Progress No1 Pillar Drill.

I have a Progress No1 pillar drill which I bought recently for a project. It was a total mess having been left outside for some time but I decided I'd have it. Parts missing, homemade frame to attach the motor, the motor shaft was very short, incorrect pulley wheel on the motor, wire mesh cover, just in over my head.

I'm near the point where I could use it, but, I need some help.

1: I need a pulley/belt cover.

2: I need the correct motor pulley wheel.

3: I need 3 spoked star wheel/feed wheel handles. (terms used in the manual)

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

Edited By PJ on 28/07/2021 16:58:35

Several places sell multi step pulleys so you should be able to buy something suitable. I think you may have to make the other bits.

Thanks for the reply, Vic. I need the dimensions of the original pulley wheel etc.

http://www.lathes.co.uk/progress-drills/page5.html

....This page shows the pulleys including a 'cut-away' where you could work out the dimensions......

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Nice find, Bob

‘though I confess that at first glance it looked like narrow flat-belts, not ‘A section’

MichaelG.

For the avoidance of doubt … please note that I wrote looked not looks

[ Close examination of the illustration does show the vee profile. ]

MichaelG.

If you want five sheave pulleys, you may struggle to find any at sensible prices.

If you have access to a lathe, and you can find the sizes, you can make them, with the groove dimensions and angle to suit the belt that you choose to use.

You might be able to get away with bolting a two sheave pulley to a three, IF you can find suitable pulleys.

Howard

PJ

Generally pillar drills with multi-step pulleys use the same sizes on both spindle and motor with one inverted.

If you have a data plate its relatively easy to check belt lengths on each step for a typical spacing using standard formulae just to ensure that the designer hasn't done anything clever to get odd ball speeds or to use different sized pulleys. Rare but not unknown.

In the absence of other data I'd use the plate in Bobs link.

Once you have the sizes Its not too difficult to machine up a pulley. Best done as a stack of individual disks screwed together. Cutting out from one solid piece produces spectacular amounts of swarf and tends to be expensive. Usually insufficient room for fixing screws on the smallest pulley so best to make the smallest pair, or even triplet in one piece. Possibly do the large pair as one if you have a thick enough piece of plate about the place.

Rough machine individually on an accurate mandrel with a collar to fix the blanks so they can be machined. Then assemble the whole unit onto the mandrel to finish up the Vee grooves accurately and concentrically.

Last time I made a set I assembled and finish mached as I went. Which worked but I'm unconvinced as to it being best way. Careful planning as to fixing holes was needed to make something that could be assembled as I went.

Not the cheapest job in the world.

Clive

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Good points, Clive … and one has to wonder :

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MichaelG.

I have to agree that making the pulleys from large diameter alloy is going to be 'pricey' and maybe difficlut to find easily....however, you could do worse than look around for a Chinese pillar drill which have decent pulley blocks and are cheap if you look around on ebay or your local re-cycling centre etc. In my clock club they usually go for about £25 in good condition so this would be cost effective repair for an otherwise excellent machine like the progress.

I think I would take the opportunity to convert the drive to Poly-Vee

… Many advantages

MichaelG.

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Two of these might be easily adaptable:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121052084163

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 31/07/2021 10:25:21

The issue with DIY pulley sets on a pillar drill is how the drive is taken from pulley to spindle. If its an integrated spline in the pulley itself you are pretty much stuffed. Single sliding key is do-able, takes a while to plane out the keyway on a lathe but I've managed such jobs a time or three rather more quickly than I expected. Separate splined or keyed sleeve with a cylindrical outside to take a pulley and you are cooking with gas.

Nice thing with poly-vee when building up a pulley stack from screw together slices is that there is plenty of room for the screws. Less material needed too as a quite narrow belt will handle the power. I was major league surprised the first time I lifted the hefty cast iron belt cover on my Pollard A100 pillar drill to discover an itty-bitty 1/4" (ish) wide poly-vee taking the power from a 2/3rd hp motor to the MT2 spindle.

Poly-Vee is easy to cut given some simple tooling. Simplest is a fixed bed stop with a stack of spacers to set the distance between Vee cuts. You will need some means of setting the initial start position. With a bolt together stack from flat plate circles that comes automatically from the flange on the mandrel.Otherwise you will need some sort of gauge to set pull out distance of the stock from the chuck face. Various improvisations but probably worth making a "block on a stick" adjustable gauge if you don't already have one. One of those surprisingly useful devices that you don't really appreciate until you have one and start using it. Or just use the depth gauge thing on your vernier. The vernier is effective but a bit on the fragile side so more for one off jobs than make a bunch.

Clive

Thanks for the response, Clive. Bit much for me. I'll keep reading.

If you buy one of those Lidl Aldi bench drills for 70 quid you get 2x 3 or 4 step pulleys plus a bunch of other bits

Alternatively you can buy a single 4 step pulley for 20-30 quid from ebay