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Squealing from belt or spindle

J

Jack Weaver

Joined
May 22, 2013
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Location
Ohio
I have a General lathe (Canadian General), that I bought from a vocational school auction. It had been sitting for several years in a warehouse. A teacher told me that even when they had woodworking at the school, the lathe was rarely used. Put it in the shop and it works fine except. I get a squealing noise every now and then and I don't know weather its coming from the belt or the pulley spindle. This lathe has a reeve type pulley for the variable speed. I have sprayed WD-40 on the spindle and the belt sides. Seems to quiet it for a little bit then its back. The noise does not happen at lower speeds, but at around 2000 or so it starts, and is intermittant. Has anyone experienced this, and know a remedy?
 
I have a general from the early 80s. I think if you tighten the belt you'll be ok. If not then its time to replace the belt, its probably glazed where it grips the pulley. The WD40 just slicks it up for a while and gets everything blackened,so don't use it. To replace the belt remove headstock and slip it out. Not a bad job .
Hope this helps
Jim
 
One more thing. Be sure to grease the spindle . There is an acces hole on the cabinet below headstock . The reason it squeals at high speed is it loses its torque and little tool presure will start stalling the spindle. Thats the short version of why it squeals.
Jim
 
The belt is worn out. There are two likely reason that it is squealing.

  1. First, a belt that old very likely has become hard from "ozone cracking", sometimes referred to as dry rotting. The rubber in a belt that sits unused especially in typical unairconditioned warehouse conditions is likely to become brittle from reacting with ozone. You can see if this is the case by tightly bending the belt backwards and looking for transverse hairline cracks. Do this in bright daylight to see the fine cracks. If the belt is in especially bad shape, it might even break when you do this. Getting oil or grease on the belt will compound the situation and cause the belt to fail even faster.
  2. The second and more likely cause of squealing is from a worn out belt where the belt is "bottoming out" in the pulley groove. A good belt should only make contact with the angled sidewalls of the pulley. That is where the gripping and power transfer takes place. When a belt is worn to the point that it bottoms out, the wedging action that takes place between the sides of the belt and the pulley is no longer there and that means that the belt will not have enough friction to transfer power -- the result is slipping which produces the squealing sound. Clear indications of this problem are a belt with glazed sidewalls and a shiny bottom in the pulley groove. In extreme situations, the pulley may actually be "blued" from overheating although an indication such as that is more likely to be found on automobile accessory pulleys that are exposed to high speed operation in a very hot environment.
A spindle doesn't squeal. Spindle bearings that are failing may become noisy, but the noise is generally growling, rumbling, clicking, or ticking. Some bearing assemblies can be lubricated. Check the owner's manual for the proper lubricant. Never use WD-40 as a lubricant for machinery.
 
Jack Weaver said:
I have a General lathe (Canadian General), that I bought from a vocational school auction. It had been sitting for several years in a warehouse. A teacher told me that even when they had woodworking at the school, the lathe was rarely used. Put it in the shop and it works fine except. I get a squealing noise every now and then and I don't know weather its coming from the belt or the pulley spindle. This lathe has a reeve type pulley for the variable speed. I have sprayed WD-40 on the spindle and the belt sides. Seems to quiet it for a little bit then its back. The noise does not happen at lower speeds, but at around 2000 or so it starts, and is intermittant. Has anyone experienced this, and know a remedy?
Click to expand...

Is 2000RPM max rpm or close to it? Does the speed adjustment knob feel a little tighter as you get there too? My reeves drive on my lathe, different brand, jams into the outside of the primary drive belt at that speed and makes a squealing noise from putting the drive belt in a bind. No idea if your drive is set up the same way but one more thing to check.

Hu
 
Jack......

As others have mentioned, if the belt is worn, it needs to be replaced.

One thing that you can do to baby it along for awhile, is to spray the belt with automotive belt dressing. This is what mechanics use for slipping belts on car engines.......available at any automotive supply.

It's good to use the belt dressing on all machinery belts from time to time, whether it slips, or not. It will greatly extend the life of drive belts. The belt on my Woodfast lathe is still going strong after 21 years of use.......but, I do spray it down every couple of years, along with the belts on all my shop tools.

ooc
 
Thanks

Thanks for all the feedback. I am going to do some inspection and see what the belt looks like. I was hoping I did not have to replace it. The reason I used the WD-40 was on some bodies suggestion. I will probably just replace the belt and hope that's the answer.
 
On your squeaky belt for a fast temporary fix you can add regular chalk to the belt. I have use it on vehicles and shop tools with squeaks.
Tim.
 
I use a General 160 and when the belts get worn they squill. I change belts about every 6 years . You must keep the Reeves Drive greased I do mine about every 2 to 3 months. This can cause squilling if it's out of grease.
The motor could be out of adjustment if it's to tight or to loose ether can cause squilling.
 
odie said:
.... One thing that you can do to baby it along for awhile, is to spray the belt with automotive belt dressing. This is what mechanics use for slipping belts on car engines.......available at any automotive supply.....
Click to expand...

I will agree to a limited extent. My perspective is that belt dressing is good for use as a limited use stop-gap measure to get you where you are going and are able to get a new replacement belt. Most, if not all, belt dressings soften and swell the rubber. This allows a worn-out belt to limp along a bit further which is good if you are stuck out in the middle of nowhere and need to make it back to civilization to get a replacement. The operating environment for a belt on a wood lathe is far less hostile than it would be on an automobile engine so the results of using belt dressing probably isn't as gloomy as far as longevity is concerned. Nevertheless, I would not use it as a part of my regular PM.

A downside of using belt dressing is that once you start using it, you are more-or-less constrained to continue using it until the belt is replaced because the dressing dries out and when it does, the slipping and squealing is worse than before. In the long run, you might wind up spending more buying belt dressing to extend the life of a belt than it would cost to replace the belt when it gets worn out.
 
Grease fitting

I did not know about the grease fitting on the side of machine. Greased the pulley and viola, no squealing. Thanks again to all for responding, especially JimB.
 
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