How to make a pulley at home. How to make a homemade pulley

The belt drive in question is distinguished by a minimum of details: so it has only one do-it-yourself pulley and works without a rubber belt, instead of which a piece of a dog leash is fitted.

A do-it-yourself pulley is very different from the usual form (with sides): it does not have a recess for the belt, and moreover, its edges are rounded. In general, the pulley should be all slightly convex. Thanks to this shape, self-centering occurs flat belt, while sometimes it is enough that only one pulley has a convex shape. By the way, in engineering for flat belts, the pulleys are convex. You cannot hold a flat belt with a pulley with a side - it will either climb onto this side, or it will begin to jam at the side. Flanged pulleys are used for V-belts, toothed and round (in section) belts.

If you doubt that a convex pulley can hold a belt, you can do a simple experiment with a real model. Will be required simple details: rods, a straight cylinder, some part with a smoothly changing diameter, a wide elastic band and the base of the structure.

This model shows how, as the rubber band rotates, it moves along the wooden "pulley" from the narrowest part on the left to the largest diameter, where it stays. If the elastic is placed in the concave part, it will again quickly move to the place with the largest diameter.

The pulley is made from MDF. Instead of a second (small) pulley, a bolt is fitted. Due to the large diameter difference between the large pulley and the bolt that replaces the small pulley, this gear has a large gear ratio. However, this contributes to greater slippage of the belt on the bolt, which, even without this, almost does not mesh with it. Therefore, for example, abrasive paper should be glued to the bolt. Of course, this will not last long, but over time it will be possible to pick up something else.

The belt, as mentioned above, is made from a piece of dog leash, which is made of nylon. To connect the two ends of the segment, some kind of piece of iron is heated by fire, then the ends of the segment are applied to it, they are melted and immediately pressed against each other.

The video channel “E + M” shows the technology for manufacturing pulleys from simple and available materials using available tools. In doing so, we will do without lathe. In the second part of the publication, there is another technology - another master.
Let's start manufacturing. For the manufacture of type 1, you will need the following materials. Superglue, sheet metal, linoleum, hot melt adhesive and a bicycle spoke.

We start manufacturing with markings. To do this, set aside the desired radius with a compass and a ruler. We draw a circle on the metal. Now we set aside one more radius, but one millimeter less than on the previous disks. We draw a circle on linoleum. We drill a hole 2 millimeters under the axle. We apply the center of the disk and linoleum to the center of the tin. Turn over on the other side, make holes through the stencil.

The axle is made from a bicycle spoke. To bite off, use side cutters or pliers. We assemble and connect the parts together with glue. Since you are turning, we fix it with hot glue. The photo shows an example where a similar pulley is used.

There is an engine from washing machine. For non-professional work, its power is enough. The turner lengthened the shaft, made it symmetrical on both sides. Now the task is to make a drive pulley without involving a turner. Diameter 95 millimeters. Plywood ten. Cut out 5 circles with a jigsaw. Diameter 100 millimeters. We connect the workpieces with glue, put them on the shaft and grind them. It turned out that the thickness of the plywood is 12 millimeters, so 5 disks are enough. The total thickness is 60 millimeters. Since it is planned to use a standard belt for grinders, this circle is sufficient for the width of the belt.

Drill holes in 3 circles with a pen drill. The shaft diameter is 14 millimeters, so the drill is 12. Put it together. Smear with glue and fix with screws. After all the manipulations, a pancake turned out. Its thickness is equal to the thickness that we want to put on the shaft.
The shaft diameter is almost 2 millimeters larger. It is necessary to maintain alignment, since there are still differences inside. Insert a round file inside. Holding the file on both sides with your hands, we lay the wheel several times. How to increase inner diameter and keep alignment.

After these procedures, we take the two remaining circles, glue and fasten with screws. In this way, you can make not only the drive shaft for the grinder, but also the flange for the emery stone. Or any other nozzle on emery.

