Hey folks,

My seamless drive belt on a Bradley is squealing when put under tension. It seems the glue is slowly coming off and adhering to the drive wheel making it sticky. Anyone else experience this or have thoughts? is it too loose? 

Thanks,

Sounds like you need to change to a belt and spliced join. 

Just because it feels stick doesn't mean there's good traction between the drive wheel and belt. The adhesive is probably maybe providing lubrication making the belt slip. That's just a guess but even not very tight belts don't tend to squeal so much a stroke from a bar of soap won't fix.

I run a single V belt on my 50lb. Little Giant without trouble.

Frosty The Lucky.

There's plenty of traction. If anything I need less traction. It's actually running really responsively. The belt adhesive is warming up I think and being deposited on the drive wheel- coating it and making it really grippy. When I scrub it off it is quiet and runs great still, but slowly the adhesive comes off again and the cycle continues. I'm not sure if the motor pulley is what's heating up the belt. 

Is there adhesive on both sides of the belt? Can you put it on the outside so it doesn't come in contact with the pully? The pully shouldn't be heating up at all unless it's slipping. 

Frosty The Lucky.

21 hours ago, Frosty said:

I run a single V belt

Same here only it's a 30 pound Star, going strong for the past 20 years or so. Now watch the next time I turn it on the belt will break. Seems like when I brag about something the gremlins say oh ya watch this.

Adhesive? You gooped up your belt? Clean everything. Both pulleys, idler and belt. Try acetone or denatured alchol. If that fails make up a new belt. In my experience it all works best when a clean belt is running on clean pulleys. Belts will heat, it happens, but should not be enough to be an issue. I never got my bradley to run right on the factory set up with the teeny motor pulley directly on the motor. Switching to a jackstand made a world of difference. Slack belt systems work best when the driving pulley is near the same size or bigger than the driven pulley.

I didn't put anything on the belt. But there's something getting tacky that that's in the belt there's between the layers. It's a seamless belt from baltimore belting. 

It seems to be working beautifully otherwise- even with using the smaller motor pulley. I did clean everything- got it all nice and clean with acetone, but slowly the problem developed again. I did put a new rubber brake on it, which stops the whole system on a dime. Maybe it's these braking moments that is causing something...? Is is bad to have the mechanisms stopping too quickly?

On 9/19/2020 at 5:22 PM, Frosty said:

Is there adhesive on both sides of the belt? Can you put it on the outside so it doesn't come in contact with the pully? The pully shouldn't be heating up at all unless it's slipping. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Not adhesive really- whatever is holding the plys of the belting together. Both sides are symmetrical.

The heat on the factory system is a result of the belt stopping on the small pulley. When it sits stationary, it gets hot. By switching to a larger drive pulley the belt remains in motion with more contact on the driving pulley. You may have the wrong composition of belt. These systems are tough on belts in a way that static pulleys won't be. I run what the farm supply calls "bailer belt", or "tobacco belt", which is a canvas/rubber belt, spliced with alligator lacing. A friend of mine runs a quite large Beaudry on a canvass belt. All of these were meant to run on leather belting, which was all that was available in the day. 

Interesting. Sounds like maybe I need a different material then. Thanks. 

I run a 300 and a 500 Bradley guided helve both using the canvas rubber belts already mentioned.  I am using the 8 inch diameter motor pulleys recommend by Bradley and i don't have any issues with belts heating. You need to have the belt tight enough without any load that it will stay in motion but not grab the drive pulley. Others, i turn the motor off between heats to avoid getting a hot spot in the belt. I do find that extra tacky belts can be helpful so i apply honey when needed. If they are too tacky dust with baby powder.

Alligator splice, that's the term lost in my head dent! 

On 9/20/2020 at 3:46 PM, edennis said:

Not adhesive really- whatever is holding the plys of the belting together.

Adhesive IS what's holding the plies together. 

It gums up with the leather side on the pully? I don't know what type adhesive would soak THROUGH leather. 

I'd have to say Patrick and Jason have  actual experience with your hammer and belts. Mine is really old times and logic, certainly not current. By logic I'll illustrate with. seamless belts gumming the pully after running. What in a belt could cause gumming? The only thing could be what's sticking the two layers of belt together. No? Perhaps the place where the belt is joined to make it a closed belt unless it's a mechanical joint.

This would be a mighty small exposure to gum up the drive pully without slinging goop everywhere. Adhesives work best in very thin layers so it'd be highly unlikely they use so much adhesive it would gum up the drive pully without the joint failing. 

Patrick: When you say you use "honey" as a belt dressing, is that a general term for belt dressing our real out of a Bee honey? Baby powder to de-gum works IF it's the old evil talcum powder. 

We touched the turning belt with a bar of hand soap and if it was too tacky touched it with a stick of soap stone. Just a brief touch did it, the turning belt and pullys distributed it in a few seconds. I've never tried it on a flat belt drive but it's what I"d probably try first. Not knowing of better, of course. 

Frosty The Lucky.

On 9/22/2020 at 1:04 PM, patrick said:

 i turn the motor off between heats to avoid getting a hot spot in the belt. I do find that extra tacky belts can be helpful so i apply honey when needed. If they are too tacky dust with baby powder.

I do turn it off between uses. The motor pulley is maybe 4" so I'm guessing that's the culprit. The problem is that if I go much tighter it begins to engage the drive wheel, like you mentioned. Honestly I wouldn't mind the tacky belt and pulley if I knew it wasn't harming the belt and it wasn't so obnoxious to be standing next to it while its running. 

Edited October 9, 20205 yr by Mod30
Trim quote.

I dont recall the motor pully size for you machine. Mine are 8 inch. I know of another smaller Bradley that was set up with a jack shaft a d uses a pulley in the 20 to 30 inch diameter. This set up is more loke what would have been used if the hammer were connected to a line shaft. This large shaft pulley has the advantage of giving you nearly instant single blows which is tough to do with the small pullys.

My motor pulley is only 5" diameter.

Edited October 9, 20205 yr by Mod30
Remove excessive quote.

Id try a bigger pulley and some honey.

My driving pulley is just a hair under 12 inches. The driven pulley (on the hammer) is 14". It would be ideal for the driving pulley to be bigger than the driven. This helps keep the belt moving, rather than hanging stationary on a moving pulley. When i tried the direct drive I went through a few pulleys from 3 1/2- 5 inch diameter. None worked for long without eating up belts. Sadley, flat pulleys are not terribly easy to find so the one i am using was a compromise.

A flat belt drive pulley just needs to be crowned a little,

pretty easy to make in a lathe.

Multi ply conveyor belting or power transmission belting works much better than leather.

In my drive design the drive pulley is smaller and directly under the crank pulley.

The belt hangs idle under the drive pulley until the clutch is engaged.

+1 for a bar of soap. Worked like a charm- plus it smells like mint now.