The Benchmaster mill came with both a horizontal setup as well as a vertical. The spindle speeds sem fine for the vertical mills but it's to fast for spinning the larger diameter cutters used in horizontal milling. My mill is strictly horizontal so I need to slow the spindle speeds down a bit. A few years ago I had planned to buy a 3ph motor and run it with a VFD, that still hasn't happened. The other day I realized I had everything I would need to build a countershaft and nothing but time to waste 
The bearings I had on hand had a smaller ID than the pulleys I had on hand so the plan is to turn some plugs for the ends of the spindle and then plug weld them in place. Because I turned the spindle between center I will be able to turn the plugs between centers to make sure everything stays concentric, that's the plan anyways. I'll leave enough sticking out that you will be able to cut of the welds and replace the bearing if need be, I doubt I will be the one cursing the weld job at that point anyways
![[Image: image.jpg]](http://s23.postimg.org/3swcimbez/image.jpg)
![[Image: image.jpg]](http://s23.postimg.org/w4hwfnvbf/image.jpg)
The motor was removed and will reside on the jack shaft. There will be an adjustable over camming mechanism for tensioning the CS similar to what you see on South Bend lathes. I am even going to paint the countershaft boring old grey to match the mill, even though I got a few cans of Chevy orange left
I'll post a few more photos as things progress.
P.s. I should mention I used my own scientific method for calculating the final spindle speeds. It involves staring at things for a bit and thinking about what I was going to have for lunch, The answer I arrived at was... probably be good enough. I can mentor you on this method Tom, no need for a calculator and it's almost never what you expect it to be in the end so it keeps ya guessing
The bearings I had on hand had a smaller ID than the pulleys I had on hand so the plan is to turn some plugs for the ends of the spindle and then plug weld them in place. Because I turned the spindle between center I will be able to turn the plugs between centers to make sure everything stays concentric, that's the plan anyways. I'll leave enough sticking out that you will be able to cut of the welds and replace the bearing if need be, I doubt I will be the one cursing the weld job at that point anyways
The motor was removed and will reside on the jack shaft. There will be an adjustable over camming mechanism for tensioning the CS similar to what you see on South Bend lathes. I am even going to paint the countershaft boring old grey to match the mill, even though I got a few cans of Chevy orange left
I'll post a few more photos as things progress.
P.s. I should mention I used my own scientific method for calculating the final spindle speeds. It involves staring at things for a bit and thinking about what I was going to have for lunch, The answer I arrived at was... probably be good enough. I can mentor you on this method Tom, no need for a calculator and it's almost never what you expect it to be in the end so it keeps ya guessing
Shawn, proud to be a member of MetalworkingFun Forum since Nov 2013.