I have a General 260 reeves drive lathe I recently had to take apart in order to get it into my basement because it was so heavy. I was less than confident I would be able to put all of the pulleys, belts, motor, shafts etc and have it function let alone have the reeves drive work the way it should. I wondered what speed it might be actually rotating at the various speed settings.
I picked up this $12 (free shipping) digital tachometer from ebay and it arrived yesterday. It came with a roll of reflective tape so the laser would have something to register (reflect) against for each revolution and I have to say that it works great (the lathe and the tachomoter). On #1 it clocks in on average 400 rpm just the way it should.
