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Adding handwheel to back pickup rail.


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I was wondering if anyone has added a handwheel to the pick up rail on a Standard frame?

Sadly, I only had room for an 8' frame in my quilting room. This meant that I could only get a Standard frame for

my 2019 Lenni. I would have loved the motorized advance, but that was not an option for me.

The problem I am having is that I need something better to help me advance the quilt. Especially on the back bar. 

Has anyone figured out a way to put a handwheel on that back bar?  I have sourced one, but can't figure out how to

put it on. It would really help!  Thanks!

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I added hand wheels to the rollers on the Ult 2 table I rebuilt 12 years ago.  The original Ult 2 table only had 3 rollers, I added the fourth "leveling" roller during the rebuild.  I completely redid the roller mount system, using pillow blocks to mount the rollers.  I welded extensions to the roller shafts on the right ends of the pick-up, backing, and quilt top rollers.  This extended the shafts about 1.5" to 2" beyond the pillow blocks, and provided the necessary shaft length to mount the wheels.

I'm not sure how much your roller shafts extend beyond their mountings so I don't know if you can do something similar without adding length to the shafts.  If not, you could do as I did, and have the lengths extended enough for hand wheels.  In order to avoid alignment problems, I welded 1/2" rod stock to the shafts rather than the 5/8" rod the roller shafts are made from.  I think the half inch size also made hand wheel selection easier.  I ended up using 4" hand wheels I bought from Grizzly Industrial.

While modification is involved, removing the 3 rollers in question from your table and taking them to a local welding shop shouldn't be too difficult.  It certainly would solve your problem.  Good luck.  Jim  

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  • 6 months later...

Hmmm...I was just researching the option of a hand wheel for my standard frame Lenni setup, to no avail, so thought I'd see if there were any comments here and this just happened to be at the top of the list of posts.
Seems that APQS makes one, but only for the Deluxe frame.
I guess we need to tell them that the standard frame also needs them? 

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If you look at my post from 2014 titled New Hand Wheels for Zelda you'll find a photo (DSC00019.JPG) that clearly shows my Ult 2 rollers with the hand wheels installed.  I'd have posted to it to bring it forward, but the thread has been archived so post can no longer be made.  You'll have to search for it.  Jim

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