The roller was planted on the shaft. We will grind with the engine running. The centering of the shaft itself is also not one hundred percent, but this is not critical. If you want to make such a shaft, then you can definitely use glue. Do not hit the pulley directly with a hammer, only through the mandrel. You can use a piece of plywood. Slowly, with light blows, it is planted.

Pulley - important detail belt drive. It transmits the rotation of the input shaft to the driven, and also allows you to change the number of revolutions. Belt drive is common among household appliances, machine tools of small and medium power, in various internal combustion engines. For improvised designs the pulley can be made independently, for this you will need a home workshop and skills in working with wood, plastic, metal.

Purchased pulleys made at factories are most often cast or machined from metal alloys. For low-power engines produce plastic products.

At home, without foundry equipment or precision lathes, it is difficult to make a drive wheel from these materials.

Many experts believe that a pulley made of wood, plywood or plastic, which they managed to make in a home workshop, is unreliable, short-lived, will immediately overheat and fall apart.

It's not like that at all. If you do not try to replace the wheel of a blacksmith's hammer with a force of 6000 tons, but use it on desktop machine with limited power and speed, then a carefully made part can replace the standard one for a long time.

You can make a pulley as from plywood sheets. This is the most simple design, it does not need complex equipment or intricate technological processes.

If you make a part from aluminum, it will be much stronger, will be able to transmit more torque, rotate at a higher speed. You will have to master the foundry process, even in the very simple version. The production of a pulley by casting will require the provision fire safety, use of personal protective equipment.

The wheel can be machined on a lathe, if one is available in the home workshop.

How to make a plywood pulley at home

This design is the easiest to manufacture. It consists of the following parts:

• pulley body;
• pulley cheeks;
• fasteners-self-tapping screws for wood.

The number of parts depends on the width of the drive belt. If it is greater than the thickness of the plywood sheet, the body of the drive wheel will have to be made from several plywood circles.

The diameter of the blank cheeks must be greater than the diameter of the body by the height of the belt.

The sequence for manufacturing plywood pulleys is as follows:

• mark blanks;
• cut them out of plywood with a jigsaw, drill a central hole;
• if the body consists of two or more circles, fasten them with wood glue or PVA, making sure that the axial holes match;
• tighten the circles with screws;
• handle side surface disk sandpaper, file or grinder until a smooth, even surface is obtained;
• chamfer the inner surface of the cheeks, their slope should be equal to the slope of the cross section of the belt;
• fix the cheeks on the body with glue and self-tapping screws, making sure not to get into the already twisted ones;
• carefully drill the center hole.

When performing the last operation, you need to make the diameter of the hole half a millimeter smaller than the diameter of the shaft. This will allow you to fit the detailed axle into tension. The wooden pulley is ready.

Places for self-tapping screws should be marked in advance. They must be on the same circle, as well as at equal angular distances from each other. If there are four screws, the angle should be 90 °, if 5 - 72 °, if six - 60 °. Then the radial vibration can be minimized.

How to make an aluminum part

The manufacture of a cast aluminum pulley will be much more difficult, but the strength and durability of such a part will be much higher. You should be very careful with each step, accurately observe the dimensions, follow the recommendations.

A piece of aluminum will be used as raw material. You will also need:

• melting crucible, steel or ceramic;
• muffle or induction furnace;
• fine sand, sand clay;
• foam for the model.

The sequence of operations is as follows:

• prepare a molding mixture of clay, water and sand;
• cut with a knife from dense foam an exact model of the future pulley;
• fill made from sheet metal or boards form a mixture to half, tamp;
• put the model, cover with a mixture, tamp again; leaving a hole for the exit of foundry gases;
• melt aluminum in the crucible, carefully pour it into the hole;
• after the casting has cooled, clean it from the mixture residues, grind off the sprue, and polish it.

Such a part can be mounted on the shaft with a key or spline connection. It will sit much stronger, be able to transmit significantly greater torque and rotational speed.

Making your own pulleys

Before repeating one or another design, you need to keep in mind a number of points. For wooden structures the diameter of the motor axle should be slightly larger than the hole.

