Delta 46-715 Pulley fix?

[Dave Olson]

Delta no longer supports the 46-715 pulley system. My pulley in the headstock has shattered. I have had no luck finding a replacement. Has anyone found a solution to this problem? I find many posts about the problem but have not seen any that say they fixed it. I have considered converting it to a step pulley but not sure how to go about that.

 

[Bill Boehme]

There is no fix. I tried for years to improve things with some success -- mostly on the headstock pulley, but the weak link is the poor pulley design. And, now that you can't get the pulleys, you will need to go to an alternate solution. Probably the best thing to do is to forget about fixing it and buy something else. You can buy separate hubs and pulleys to custom build your own design, but that is a very expensive proposition and you will be putting more money into it than it is worth.

 

[Dave Olson]

Thanks for the input

Thanks for the reply. Not what I had hoped to hear but what I expected. Guess I need to start saving up the tool money. (Christmas is coming!)

 

[Dean Center]

I have spent some time maintaining our local Senior Woodworking club Delta and I agree with Bill. For really handy people, I believe it may be possible to find a Reeves drive from a different lathe, an old Powermatic or maybe a Jet 1442, and cobble together a fix. You could also put on a regular pulley set along with an electronic variable speed controller. I'm not one of those really handy people, so I can't advise about parts or difficulty.

 

[Mark Lindquist]

See if this will work:

http://stores.renovoparts.com/909945-motor-pulley-for-delta-46-715-lathe/

 

[Bill Boehme]

See if this will work:

http://stores.renovoparts.com/909945-motor-pulley-for-delta-46-715-lathe/

That is the motor pulley and not the spindle pulley. Either they have the wrong picture or they are substituting something else as it doesn't look like the motor pulley. If you look at the magnified view of that pulley, you will see that there is something wrong. It is all chipped up around the edge and has casting flaws. A die cast part ought not look like that.

 

[Mark Lindquist]

That is the motor pulley and not the spindle pulley. Either they have the wrong picture or they are substituting something else as it doesn't look like the motor pulley. If you look at the magnified view of that pulley, you will see that there is something wrong. It is all chipped up around the edge and has casting flaws. A die cast part ought not look like that.

Yes, I missed that - was involved in searching for the part....

It may or may not be a problem - the photograph isn't great. The fact that there are apparently so few parts available, for anyone needing a motor pulley, it might be a treasure. Chucked up, it should be able to be trued I would think. I have a big machine lathe so that wouldn't be a problem if it has basic integrity. A quick phone call to the seller might clear it up.

Sometimes parted out lathe parts come up on ebay or Craig'slist. I saw a headstock pulley, but it wasn't quite the right model. Also, on a different thread, someone mentioned a pulley from a Grisley lathe they used - not sure if they had to machine it to fit or not - wish I had saved that link.

Is there a schematic for the pulley anywhere?

 

[Bill Boehme]

I have a box full of broken pulleys from that lathe. The good news is that Delta would send me new ones without charge. The bad news is that they weren't really very durable. I think that the lathe was probably designed with the hobbyist woodworker in mind who occasionally needed to turn some spindles for chair and table legs where the load on the pulleys and the frequency of use both would be fairly low. I could write a book on things that could be improved on that lathe. I did make a lot of improvements, but the weak link was the die-cast zinc pulleys which weren't up to the task of turning large diameter things. There was a minor design change at about mid-production of the lathe so before getting a spindle pulley, it is necessary to verify which model you have. Mine is before the change and has a 25 mm spindle and the later ones have a 23 mm spindle. Hopefully they also improved the yoke assembly from the speed control lever to the pulley. On mine, the yoke assembly and follower rod were so loosey-goosey that it caused one of my pulleys to break off from the hub. I built a new yoke assembly to fix that problem, but there were still a myriad of other problems. I finally decided to do away with the existing drive train and replace it with properly engineered variable frequency drive system. I created a set of drawings, bought most of the parts and about half way through I bought a Robust American Beauty instead of throwing more money at this lathe that still would be shy of what I really wanted.

 

[Mark Lindquist]

I bought a Robust American Beauty instead of throwing more money at this lathe that still would be shy of what I really wanted.

