Drive / contact wheels

[Steve Nunn]

After a lot of re-search :-) I am about to start making my bench grinder.

Question:
Has any one tried using inner tube (tight fitting) glued using a contact glue (eg Evostick) onto machined wheels which any success?

Current plan is to use bar stock aluminium to produce the rollers (between 2and 3 inch diam). And I was wondering if inner tube would stay on the wheel or wether it would come loose and break free. I could also knurl the wheels for extra grip.

Is it worth the effort or doesnt it really matter if the wheels have a rubber cover or not?

Thanks for any info.
Steve

[Colin KC]

Steve, contact wheels would benefit from a rubber "cover" (reduces "bump")

But the drive wheel shouldn't require it, you might consider a crown on the idle wheel & the ones I got from Rob Frink have turning lines on them (purposely made that way) this, I assume aids in gripping the belt.


Hope that helps

[Steve Nunn]

What do mean by turning lines?

I got the pulleys turned and bearings fitted. This week I hope to get the platten made, the tracking adjuster and possibly the frame built (might be being a bit optomistic here)

I am taking quite a few pictures, if it turns out I will post them as a tutorial as a way of giving something back to the forums.

Thanks

Steve

[gb6491]

Steve,

That is good advice Colin gives.

If you are only going to be grinding on the platen none of the wheels need to have a rubber surface.

Grinding against a contact wheel; you would most certainly benefit from a rubber surface.

Instead of trying to make a contact wheel and covering it yourself; why not try adapting a fairly inexpensive (when compared to commercial contact wheels [except for Grizzly's]) caster wheel.
This is the route this fellow (http://home.earthlink.net/~foxeye1/beltgrind.html) went.
Here is something I read from him in a Google group:
"There are many ways to make a suitable contact wheel. I too had
sticker shock when I priced them. I found a cast aluminum caster wheel
that measured 2" x 8" , but the contact area of the wheel was only 1
1/2". So I just machined off the excess rubber until I OBtained a
wheel with the proper dimensions. For the drive wheel I machined all
of the rubber off the aluminum hub. These wheels were orignally used
for making steel tubular scaffolding mobile. Paid $10.00 for the both
of them. The rest of my grinder parts were home brew.
Although the images on my website of my grinder show and list it as a
60 x 1 1/2, I have since made a mod to allow it to use 72" belts with
the addition of another support arm and idler wheel, but mainly use it
with the 60" belts of which I have a lifetime supply I think."

The only downside I can think of is that the caster may require some trueing up. There is some discussion of that here. (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.crafts.metalworking/browse_thread/thread/b63ee78678f4f7d7/5bcfcf3354a9f800?q=contact+wheels&rnum=4#5bcfcf3354a9f800)

The Grizzly 10" contact wheel (pn: G9242) is about $65 US at http://grizzly.com/. I believe you can order the 8" wheel as a replacement part for the one on the stock G1015 knifemaker for much less.

In regards to drive and idler wheels here is some good information:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202072&highlight=homemade+grinder

http://beaumontmetalworks.com/price.html (I think these are what Colin has)

http://www.belttechnologies.com/designinfo/crown.html

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.crafts.metalworking/browse_thread/thread/4b5810e2b00a6202/b1d4ea2338572a9a?q=proper+belt+tracking&rnum=12#b1d4ea2338572a9a

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.crafts.metalworking/browse_thread/thread/d00cdc3c2ee29668/bf5c6ee67bf0afb3?q=tracking+pulley&rnum=3#bf5c6ee67bf0afb3

I look forward to seeing your completed machine. :)

Regards,
Greg

[Stuart Ackerman]

the biggest two are trolley wheels, the next two custom made sheel shafts, the last nylon, all covered with 90 shore neoprene rubber... 12, 8, 6, 4, 2 inch diameters


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/zackerty/DSCF0005wheels.jpg

[Otto]

Wow that is a lot of information in one post :-)
I tried a nylon wheel as a drive wheel but it warped under preassure. I could not get it to stick to the driveshaft without warping. Got a alu wheel now, much better.
OØ

[Steve Nunn]

Not aure what happend to my other reply, it seems to have gone missing, must have pressed the wrong button.

Thanks for the links, I though I had seen all the links on the web for grinders (should have done the amount of time I have spent planning this).

I got the Farnells catelogue the other week they have quite a selection of casters, that I was looking at as potential contact wheels.

At the moment I gong for the platen as it is fairly straight forward. For the contact wheel, another idea I have is to try my hand at casting it out of aluminium or cast iron (probably ali).

So far I have the burner built, I have the cylnder for the foundry, and most of the items for the refractory. Should have it built in the next month or so, although I probably wont be in a position to use it for a couple of months.

Has anyone actually tried gluing several layers of inner tube onto a contact wheel?

Or is there somewhere where you can send a machined up wheel and get a suitable coating put on the outside of the wheel?

Hopefully there will be a picture here:
http://img216.echo.cx/img216/2041/img03611fa.th.jpg (http://img216.echo.cx/my.php?image=img03611fa.jpg)
The wheel you can see is going to be the tracking wheel. I thought about tapering the side of the wheel with a 1-2 deg angle, but decided against it.

If I have any problems with the tracking I will machine another wheel with a taper on.

in the back ground you can see some of the other wheels for the plattern. I am also making some smaller wheels (not sure if the will work, or wether the diam will be too small for the curvature of the belt), the plan is to use them grind the end of pipes ready for welding (if that makes sense).

Steve

[Stuart Ackerman]

Your tracking wheel must be slightly oval to track from side to side...
edges smaller than the inside bit... hope this is clear?

[Steve Nunn]

After i wrote that relpy, I read some of the links posted earlier. One of them was stating that if the tracking roller doesnt have a crown, then the belt will move laterally if you are grinding and moving the workpiece across the belt side to side.

So it looks like its getting a crown.........

I'm off work this week, loads of jobs to do but I am trying to do a couple of hours each day on the belt grinder, however Im off to put a motor bike back together now.

Steve