The design must provide for the collapse of the inner surfaces of the cheeks with an angle equal to the slope of the section of the drive V-belt. This will greatly increase the transmitted power due to the grip not only on the inside, but also on the side of the belt.

Before the start of manufacturing the part, especially if the wheel diameter is large, a drawing or at least a sketch is simply required. It will also be necessary to calculate the gear ratio - it will be equal to the ratio of the diameters of the driving and driven disks.

A homemade belt pulley will allow you to quickly repair the machine or create a mechanism of your own design.

It should be understood that plywood pulleys can only serve for a long time in structures with limited transmitted power and low angular velocities.

In order to pick up a pulley for a walk-behind tractor in a store or online, you need to know several parameters of this product. The driven pulley is designed to transmit rotary motion engine to the attachments of the walk-behind tractor by means of a belt. With this part, you can increase or decrease the number of revolutions of the walk-behind tractor mechanisms.

They are different size, are fixed on the main shaft of electric motors and are made of different material. When purchasing a pulley, you need to pay attention to the size seat. Also, it will not be superfluous to buy a new belt and select a part in accordance with its parameters.

The diameters of the used pulleys for electric motors are standardized.

Making pulleys without a lathe or making pulleys on the knee

Standards establish 3 types of structures:

• monolithic (up to 100 mm);
• disk (from 80 to 400 mm);
• with knitting needles (from 180 to 1000 mm).

Mounting holes are tapered and cylindrical shape. The standard number of grooves does not exceed 8. In order to reduce the wear of rubber belts, the working surface of the grooves is ground.

The main material used for manufacturing is aluminum or duralumin. They are considered the most optimal, as they have good level strength and least of all subject the belt to wear. You can find on sale pulleys made of textolite, plastic, plywood.

Making a product at home

There are several ways to make a pulley with your own hands, and we will tell you some of them.

The easiest way to make at home is with a lathe. It is necessary to choose a suitable workpiece and simply turn the part in size.

For the second manufacturing method, you will need plywood with a thickness of at least 20 mm, a manual milling cutter and a jigsaw, and a drill.

First you need to make a disk of the desired diameter from plywood. Using a compass, draw a circle and make a hole in the center of it. Next, using a jigsaw, we cut out a disk with a margin of 2-3 mm from the line.

In order for the disk to have a flawless round shape, we clamp it in the drill through the central hole with a bolt and nut and grind it on sandpaper, processing all the bumps.

The next step will be the formation of a seat for the belt. For this we use manual frezer. We fix the disc on the workbench with the help of self-tapping screws and, having selected a suitable cutter, select the groove for the belt. So, the pulley is ready. You will need to measure the diameter of the pulley on the motor axle and drill the required hole.

A homemade pulley is attached to the engine axle with a flange.

If you do not have a lathe at hand, this part can be ordered from a familiar turner, but the driven pulley for a walk-behind tractor has impressive dimensions, and most often it is very difficult to find a workpiece of this diameter for turning. Therefore, we recommend making it yourself, and ordering the flange.

Keeping the part in good condition

For long-term service of pulleys on a walk-behind tractor, you must follow some simple rules:

• timely check the strength of the mounting of the seat on the engine axis to prevent loosening of the part and its failure;
• do not forget to check the protective covers that protect the part from dirt and large objects;
• check the belt tension to avoid slipping;
• visually inspect this assembly for chips, cracks, etc.;
• observe the necessary safety precautions.

A homemade product will serve you for a very long time without needing repair. As the service life expires, the part can be re-manufactured.

The idea was to make it out of plywood. I thought - temporarily, I will find a real one and replace it. But then it became clear that this was not necessary. It has been working for me flawlessly for 7 years, no worse than any metal one.







The machine turned out great.

Pulley of large diameter from the disk.

I saw on it a tree up to 50 mm thick of any linear dimensions. The pulley thus behaves ideally.

