New Delta Midi Lathe

A bit of soldering and a new knob

I got a new wood lathe! It won't be replacing my old Shopsmith 10ER per se, but will instead be an addition. It definitely has some advantages over the Shopsmith, like having a properly adjustable banjo, variable speed, and an indexing plate, all of which I intend to put to good use.

My friend actually found this lathe (along with a batch of other tool goodies), and he got a great buy on it. One of the reasons the price was right is that the variable speed knob had a minor electrical problem. Fortunately, I'd been waiting for a case just like this to get my soldering kit out and do a repair.

Simply put, it needed a new potentiometer (pot), which is the rotating device (see above image) that holds the variable speed knob on. Getting the new pot soldered in went well, and as this was my first electrical soldering experience, I'm looking forward to doing more of that in the future, which you'll no doubt read about here.

The new pot had a shorter shaft than the original though, and it also didn't have a flat on it, which the knob required. Some simple hand filing was enough to put a flat on the shaft, but after testing it, there just wasn't enough for the knob to grab onto and feel solid.

Instead of unsoldering that pot, trying to find one that matches the original exactly, buying it, waiting for it to arrive, and re-soldering it, I realized it would be a lot easier to just make a new knob. After all, the knob is cylindrical, and this is a lathe.

I believe it was a small piece of Sassafras I found for the knob. After testing which size hole properly fit the shaft of the pot, I drilled the blank, chucked it up in the lathe, and turned it down and shaped it to be pretty similar to the original knob. I got exceptionally lucky with a dark line in the wood that works perfectly as an indicator on the knob!

I'm currently making a stand for the lathe, so that will be a future post, hopefully with better pictures.