Craftsman Lathe Model 351.217150 parts

Joe Snow

New member
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4
Location
Calumet Township
I have a Craftsman Lathe Model 351.217150 that I bought from my brother last May. He owned it for 10 years but never used it for various reasons. I’ve been using it pretty steadily for about 4-5 hours a day since I brought it home learning to turn bowls. A few days ago the fan that cools the motor broke up. The cause was the shaft that the two bearings ran out wore out enough so the fan rubbed against the housing and finally failed. Anyone know someone who is parting out their lathe? I’ve been looking for a fan with similar dimensions with no luck.
Thanks,
Joe
 
How badly was the break-up? Is it something you can piece together to get some accurate measurements and pics of? It may be possible to reproduce the part via 3d printing.

BTW...Welcome to the forum!
 
No problem.

I was looking at the exploded diagram of that lathe on the parts site, it's a bit confusing, but it looks to be a little squirrel cage type of fan that is maybe powered by the belt or a gear?

Just wondering if it would be possible to leave the fan blade out of that unit and mount an external fan somehow to pull or push air through?
 
No problem.

I was looking at the exploded diagram of that lathe on the parts site, it's a bit confusing, but it looks to be a little squirrel cage type of fan that is maybe powered by the belt or a gear?

Just wondering if it would be possible to leave the fan blade out of that unit and mount an external fan somehow to pull or push air through?
back when Variable Frequency drives were just coming into popular use one of the problems was getting enough cooling for the motor when the motors were running at low speed and the solution was to take off the fan from the motors and mount a small separately driven fan in it place. I believe for very slow speed in industrial applications this is still done.
 
I thought about using an external fan temporarily, but I would be concerned with the fan motor sucking in dust and burning up the motor.
You bring up a good question that I was thinking about. The fan doesn’t blow on the motor it draws warm air from the motor and blows it out the back...and the motor is constant speed. I was wondering if the fan is necessary. When it was running there wasn’t much air being pushed out the back.
 
I wonder if you left the top cover off, built a little shroud to a fan standing at the lathe's end and blowing away (pulling heat) if it would keep it cool. Maybe run it without and using a thermal heat gun check the temps then run with the fan and see if it is noticeably different. I by the way have a duplicator for that lathe. Would have to check, think all of the parts are still there. No go on the fan, shot my lathe like yours with a couple deer slugs and then scrapped it.
 
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