Edison drive belts - which is better ??

[briankeith]

I have two Edisons - a Banner Home and a Triumph. Both (replacement brown leather) belts keep slipping worse than my Mini-Cooper in a blizzard. Opinions & Sources needed. Leather or rubber? Cutting and gluing brown leather or just buy a rubber belt pre-sized for a particular machine? I know leather looks original but slip slip slip if not cut and glued perfectly. Plus I play my machines a lot and the leather repro belts seem to stretch until they start slipping...... Suggestions? Leather or rubber? Rubber band?

[RAK402]

I learned from Benjamin (the Victrolaguy) to use rubber O-rings for belts. I have been doing this for a couple of months now.

You can actually purchase them from Home Depot that are intended to fit a GE under-sink water filter. These fit the Edison Standard perfectly.

I just got a basket-case Home Model B working, and used a length of O-Ring material that I purchased from Mini-Steam (for belts to drive small/toy tools with toy, stationary steam engines). You cut it to length, then glue the ends with thick CA. I have had one in service for about three weeks now. I know from using these with steam, that they eventually rot and have to be replaced, but that takes several months.

On both the Standard and the Home, the belt tensioner is not used (I actually removed it from the basket-case Home).

They don't look authentic, but they do work extremely well.

In action on the Standard D:

http://youtu.be/wwR8ffOabD4

In action with steam engines (hope this is not too far off topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSxpttob ... A&index=40

Some of the belts in the steam video are still the spring steel type, but most are the rubber O-Ring type. The O-Rings grip better and do not have to be pulled nearly as tight in order to not slip.

[Le0]

I cut my belts from a piece of leather coat. I stretch the strip well then measure the lenght I need by wrapping it around the pulleys on the machine then I bevel the edges and I glue them with cyanoacrylate gel. I also squeez the joint in a C clamp so it is no thicker than the rest of the belt.
I never had any slipping problems and my strips are very straight unlike the stuff you can buy from phono parts suppliers.

[Phonofreak]

I get my belting material from Ron Sitko. The leather is very supple and pliable. I cut the belt to length depending on the machine with a ¼ overlap. Like what Leo said, I bevel the ends to make a scarf joint. I use contact cement on the ends. Then I squeeze together with a needle nose pliers. In the Complete Talking Machine by Eric Reiss, there is an article on how to replace a belt.
Harvey Kravitz

[RefSeries]

APSCO sell packages of leather belting at http://www.antiquephono.com/edmotor.htm, complete with contact cement and a razor blade to scarf the ends. I try to get a longer joint, say about 15mm, which seems to work better. On the recording phonos I use silicone or Viton O rings, which can be had from http://www.polymax.co.uk/o-rings/. They have a wide variety of sizes and work well. They also give some cushion against motor noise.

Hope this helps

Keith

[fran604g]

If I may add my $.02...

I bought some of the leather belting that Duane at Wyatt's Musical Americana sells. At first I thought I wouldn't like it because it was slightly curved (along the parallel long edges). I followed his instructions http://www.wyattsmusical.com/belts.html; stretching it, finding the length, scarfing the ends and gluing it, etc. BUT, Instead of using a scarf joint I used a lap joint because, for me, it was easier to get right with a straight razor lying flat on the belt to remove the leather for the joint, working AWAY from your fingers. Also, I used Aleene's Tacky Glue, instead of contact cement because I have a lot of it on hand for re-coning woofers.

http://www.michaels.com/Aleene's%C2%AE- ... lt,pd.html

I'm VERY happy with the results.

Like Phonofreak, I pinched the joint together with flat needlenose pliers to not only ensure a positive contact for the glue but to also promote a consistent thickness at the joint.

NOTE: The image below is leftover belting that I thought was too curved. The photo of the belt on my Amberola D X was the very first belt I made. It looks like it is coming apart, but I assure you, it isn't. I just wound up with a slight gap in the joint. I subsequently learned to cut the joint about ⅜" long so I could fine tune it lengthwise to make it shorter if I needed and, no more gap.

I've done 4 belts in the past month this way. My Standard A, Home A, Amberola D X, and Graphophone Q. No slippage on any of them and, incidentally, the shiny side that ends up "out" has a cracked appearance that looks aged. I think that's neat.

My point is this is so very easy, and being as simple as this is, I personally see no reason to use a rubber O ring, and it looks right.

Of course, YMMV,

Fran