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Belting in
Aug. 11th, 2023 09:29 pmThings I expected to be doing the week after a big road show: inventory. Sorting and restocking the van. Updating my ledger and In Stock list. Making more pots to replace the ones sold. Ordering clay and catching up on my recycling, because I'm down to four boxes of clay.
Things I wasn't expecting to do: drive around town trying to source a drive belt for a broken potter's wheel.
My wheel is old. I bought it used twenty years ago, and it was probably over 20 then. It's an early model Soldner wheel with a bodged in reversing switch, and a wooden foot paddle/spring-loaded chain speed control. It's a geezer.
I was finishing up some trimming Thursday, pasta dinner and serving bowls, when it started making a dinging noise, like something was banging on the wheel head. Then it made a flapping noise, but only at highest speed. Very strange. I finished the last couple of bowls, turned it off, and started poking around, blind, in the belt guard.
I fairly quickly found strips of rubber wrapped around the motor shaft. Judging from the shape and taper, they had delaminated from the inner surface of the v-belt. Messy, but I was able to clean them out. The wheel ought to still work, albeit with less belt surface on the pulleys. But as I rotating the wheel head to unwind the straps, I found a much more worrisome problem: a spot where the rubber was entirely broken, and only the canvas outer layer was holding the belt together.
It took me a while to figure out how to get the belt loose. On the motor side, it was easy to pop the belt off over the top of the drive shaft, but the wheel axle was supported on both ends with collar bearings, pulley in between. I had to unbolt the bottom bearing, loosen the top, to get the belt free.
My three-stage list for any equipment repair is: 1. Specialty supplier 2. General-purpose retailer and 3. Jerry's. (If Jerry's fails me, I go to the nuclear option, 4. Order off the internet, but it takes much longer, and I'd rather have my money stay local.) When my bike needed set screws, I went to a bike shop first, then Eugene Fastener (which turned out no longer to do retail, only wholesale), then out to Jerry's, where the sales assistant guessed a bike would take metric, and found me the screws I needed in about two minutes.
So this time, I started by calling Georgies Ceramic Supply. Turns out they don't stock wheel parts, have to order them in, and they're not a Soldner dealer. My local auto parts store, Knechts, recently went out of business, but there's an AutoZone a few blocks further out. I'd normally bike, but was fully expecting to have to continue to Jerry's, so took the car.
Fortunately, the belt had a cryptic number on the outer surface:15445. I didn't know what it meant, but Leon, behind the counter, did. Unfortunately, he didn't have that size; 15440 was a good half-inch shorter circumference, which I did not think would work. He checked the inventory online and saw that their Barger location might have one, and called over to confirm. Wouldn't want to send you chasing a wild goose with no golden egg at the end, he said, which might be the most delightfully mixed metaphor I've heard in ages. Finally got Brian, who confirmed he had it in hand, and did I know how to find them?
In fact, I did. They're right across the parking lot from the Winco where I get my groceries. $7.99 later, I had the replacement belt, had it installed half an hour later. It's a little louder than the old one, but I expect that to settle down as the belt wears in.
And I didn't even have to go to Jerry's.
Things I wasn't expecting to do: drive around town trying to source a drive belt for a broken potter's wheel.
My wheel is old. I bought it used twenty years ago, and it was probably over 20 then. It's an early model Soldner wheel with a bodged in reversing switch, and a wooden foot paddle/spring-loaded chain speed control. It's a geezer.
I was finishing up some trimming Thursday, pasta dinner and serving bowls, when it started making a dinging noise, like something was banging on the wheel head. Then it made a flapping noise, but only at highest speed. Very strange. I finished the last couple of bowls, turned it off, and started poking around, blind, in the belt guard.
I fairly quickly found strips of rubber wrapped around the motor shaft. Judging from the shape and taper, they had delaminated from the inner surface of the v-belt. Messy, but I was able to clean them out. The wheel ought to still work, albeit with less belt surface on the pulleys. But as I rotating the wheel head to unwind the straps, I found a much more worrisome problem: a spot where the rubber was entirely broken, and only the canvas outer layer was holding the belt together.
It took me a while to figure out how to get the belt loose. On the motor side, it was easy to pop the belt off over the top of the drive shaft, but the wheel axle was supported on both ends with collar bearings, pulley in between. I had to unbolt the bottom bearing, loosen the top, to get the belt free.
My three-stage list for any equipment repair is: 1. Specialty supplier 2. General-purpose retailer and 3. Jerry's. (If Jerry's fails me, I go to the nuclear option, 4. Order off the internet, but it takes much longer, and I'd rather have my money stay local.) When my bike needed set screws, I went to a bike shop first, then Eugene Fastener (which turned out no longer to do retail, only wholesale), then out to Jerry's, where the sales assistant guessed a bike would take metric, and found me the screws I needed in about two minutes.
So this time, I started by calling Georgies Ceramic Supply. Turns out they don't stock wheel parts, have to order them in, and they're not a Soldner dealer. My local auto parts store, Knechts, recently went out of business, but there's an AutoZone a few blocks further out. I'd normally bike, but was fully expecting to have to continue to Jerry's, so took the car.
Fortunately, the belt had a cryptic number on the outer surface:15445. I didn't know what it meant, but Leon, behind the counter, did. Unfortunately, he didn't have that size; 15440 was a good half-inch shorter circumference, which I did not think would work. He checked the inventory online and saw that their Barger location might have one, and called over to confirm. Wouldn't want to send you chasing a wild goose with no golden egg at the end, he said, which might be the most delightfully mixed metaphor I've heard in ages. Finally got Brian, who confirmed he had it in hand, and did I know how to find them?
In fact, I did. They're right across the parking lot from the Winco where I get my groceries. $7.99 later, I had the replacement belt, had it installed half an hour later. It's a little louder than the old one, but I expect that to settle down as the belt wears in.
And I didn't even have to go to Jerry's.