Lathe Restoration And Improvements - CVT (Reeves Drive) 

Thanks for your comments. There is not a lot of info on the net for these CVTs. Well, not much in building them anyway. I thought it would be useful for others if I recorded the build and made it available.

Thanks Matty. I cant wait to get it finished so I can turn some wood.

My wood lathe has a CVT! Works well. The lathe was purchased as a complete assembly.

yep my Wife's Kity 664 wood lathe has a CVT also, much nicer and easier than changing belts works a treat

Thanks for watching Rob. They are common on Jet Wood Lathes.

Thanks. I might need to add some type of shield over the motor.

@@thehobbymachinistnz probably won't need much, just some kind of deflector skirt to stop dust being sucked into the motor as it drops to the floor. Although there might be a trade-off between proper air circulation (preventing overheating) and dust shielding, perhaps run the lathe a few times and see how bad the dust is?

Thanks for your comments.

There are not many videos out there of people making these CVT/Reeves drives. And, the videos that are there don't have much detail in them. I kind of had to work it all out by trial and error, but I got something half decent in the end. Thanks for watching.

Thanks Ben.

@@thehobbymachinistnz No worries. Even went back and corrected the typo.

No problem, and thanks for the suggestion re the screw on the adjusting arm.

@@thehobbymachinistnz We used Reeves drives on high pressure mono pumps and they all had cranks. The particle size we were spraying was critical, so we had very good control with the pumps. I have a similar drive on my Clausing 5913 lathe, but it is hydraulic controlled sheaves. I also have an old Clausing 100 MK that I would love to adapt this to. I've been thinking about a Jack shaft with cone pulleys similar to a drill press except quick change ratios.

Thanks for your detailed comments on making springs. I have not heard of this method of making springs before.

@@thehobbymachinistnz Well if you ask 10.000 machinists to fix the same problem you will find 12.000 solutions to a same problem :)

Thank you.

It is hard to find good small pieces of plate steel for projects. Kevin sells them occasionally so I guess the demand is there which drives up the bidding. Thanks for watching..

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for watching and the info on the camera sensor.

Thanks Michel.

Thanks Mark. Yes, it was annoying that the plasma cutter did not work. I was looking forward to cutting out the circles. I have another spring coming from a scooter repair shop. It is 4mm so it will be a lot stronger than the 3mm spring which I made. We will see how that goes.

Thanks for watching. Yes it was a lot of work. A VFD would be much easier and more practical. This Reeves drive is not practical for a machine like a wood lathe where you need to change the speed a lot.

Thanks. I do plan to add some support at the ends of the shafts. I will likely work on that for the next video.

Thanks for watching. Yes, I do plan to add some support for the motor and spindle shafts.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for your comments and advise. I think I should have slowed the speed down more as I went up in drill bit sizes. I will probably get back to the SS in another project so I will try a slower speed then.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think you are right re the shaft needing a bearing. That would provide some stability. I will take a look in to this when I build the box around the pulleys.

Thanks for the info. I had a look on their site and there is a lot of info on their pulleys.

Thanks for watching. Yes, gear head lathes would likely be much smoother.

My 12" Logan has a geared head but Reeves drive for initial power transmission and speed control. No issues with vibration from that drive. Substantially smoother than my old 10" Logan. Just FYI.

Hi, thanks for your question. I don't know if that would work, but I have never seen that type of setup before.

I just thought this would keep the belt more vertically aligned instead of moving it diagonally while changing speeds. Some of the cart variable drives have different angles on their belts from one side to the other, therefore the same shallow sides are in alignment. @@thehobbymachinistnz

you can't this system is pretty simple...you close the plates on one side (top) the belt is just pulled up causing tension and the spring to close when you open the gap between both plates on the top side the spring at the bottom will push inwards causing the plates on the bottom to close basically what happens is when he closes the top plate he's literally pushing the plate out causing the belt to go up and left into the side he's pushing the plate that's why the spring is on the outside to adjust to the belt movement what you could have is an arm link joining both inner top plate and the outer bottom plate so they move together and the belt always be aligned centre this way you don't have to rely on the spring to adjust to tension of the belt and having the belt run crooked overtime when the spring isn't so good and just be on the top side to push the plates apart to bring the rpm's down, that way it wouldn't require as many tune ups to the spring strength as the system in the video would look at amazon for "GearWrench KDS2071" the shaft pushes in expanding the cylinder open you could have another one at the bottom with a spring the principle is exactly the same but again instead of having wear on the belt you would have wear on the shaft teeth that push those cylinder pieces in and on the pieces themselves for a system like the one in the video it's better to have the plates and just the belt wearing out than having to redo the metal parts when they get worn but for the amount of work and overall price spending 45 bucks on a cylinder for an open system like this would be 100 times easier so yeah...each system has it's pros and cons

Thanks.

Thanks for watching.