Wooden Pulley Maker

Never tried it on my metal lathe, but I do make a lot of rotors, wheels, gear blanks and pulleys on the wood lathe in a similar fashion. I have several different sized mandrels I made, depending on the axle size needed. Just a simple threaded wood faceplate that screws directly onto the spindle. Through-bolt sized depending on axle bore needed. Here is a rotor I made on one to replace a broken rotor on an old Delta scroll saw:

Didn’t cost anything, and does the job fine – but yours looks WAY more impressive :)

Cheers,
Brad

-- Brad in FL - In Dog I trust... everything else is questionable

Hello Brad. I’ve done the same on my wood lathe but occasionally had problems with the wood slipping plus I wanted a smaller hole. I even rigged up a router to shape the pulley. It worked well although not a smooth as i though it would be. I was going to put holes in these pulleys anyway so I thought, why not use them to drive the disk? The metal lathe is great for accuracy and repeatably. Also smooth as silk. I ground the tool with a huge rake angle so is shears instead of scrapes.

Very handy tool. My grandfather use to make pullies on a drill press, I’ll bet that was a trick.

-- A childs smile is payment enough.

Here’s what the pulleys are used for.

https://youtu.be/aSPxIJ3-8mE