough, NJ
cool. I got rid of my boat anchor about 25 years ago. They had to back order the pulley parts. that was the second time I had to replace the pulleys in 2 years and I did not turn a lot in those days. Frustrated I ordered a Nova Comet, the first real mini lathe of that erra other than Bonnie Kleins. It ran so smooth my turning improved over night. I sold the Delta as soon as I got it repaired.
I could be wrong, John .... but I received my Vicmarc VL-100 in March 1996. I believe it was the first mini lathe with a 1"x8 tpi spindle and MT2 on both headstock and tailstock. Only downside was it didn't include a motor. But that turned out to be an upside because I added a DC motor with variable speed control.
 
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