Three dollars won't get you much these days, but I was able to get the important parts for my secondary winder, via an old paper shredder from Goodwill. The winder works quite well except I need to better support the far end bearing. I removed the motor and the first reducing gear. Since they both had the same sized gear, I reinstalled the motor on the other side of the case such that its gear took the place of the first reducer. This gives a sufficient output range of rpm. You can see the hole where the motor used to be on the right side of the gearbox.
The hex rod came from the shredder, the bearings came from a dead fusing unit on a large laser printer at work. Liberal use of ribbon bushing (masking tape) made it all fit fine. I did have to drill and add a brass rod "cotter pin" through it to get enough torque.
The reverse button of the shredder is a momentary switch, which placed on the floor makes for a lovely control. When I wanted to change speed I still had to stop, crank the variac, then kick it back on. Once I got brave enough for high speed, the initial startup got kind of exciting. Once I accidentally stepped on the "forward" half of the switch, which IS NOT MOMENTARY. So it stuck on backwards, and in my single second of panic, about 15-20 turns came loose. Other than that it went pretty well, except that varnish SUCKS and I laid on too much at once. So the finish blows, but next time I'm using Envirotex two-part resin, which I can lay on thick, nasty, and most importantly - once. I have some other weird resins too, but you can get Envirotex conveniently in the flooring section at Menard's. Here's the finished secondary, with some closeups of the crappy finish.
Here's my puny topload, a 6 inch "steel" gazing ball from Ebay. Maybe I'm stupid about steel, but I thought magnets were attracted to it. Or maybe this is a magic steel, the kind that can you only get from buying the cheapest thing on Ebay. I ran some NST arcs over it to see how the (alleged) "powder coat" would fare. Not very well... I see a wire wheel operation in my future.
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