wrote:

wrote:

Veeduber, you rock! I hadn't thought about the pulley thing. What a
neat deal. I happen to have access to both, and will try my hand when
I get to that portion.


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Dear Drew (and the Crew),

I don't rock. But pulleys do. It's rare for the amount of
cable-travel to exceed more than 90 degrees of rotation of a large
pulley. That means you don't really need sealed ball bearings; a
properly fitted bushing (Grangers, McMasters-Carr, etc) works fine.

After making a few I took the trouble to grind a tool bit for the
groove & shoulders.

If you come upon a stub of bar-stock of suitable diameter you might
consider chucking it between centers and turning out a whole batch of
pulleys at the same time, leaving only about and inch of core mebbe
1/8" wide. After doing all the grooves and the sides, take it over to
the band saw or metal-cutting hacksaw and slice it up. A copper collar
made from scrap DWV pipe allows you to chuck it on the OD, accurately
drill the center and face it off. Or at least, accurately enough :-)
Since the pulley does not rotate a full 360 you can have the axis off
by a couple of thou without effecting anything.

Anodizing is a good idea and you can do it at home if you follow the
rules. But some of the baked-on cermet coatings are at least as
wear-resistant and all it takes to cure them is a kitchen oven.

-R.S.Hoover


Why not us a cutoff tool on your lathe instead of a band saw?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired