Motor is up and running!

Last night I installed my new motor. I was quite excited to get it up and running so I was going fast and made a few mistakes. First I forgot to run the wires through the acess holes of the motor and the switch so I had to disconnect everything and redo it. Then I wired it for clockwise rotation only to find out I needed counter clockwise. After about an hour I had it fired up and made some curlies fly! It has lots of torque so my dreams of turning side tables out of logs and large sculpture pieces should be a reality very soon. Below is a pic of the motor fresh out of the box on my bench.

New Motor, More Power!

The garage sale find $5, 1/4HP motor that I have been abusing on my lathe for the past few months has finally bit the dust....or smoked out to be honest. The timing of the motor stopping isn't that bad though. My family will be traveling back to KS this holiday weekend and a traveling through Lincoln, NE. The Burden Surplus Center is just off the highway and they have a great looking 3/4HP TECF 1750RPM motor for just under $120. My "made money" from the government's generous stimulus check will just about cover it. I hope my contribution to stimulating the economy will serve me well....more to follow once it's back in the shop and on the lathe. Below is a pic of it as well.

Lathe puts on a few pounds

The Heritage Maytag recently put on about 160lbs of weight. I added two 80lb. tubes of sand in the base of the lathe making it much less likely to walk around when I'm trying to rough out an unbalanced blank. I haven't put a large blank on it yet, but will do so very soon. Sorry, no photos (sand tubes are kinda boring) but with that task done my last project for the lathe is to rework the steady rest.

In its current state, the steady rest uses roll bearings that are old an don't work that great. I will be adding in-line skate wheels to make it work much better. I also will be making an entirely new steady rest to use with larger pieces. There will be photos of both projects once it is started.

Jack Shaft Redo FINISHED!

I buttoned up the new jack shaft setup for the lathe last night. It works better than ever...much harder to stall the turning and seems to have more power as well. Simple set up using plywood and some old door hinges. The pulleys line up perftectly and changing belts is very easy too. Below are some pics of the setup.

Lathe Overhaul Complete

My lathe was built by my grandfather, KP Bower, out of a Maytag clothing press and washing machine. I refurbished the lathe during the summer of 2007 and named it the "Heritage Maytag" Here are a few details. Lathe Overhaul , 1. Raising the lathe-finished , 2.Some new paint!, 3.More new paint 4. Painting done!! 5. Added a jack shaft