Shopsmith Forums

Wore out an idler wheel on my recumbent exercise bike and didn't want to spend $70.00 for a new idler assembly that was out of stock anyway. I may have used every Shopsmith I own. I reused the bearings that were in the nylon? idler wheel and everything is back together. I know it needs a new belt and they are still in stock but I'm too cheap to give $95.00 until this one breaks. So far I've spent $6.00 on a piece of 2x4x4 Jatoba(Brazilian Cherry). Pictures below maybe. First attempt using the new forum style. Ahh, I like drag and drop for posting pics now, couldn't do that before, or at least I couldn't.

Well done,

I'm with you on this, love repairing stuff if I can.

What size is the axle bolt for the idler, I am wondering if a skateboard wheel would work in the unlikely event that the wooden one fails.

10mm. The bearings were NBK6000Z. Picture 39 shows the lip on one side of the wheel and I never saw anything close to that on the web and I didn't know if it was really needed. I can't imagine I'll ever peddle hard enough to ruin the wooden one, the Jatoba is really hard.

Okay, I am sure you are correct, not a high stress application.

The skate board bearings are only 8 MM so no go there.

This is my vote for Best Thread today!

Thanks

Very cool repair. Now I'd be tempted to replace the other parts with wooden ones.

Have you considered having some HDPE plastic on hand for such repairs?

This is water bottle cap and detergent bottle plastic. Lots of youtube videos on recycling this stuff. Shapes with wood working tools. Oh, it's cutting board plastic if you're you don't have time to collect recyclables.

Found some interesting videos and I might try single piece if I had one big enough but I don't think I would want to try a mixture after seeing how air bubbles could affect the outcome. I wonder how hot it can get before it starts to soften. Thanks for the suggestion.