Thanks everyone for all your input.
I wound up whipping up a quick jig to align and set the lacing buckles in the belt.
Heres the jig, belt and the "Alligator brand" lacing buckles. as you can see its very simple. The kerf in the middle was cut on a chop saw after the battens were screwed to the base. The "anvil" is a piece of nominal 1"X ⅛" steel flat stock and the "tool" is a piece of 1" square tubing.
The Alligator buckle pinned together with a decapitated 6 penny brad.
The buckle is held in the center by the brad which extends into the kerf on both ends.
The belt is pushed into the the buckle from both directions and clamped in place. The tool is place on top of the buckle and under the ram of an Arbor Press.
Presto! the buckle is set and perfectly square to the ends of the belt.
At this point, my cellphone died and I couldn't record the subsequent steps:
Peen the buckle to flush it to the belt.
Grind the edges of the buckle shy of the edge of the belt, finish with wire wheel.
A quick recharge of the cell, for a snap of the belt mounted on the lathe.
A couple of notes:
I also used the jig on the chop saw, to square the end of the belt and cut it to length.
Running the lathe revealed no "clack clack" sound? I attributed this to grinding the edges of the buckle shy of the belt. It seems, the typical sound must be caused by the edge of the buckel hitting the edge of the next step of pulley, not by the flat of the buckle hitting the face of the pulley?
I wound up whipping up a quick jig to align and set the lacing buckles in the belt.
Heres the jig, belt and the "Alligator brand" lacing buckles. as you can see its very simple. The kerf in the middle was cut on a chop saw after the battens were screwed to the base. The "anvil" is a piece of nominal 1"X ⅛" steel flat stock and the "tool" is a piece of 1" square tubing.
The Alligator buckle pinned together with a decapitated 6 penny brad.
The buckle is held in the center by the brad which extends into the kerf on both ends.
The belt is pushed into the the buckle from both directions and clamped in place. The tool is place on top of the buckle and under the ram of an Arbor Press.
Presto! the buckle is set and perfectly square to the ends of the belt.
At this point, my cellphone died and I couldn't record the subsequent steps:
Peen the buckle to flush it to the belt.
Grind the edges of the buckle shy of the edge of the belt, finish with wire wheel.
A quick recharge of the cell, for a snap of the belt mounted on the lathe.
A couple of notes:
I also used the jig on the chop saw, to square the end of the belt and cut it to length.
Running the lathe revealed no "clack clack" sound? I attributed this to grinding the edges of the buckle shy of the belt. It seems, the typical sound must be caused by the edge of the buckel hitting the edge of the next step of pulley, not by the flat of the buckle hitting the face of the pulley?
