The Armour Archive

(not sure if this is the right place to post this)

I'd like to get some more use out of my bench mounted wire wheel (and eventually polishing wheels). Right now, I have a small 6" bench grinder:

https://www.ryobitools.com/power-tools/ ... etails/326

I took the guards off and attached a 5" wire wheel designed for a drill. It's been working fine for a couple years. But, I find that I can't reach all the spots on armor that I want to. I've seen a few pictures of similar grinders, but with longer arms (arbors?). I'm not sure if these are adapter kits or different manufacturers / kinds of grinders. I know getting a 10" grinder just means a larger wheel, but what I want is more depth between the wheel and the grinder motor casing.

Home Depot is where I got the bench grinder from, but they don't seem to have anything that I was looking for. Help!

this is a bit of an aggressive way to solve the problem, but I have been happy with mine

http://www.grizzly.com/products/Knife-B ... ffer/G1015

Wade

There's also Polar Bear Forge's Grinder in a Box kit - http://www.polarbearforge.com/grinder_k ... kdown.html

You said you have a grinder, but specially-made tools are quite handy.

There's also this, which gives you an 8" reach, but you supply the motor.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/Buffing-Assembly/W1681

http://www.harborfreight.com/8-inch-ben ... 94327.html

I know- Its harbor freight.
But I use them, and they do last a few years.

They have or had one with longer shafts than this at both locations I go to, but I can't seem to find it on the site.

-Badger-

For my buffer, I use a HF 110V 3HP motor (yeah, I know the math doesn't work out right for that) with an arbor adapter on it. I then stack two of the HF 8" spiral sewn cotton buffing wheels on it to get a 1" thick wheel. This gives me a very powerful (and dangerous!) buffer that is hard to slow down. It once caught on fire while I was buffing, BTW.

I would like to have a longer arbor, though.

- Scott

Clang from Clang Armoury hooked me up with this place. I order almost all my sanding and polishing gear from them. Cheap prices, usually free UPS shipping on orders over $50, and usually ships within 24 hours of order during the work week.

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRHM

Here is an economical belt sander that I own and use all the time. Not one of the fancy ones, but works well for most all armoring jobs.

http://www.use-enco.com/1/1/34901-1sm-k ... nders.html

Vermilion, is that backer on the belt removable, so it can be used as a slack belt sander?

Thanks for all the ideas. I ended up with a cheap and workable solution; threaded rod and a jointing nut to extend the arbor on my current grinder. Had to order it online, but it was still only around $25 for a 3 foot rod (enough for 3 extensions @ 12" each), 3 jointing nuts, and shipping. Used it a couple times so far, aside from the 1-2 seconds of wobble on first startup (unbalanced weight/length) it works awesome!

Knight Sir James wrote:Used it a couple times so far, aside from the 1-2 seconds of wobble on first startup (unbalanced weight/length) it works awesome!

this scares me a bit, most grinders/buffers are spinning in the neighborhood of 3000 rpm. you say it wobbles a bit and you are relying on a threaded coupler to absorb that wobble while pressure is being applied to it while buffing. i would be afraid of the whole thing giving out and quite literally blowing up in your face. they make purpose built buffers with long arms i know they are a bit on the expensive side but im sure it is cheaper than a trip to the ER or worse

Safety 3rd!

rotccapt wrote:

Knight Sir James wrote:Used it a couple times so far, aside from the 1-2 seconds of wobble on first startup (unbalanced weight/length) it works awesome!

this scares me a bit, most grinders/buffers are spinning in the neighborhood of 3000 rpm. you say it wobbles a bit and you are relying on a threaded coupler to absorb that wobble while pressure is being applied to it while buffing. i would be afraid of the whole thing giving out and quite literally blowing up in your face. they make purpose built buffers with long arms i know they are a bit on the expensive side but im sure it is cheaper than a trip to the ER or worse

I admire James' ingenuity but I too would add a word of caution. Not sure how thick your threaded rod is (or what thread) but that stuff is not as strong as a solid shaft of the same diameter. This is because ,strength wise, it is essentially the diameter of the minor root or valley of the screw pitch. As you have found it flexes. That is bad. Threaded rod and screws in general tend to break at that minor root when side loaded, eventually. Especially if those threads are sharp cut in the valley. If that happens when under load it could be quite spectactular!

I would reccomend at a minimum adding a close fitting tube to the outside of the long part of the shaft to limit flex. Tighten it between the coupling nuts so that side loads are taken by the tube, not the threads. But that still has potential to break under load.

What would be much safer would be a shaft adapter similar to http://www.caswellplating.com/buffing-p ... -hand.html. Not very expensive. Available in left and right side versions in the popular shaft sizes.

I've been using threaded rod and a coupler nut on my 10" grinder for years with no problems. Only extended the right hand side because 1" left hand thread threaded rod is Hella expensive.

Get a wire wheel made for a 6" bench grinder. Make sure it's fine not coarse.

rotccapt wrote:

Knight Sir James wrote:Used it a couple times so far, aside from the 1-2 seconds of wobble on first startup (unbalanced weight/length) it works awesome!

this scares me a bit, most grinders/buffers are spinning in the neighborhood of 3000 rpm. you say it wobbles a bit and you are relying on a threaded coupler to absorb that wobble while pressure is being applied to it while buffing. i would be afraid of the whole thing giving out and quite literally blowing up in your face. they make purpose built buffers with long arms i know they are a bit on the expensive side but im sure it is cheaper than a trip to the ER or worse

It only wobbles for a second or two while the motor gets itself up to speed. Once it's at normal operating speed, there is no wobble at all. If I figure out the weight and build a counter-weight to put on the opposite side, I'm sure it wouldn't even wobble at all. It's on my list of "maybe laters" since I don't use it very much.

Johann ColdIron wrote:I admire James' ingenuity but I too would add a word of caution. Not sure how thick your threaded rod is (or what thread) but that stuff is not as strong as a solid shaft of the same diameter. This is because ,strength wise, it is essentially the diameter of the minor root or valley of the screw pitch. As you have found it flexes. That is bad. Threaded rod and screws in general tend to break at that minor root when side loaded, eventually. Especially if those threads are sharp cut in the valley. If that happens when under load it could be quite spectactular!

I would reccomend at a minimum adding a close fitting tube to the outside of the long part of the shaft to limit flex. Tighten it between the coupling nuts so that side loads are taken by the tube, not the threads. But that still has potential to break under load.

What would be much safer would be a shaft adapter similar to http://www.caswellplating.com/buffing-p ... -hand.html. Not very expensive. Available in left and right side versions in the popular shaft sizes.

Thanks Johann. The threaded rod is identical in diameter and thread pitch to the main part of the grinder itself. I think it's 1/2" but just guessing from memory. It's solid rod, just threaded on the outside. It doesn't flex in motion, only on start-up for a second or two. It gets almost no load at all, I let the tool do the work, so there is very minimal pressure on the wheel. I'm not sure what you mean by "Tighten it between the coupling nuts so that side loads are taken by the tube, not the threads", but maybe I can take a video of it and post to show the startup wobble and how it runs at speed, and in action.

Mad Matt wrote:I've been using threaded rod and a coupler nut on my 10" grinder for years with no problems. Only extended the right hand side because 1" left hand thread threaded rod is Hella expensive.

Get a wire wheel made for a 6" bench grinder. Make sure it's fine not coarse.

Thanks Matt! That's what I've got, 6" wire wheel, either fine or extra fine (whichever I was able to find). Leaves a nice matte finish without wheel marks. Mine's a 6" grinder with 6" wire wheel, same idea though.

Have a picture of your setup? Curious if we did the same thing.