Monday night 4/4/16
The plans call for a 47 inch long v-belt to drive this thing. After a scout meeting last night, I swung by Advanced Auto to buy a belt. They don't keep the belts out front, and they don't organize the belts by size. You have to know you car model and what kind of belt you need for your car. They look it up in their system to get the part number, and they go back and get the belt.
The guy at Advance Auto was nice, he told me to just go in back and get what I needed, and pointed out where the ladder was if I couldn't reach. The belts didn't have consistent labeling. Some had dimensions, and some didn't. So I looked at all the belts and wound up just buying one that looked about the right size. I didn't have a tape measure, but the floor tiles I was standing on looked like they were a foot. So I bought a belt that almost reached across two tiles. Took it home and noticed tiny printing on the side of the belt. 48 inches. I expect it will be close enough. I really only needed it right now to spin the wheels, and that is totally adjustable, so it would work for that.
I took a wheel. I screwed the temporary crappy finished particleboard pulley to one face, centering it as best I could. I screwed the permanent nicer unfinished plywood pulley to the other face, centering it as best I could, using calipers to measure from the bearing edge at the center of the wheel. I mounted this wheel on my ƒucking METAL BAR, clamped everything down. Clamped a motor down. (I bought this 1/4 hp motor at a flea market years ago for $2. Using it now for the first time.) Put the belt on, and fired the sucker up. It spins nice and quiet. It's nice. I clamped down a tool rest and tried cutting a little bit.
It was too late at night to really give this the attention it deserved, but I played with it for about a minute.
This is gonna work! The bar is clamped a little loosely and sways a little bit back and forth. I'll fix that before I begin seriously shaping the edges of the wheels and drive pulley.