Well Christmas has come and gone, and as the retailers would say only 362 shopping days left till next Christmas. I hope you all had a great time with family and friends and I hope that the New Year celebrations will also be a time of great fun. Please remember don't drink and drive.
Well the weather improved since last weekend. We had a lousy weekend in regards to snow and ice. The Airfield here was even closed due to the ice accumulations for almost 3 days. This allowed me to go in and pickup the metal I had ordered previously as well as purchasing the 1.25" countersink I would need and the extra drill bits I would need. I didn't do much during the week due to celebrations, some work and clearing snow and ice away around the house.
What little I did during the week was again clean, prime and paint a few small pieces. This time it was the lever that moves the transmission shaft left or right for high and low as well as a lever that moves the second three step pulley up to tighten the belt. Here is a picture of these two parts.

Today I spent some time installing the two plates that would mount on the lathe and accept the studs that would hold up the overhead drive. First I cut the 1/2" by 4" plate to length, approx 11" for the top piece and 7" for the bottom piece. After rounding the corners and dressing them up a bit I placed it on the lathe to calculate where the first hole would go. Once held in place there was quite a bit of rocking around on the bottom plate so took out the large sanding wheel and carefully ground down a high spot on the lathe. Once this was done the plate laid up against the lathe body a lot better. After a little calculation based on the measurements received from two other lathe owners I drilled the first hole. The plan was to keep the piece on the drill press after drilling the hole so that I could drill the countersink at the same time without moving the piece. Unfortunately the countersink has a 5/8" dia shaft and my drill press only has a 1/2" dia capacity. Oh well I'll talk to a friend and see about going to his shop and drilling the countersinks out there.
Without the countersink I still went ahead and drilled out the remaining holes. First I spray painted the back of the plate so that I could scribe the holes from the back side. I then took a clothes hanger and cut it apart. I ground the one end down to a point and then placed a 4" 90deg bend in it. I then slide that down the inside of the lathe and carefully moved it around in the existing hole to scratch out where I would need to drill the hole on the plate. I then took the plate off and used a washer drilled out to 5/8", the size of the bolts, to assist in locating the centre of the hole, I then centre punched and drilled out the hole. I then mounted it back up and carefully filed out the hole such that I could insert the bolt. I did this three times for the upper bracket and once for the lower bracket. The upper bracket covered 6 holes that were in the lathe body however I've decided only to used the outer 4 holes to mount the plate. The lower bracket had only two holes but after looking at this I decided to drill one more hole and tap this to accept the 1/2" bolts that will mount the lower plate. Here is a picture showing the two plates installed. The upper bolt in the lower plate is the new one I drilled and tapped in the lathe cabinet.

You should be able to tell that they are not countersunk yet. Once I get them countersunk I will carefully scribe where the upper right mounting stud should be based on measurements and installed this stud. After that stud is installed I will support the overhead bracket and slide it onto the stud so that I can position it to be able to mark out where the other three studs need to go. This job will be for another week as I first want to countersink the plates.

Well until the next installment have an enjoyable week and Happy New Year to all.

Harold