I have a belting question.
Currently I am using a ? rubber? belt on my lathe. It broke at the joint within minutes of starting to use it.
I have tried to rejoin it with super glue and also heating it with a razor knife and direct flame and touching it together. Nothing works! With super glue I may as well use water! Not much better when using heat.
Any comments will be more than welcomed.
Bob
The belt I use is reddish orange.

Bob.I use the reddish orange lathe belts that I purchased from Merritts.I've never had a problem with them.I heat the ends on a hot razor blade,push the ends together with a bit of pressure so the melted area will expand out pass the perimeter of the belt about 3/32" and let it cool.I then trim off the excess and install the belt.Never had a problem.I will tell you that the first time I did this I didn't press hard enough to allow some excess to ooze out and it didn't hold.The second time I did it I let the ends melt a bit more and pressed harder and that seemed to do the trick.I hope this is of some help to you.
Respectfully,Bob Fullerton

...I too used to fuss w/the fused orange belting until I went to a outlet that sold complete 'O' rings made for hydraulic applications and have never looked back...of course, that means that one has to disassemble the headstock but that's not a bad idea every few years anyway in order to clean and repack the bearings...works for me...

Robert:
I did try to fuse the belting again yesterday and it only took one time? Each time I cut off the old heated ends and used fresh belting. It took one time for a few minutes of turning and it broke at the joint! The wife wonders how I have so much patients when working with clock movements and none when it come to the belting!
I may try to but some new belting and try again as the original belt is getting mighty short.

Jim; I was thinking of the same thing. O Rings. They used to make a kit that one would custom cut an O Ring and a special glue was used to join the ends. The guys at the parts store said the system worked fine in applications where the o ring seal was not used on a moving part such as a valve or cylinder. He said they were great in an application such as a gasket on a cylinder endcap and other such applications. So I bet it would only be so so as a belt.

Thanks for the replies guys.
Bob

I have always used the yellow belting from LaRose and fused it with a hot razor blade. I have had good success with it, but occassionally I have had to re-do a joint that didn't take well.

Tom. Thanks for the reply
This is the proceedure I use when trying to fuse the ends together.

When I try this I heat a razor knife blade with a torch and then touch the hot blade to each end of the belting. They seem to go fluid and then I quickly try to push the ends together and hold for 20 seconds or so. Then test it by tugging it a bit. Usually it pulls apart with little tugging. Am I doing this correctly? I don't know how else to heat both ends and get them together quicker?
Bob

Bob,
I put the razor blade in a vice grip style of pliers, and set it where I don't have to use my hands to hold it. Heat the blade to red hot. Then take both ends of the belt and put them against the surface of the blade, opposite each other and slide them upward off the blade. Then hold for a short time until it cools. I wait a while longer before putting stress on the belt. Any extra melted ooze is trimmed with a razor after the whole thing has had time to cool completely.

Believe it or not. On my jewelers lathe I have used double strong string putting it under the headstock before tying a knot and trimming off the surplus of the knot.

Works well. When it breaks, (not too often) I simply put on a new one.

I have also used the regular belting and pinned together with a fashioned piece of brass, after drilling holes
in the belt, the brass pin is bent to go through the holes and flattened against the belt.

That too, does the job. You can move the motor to create a tighter fit. Lathes have screw slots for belt tightening.

Not ABOUT to disassemble my headstock when I don't need to. For splicing the plastic belt I do not use a razor blade (no heat retention). I picked up some sturdy table knives from a local thrift store, and use one of those.

Heat it to the temp to melt the plastic (a LONG ways from red). Stick a cut end of the belt on each side of the heated blade. When they're melting good, slide the ends off, jam them together, and HOLD them firmly together for 30 seconds or so, until they cool and fuse.

Trim the bulged-out material with your razor blade that you didn't use for splicing them. Always works for me.


The belt material has to MELT and MELD together, in order for it to work.

bangster.

Tom, & Bangs.
You have pointed out my problem in joining the belts with heat. I was trying to hold the belts in one hand, razor knife in the other then heating the knife dabbing the ends of the belts, drop the knife and quickly jam ends together !!!!
I am sure it would have worked with your approach to it.

What I have done since it to use the automotive O Ring. I purchase a 7" x .125" I cut the ring pass it through the head stock and then join it with super glue (DEVCON Super Glue) This is the brand they reccomended to join the ends together and they use it in there shop. Cost wat $3.90 for the 2gr. of glue and they gave me the O Rings. This has worked great so far.

Philip -- I was thinking of that also. I was looking for old sewing machines (for the motors) at garage sales this past weekend.

Daniel -- Never gave any thought to using heavy string ! I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks to every one who replied to my request for help.

Bob

Bob,
Great solution! Glad you are up and running again.
There are usualy many ways to solve a problem and it is always interesting to see all the different succesful ideas.