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antique leather flat belt and cast iron pulley

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    Posted 3 years ago

    AnythingOb…
    (1778 items)

    I'll call this pair a genuine antique without much hesitation, even now in late 2021 would put us there, and the 1920's are an easily acceptable time frame for the pulley (at least) given its original duty history, which I happen to know. :-) Its exact original date and location are lost to time forever, but the pulley first served on the 'back end' of a very large electrical motor otherwise powering a pipe organ blower machine, to also operate a low voltage DC generator at the same time. It was actually a very commonplace sort of installation at least through the 1920's, even in city locations but especially rural ones, at least until rudimentary DC power rectifier units became practical alternatives in the 30's-40's.

    There's a tape measure for size reference, the iron pulley is about 6" across and doesn't have any foundry or maker's marks on it, just two setscrews, a keyway, and slight side drilling for balance. (1175 RPM would have been its speed, most likely) The belt doesn't have marks either, its seam is barely visible in the last two pics -- it is a lap-joint several inches long where the ends of the leather strip were cut to half thickness and glued back together -- really and truly "nearly seamlessly".

    I doubt the motor it was fixed to exists any more, this pair were found in a locker full of old organ parts where they'd been kept from someplace, sometime...us 'old organ guys' tend to hold onto odd stuff like that... <LOL> It'll probably get displayed around here literally hanging around amongst the rest of my mechanical curiosities...? :-)

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    Comments

    1. racer4four racer4four, 3 years ago
      cool. i love old machinery shops with remnants of these pulley systems.

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