I bought a Jet 1442 about a year or so ago and, for the most part have been pleased with it. I turned the handled for the Reeves Drive around to get it out of the way and have replaced the bearing on the head shaft (it sounded noisy, but was a loose pulley and not the bearings), but other than that done nothing, until this past weekend.
Now for the question. The Reeves Drive has quite a bit of travel left when you put it in the last detent (450 RPM). The belt got stuck in the pulley and did an auto adjust to about 2,000RPM, instead of the expected 450RPM, to the determent of a floresant tube when a piece of bark hit it. So, while I had it down getting the belt unstuck, I decided to drill two more detents on the slow side of 450. Seems to work great (I have not figured out exactly what speeds I now have yet - I had turning to do!) but it seems to have slowed the lathe down without any loss in power. Is there any reason I should not run at those new lower speeds?
Deb