There you go - perfect solution to that problem! :😀

 

[Joe Penn]

I replaced the pulleys on mine, about a month ago, (14& 15 in the parts list) and I bought the pulleys here:
http://www.deltamachineryparts.com/shop/46-715-1/

It’s the same type of pulley and I’m sure it won’t last. When it breaks again I think I’ll look at other lathes.

On a side note I don’t know if I could purchase another Delta product based up my experience with this lathe. I couldn’t keep a power switch on it and though Delta would send me a replacement I grew tired of ordering and replacing the switch. I bought and wired an equivalent toggle switch and I use a foot switch. I have to strap the headstock to the bed to keep it in place because it won’t lock without moving.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I replaced the pulleys on mine, about a month ago, (14& 15 in the parts list) and I bought the pulleys here:
http://www.deltamachineryparts.com/shop/46-715-1/

It’s the same type of pulley and I’m sure it won’t last. When it breaks again I think I’ll look at other lathes.

Perhaps you gave the wrong link because the link that you posted is the Delta Service Net parts site. What I see is what I have seen for at least a couple years ... the headstock pulley set is no longer available, but if it were, the price would be $168. Ten years ago, the price was around $30. My experience is that the motor pulley was the main problem child, failing frequently. The Delta parts site says that one is out of stock ... exactly what it has been saying for years so I take it to mean, forget about ever seeing it becoming available in this lifetime. The price is shown as $63. Originally, the cost was around $15 IIRC.

There was a brief period two or three years ago when Delta bought up all of the parts that second-source jobbers had in stock. It didn't take long before all of those pulleys were gone.

... On a side note I don’t know if I could purchase another Delta product based up my experience with this lathe. I couldn’t keep a power switch on it and though Delta would send me a replacement I grew tired of ordering and replacing the switch. I bought and wired an equivalent toggle switch and I use a foot switch.

I replaced the power switch on mine once. They sent me another one for free, but when doing my failure analysis, I noticed that the switch that was being used is terribly undersized. The switch needs to be one that is rated for a motor load (fast acting, large air gap, large contacts).

... I have to strap the headstock to the bed to keep it in place because it won’t lock without moving.

If you had to strap the headstock down, I wonder that perhaps you have lost the ball and spring that goes into the detent holes or that the detent holes are wallowed out or that you need to adjust the headstock T-slot nut that is underneath the ways. There is a bit of play in the exact headstock position before the locking lever is tightened down. Sloppy alignment is one of the bad things about lathes with rotating headstocks. That lead me to basically never move the headstock once I had it closely aligned with the tailstock. So, that meant that my sliding headstock feature became, for all practical purposes, a fixed headstock lathe. I am sure that it wouldn't be a big deal to modify the lathe to get rid of the rotating headstock "feature" and convert it to strictly a sliding headstock. I never saw a good reason for the rotating headstock. Sure it allows turning something slightly larger than 14 inches, but I never had a need for that and I wouldn't feel comfortable turning larger stuff given its minimum speed of 500 RPM.

 

[Joe Penn]

Perhaps you gave the wrong link because the link that you posted is the Delta Service Net parts site. What I see is what I have seen for at least a couple years ... the headstock pulley set is no longer available, but if it were, the price would be $168. Ten years ago, the price was around $30. My experience is that the motor pulley was the main problem child, failing frequently. The Delta parts site says that one is out of stock ... exactly what it has been saying for years so I take it to mean, forget about ever seeing it becoming available in this lifetime. The price is shown as $63. Originally, the cost was around $15 IIRC.

There was a brief period two or three years ago when Delta bought up all of the parts that second-source jobbers had in stock. It didn't take long before all of those pulleys were gone.

I didn't look for your part, but it is where I bought the pulleys I needed.

I replaced the power switch on mine once. They sent me another one for free, but when doing my failure analysis, I noticed that the switch that was being used is terribly undersized. The switch needs to be one that is rated for a motor load (fast acting, large air gap, large contacts).

The problem I had was the switch would fall apart when I turn the lathe off. The plastic would break, so I solved the problem with the metal toggle switch.