A. CHERNOV

Usually I make all my homemade products from start to finish with my own hands, without welding, without metalworking machines. I use what is in my household, what I can find. Once from a faulty, outdated sewing machine, I was making a sawing machine for wood, and I could not find a suitable metal pulley.
The idea was to make it out of plywood.

Pulley making

I thought - temporarily, I will find a real one and replace it. But then it became clear that this was not necessary. It has been working for me flawlessly for 7 years, no worse than any metal one.
I calculated the diameter of the pulley, took the rest of the dimensions from the drive pulley on the existing 600 W electric motor.
Sawed out of plywood desired thickness round disc - medium. Then the two extreme ones are made of 10 mm plywood. I drilled 3 mm holes in the center of each disk.
On the grinding wheel processed the outer edge of the small disk, and chamfered the large one from one side.
Then I glued all three disks by inserting a rod with a diameter of 3 mm into the central holes. Additionally tightened with four screws on each side, as shown in fig.
In the finished pulley in the center, I drilled a hole to the desired diameter.
The finished disk was planted on a drill with the appropriate equipment. I cleaned it with a file and sandpaper while rotating. And, of course, proolifil.
On this I finished the job and put the pulley on the machine. I secured the pulley with a clamping nut with a lock washer.
The machine turned out great. I saw on it a tree up to 50 mm thick of any linear dimensions. The pulley thus behaves ideally.

A. CHERNOV

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HOW TO MAKE A PULLEY ON THE ENGINE WITHOUT A TURNER. HOW TO MAKE THE ENGINE PULLEY

What metal is the pulley made of?

To understand what material a pulley should be made of, you need to understand its purpose.

A pulley is a friction wheel designed to transmit torque from the engine to a rotating shaft by means of a rope or belt. The transfer of motion can be either long or short. And also - with different effort. The load can be constant, or it can be dynamically changing.

It follows from this that it is worth making pulleys from cast iron or steel. As a rule, ordinary steel 40 is suitable. These metals have high wear resistance and increased strength.

The production of pulleys according to the drawings is carried out according to the following scheme:

• cutting off a workpiece on a lathe
• end processing (cutting)
• cutting a hole in the center of the workpiece
• boring the central hole to the desired diameter
• grooving
• threading

LLC "MICRON" performs turning work on the manufacture of pulleys to order. For more complete information or placing an order, you can contact the specialists of the company.

Doing any homemade device on a belt drive, you often encounter the problem of a missing pulley of the desired diameter. Searching for it in the market or through acquaintances takes a lot of time, and it is not yet a fact that it will be found. And not everyone has a familiar turner. I, in most cases, solve this problem on my own.

What can you make a homemade pulley from?

Of course, plywood. If you don’t have a lathe, you have to choose from the material at hand. The tree in this matter is not a reliable assistant - it can easily split. But dense plywood, quite adequately copes with this task.

Depending on the size of the pulley, I select plywood of optimal thickness. I cut out three circles from it, two of the same size, and the third is slightly smaller (by the thickness of the V-belt). Also, I immediately drill a hole in each of them - a hole - strictly, in the future they will be very useful.

I clean them as much as possible, first each separately. Moreover, on two identical circles, on the one hand I chamfer, at about 45 degrees. Stripping is easier and better - if you put a circle on a large nail.

I collect sanded plywood circles on a bolt with a wide washer placed on the head. The bolt itself, I try to choose such a diameter that it fits snugly into drilled hole. I collect circles in the sequence large - small - large. Large - chamfer inward.

I spread a smaller circle on both sides of the PVA, assemble the future pulley and tighten the bolt with a nut, with a wide washer underneath. And I leave the whole thing to dry well.

Although PVA glue perfectly holds the parts, for reliability they can be fastened together with self-tapping screws. Just screw them in, you need to pre-drilled thin holes.

Now the pulley needs to be slightly modified. If it is of small diameter, I insert it into a drill fixed on the table and first process it with a large file, remove the irregularities of the circle and smooth out the chamfers more. And I finish with sandpaper. If the pulley is large, I put it on the electric motor and carry out the processing directly on the spot.