If you had to strap the headstock down, I wonder that perhaps you have lost the ball and spring that goes into the detent holes or that the detent holes are wallowed out or that you need to adjust the headstock T-slot nut that is underneath the ways. There is a bit of play in the exact headstock position before the locking lever is tightened down. Sloppy alignment is one of the bad things about lathes with rotating headstocks. That lead me to basically never move the headstock once I had it closely aligned with the tailstock. So, that meant that my sliding headstock feature became, for all practical purposes, a fixed headstock lathe. I am sure that it wouldn't be a big deal to modify the lathe to get rid of the rotating headstock "feature" and convert it to strictly a sliding headstock. I never saw a good reason for the rotating headstock. Sure it allows turning something slightly larger than 14 inches, but I never had a need for that and I wouldn't feel comfortable turning larger stuff given its minimum speed of 500 RPM.

I tried to adjust the T-slot awhile back and it's didn't help. If the headstock is all the way to the left it doesn't move. If I slide the headstock towards the middle or to the tailstock end I have to strap it down.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I didn't look for your part, but it is where I bought the pulleys I needed.

I was speaking of the part that you said that you bought. Delta Service Net says that it is no longer available. Maybe the information on the web site is in error, but it certainly would discourage anybody trying to repair the lathe. Anyway, I have opted for a better solution with a variable speed drive since we know that the pulleys aren't going to last long.

... The problem I had was the switch would fall apart when I turn the lathe off. The plastic would break, so I solved the problem with the metal toggle switch.

That sounds exactly like what I experienced. The lathe was running and I hit the red cover that flips the switch off and the switch fell apart, but what was more surprising was that the lathe continued running. After scratching my head as I gathered my wits for a few seconds, I reached for the power plug and unplugged the lathe. Next I disassembled the switch to do a forensic analysis that showed the switch contacts had welded together. Because of that, something had to give and it was some plastic parts that broke. But the problem wasn't the plastic, it was that the switch was only rated for a resistive load like you would encounter with an incandescent light. A switch that is rated for an inductive load is what was really needed. That is a completely stupid design error. Here is a post I made a few years ago about the switch with photographs: http://www.aawforum.org/vbforum/showthread.php?9151-delta-46-715&p=81255#post81255

... I tried to adjust the T-slot awhile back and it's didn't help. If the headstock is all the way to the left it doesn't move. If I slide the headstock towards the middle or to the tailstock end I have to strap it down.

That sounds like the underside of the ways are probably rough -- possibly from flashing or casting flaws. I turned mine over and used a file to get things smooth and level. Remove the headstock and tailstock first.

 

[Joe Penn]

I was speaking of the part that you said that you bought. Delta Service Net says that it is no longer available. Maybe the information on the web site is in error, but it certainly would discourage anybody trying to repair the lathe. Anyway, I have opted for a better solution with a variable speed drive since we know that the pulleys aren't going to last long.

Maybe I bought the last one. I bought it recently. I've been a little paranoid about the motor pulley since I replaced the others and I get quite a rattle at low speeds, but with the cover off and running it looks OK. I am thinking about a replacing the lathe though.

That sounds exactly like what I experienced. The lathe was running and I hit the red cover that flips the switch off and the switch fell apart, but what was more surprising was that the lathe continued running. After scratching my head as I gathered my wits for a few seconds, I reached for the power plug and unplugged the lathe. Next I disassembled the switch to do a forensic analysis that showed the switch contacts had welded together. Because of that, something had to give and it was some plastic parts that broke. But the problem wasn't the plastic, it was that the switch was only rated for a resistive load like you would encounter with an incandescent light. A switch that is rated for an inductive load is what was really needed. That is a completely stupid design error. Here is a post I made a few years ago about the switch with photographs: http://www.aawforum.org/vbforum/showthread.php?9151-delta-46-715&p=81255#post81255

I didn't pull mine apart; I just kept ordering replacement switches. I put mine on the foot switch because it too kept running once. It was a shock the first time it happened when I reached over to tun the lathe off and the switch fell apart.

That sounds like the underside of the ways are probably rough -- possibly from flashing or casting flaws. I turned mine over and used a file to get things smooth and level. Remove the headstock and tailstock first.

Sounds like something to check, thanks.