Bench grinders crap?

Are all small bench grinder wheels crap nowadays? Bought two new wheels for my old 6" B&D bench grinder from the local hardware store. When mounted, b oth wheels are nearly 1/16" out of true both side to side and OD. Figured m aybe the flanges were bad so I turned some new one from round stock to matc h the ID of the wheels. Mounted them and they were still horribly out. My f langes are jam on, it's the center holes in the wheels that are so bad. Bou ght a new grinder from HF, yea, I know, cheap China crap, and it is just as bad right out of the box.I just want a general purpose grinder/wire wheel set up that will run decently true without shaking the whole bench, not a t ool grinder. Problems seem to be the wheels, not the grinders themselves.Su ggestions?

Reply to
Gerry
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Gerry fired this volley in news:9f0c15f7-886f-4e1e- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

The center hole wouldn't affect lateral runout. The O.D. problem is common even with 'good' wheels, unless they fit really tightly on the arbors.

Dress them! (But first, you need to figure out that side-to-side runout. It's sure not caused by the centerholes being wrong!

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

The Norton wheels (aluminum oxide) are pretty good, good enough that you can quickly dress them to run true radially. Mine, on a Delta 6" variable-speed bench grinder, don't have any significant side-to-side irregularities.

I use the dry grinder for the initial shaping of woodturning tools before committing them to final sharpening on a wet wheel, so I want them running pretty true. I've taken the further step of mounting the dry grinder wheels on bushings that I get from Craft Supplies USA

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One thing you should do before you blame the wheels is check the shaft on your grinder for its own runout.

Tom

Reply to
tdacon

or my old 6" B&D bench grinder from the local hardware store. When mounted, both wheels are nearly 1/16" out of true both side to side and OD. Figured maybe the flanges were bad so I turned some new one from round stock to ma tch the ID of the wheels. Mounted them and they were still horribly out. My flanges are jam on, it's the center holes in the wheels that are so bad. B ought a new grinder from HF, yea, I know, cheap China crap, and it is just as bad right out of the box.I just want a general purpose grinder/wire whee l set up that will run decently true without shaking the whole bench, not a tool grinder. Problems seem to be the wheels, not the grinders themselves. Suggestions?

I would take the wheel back to the local hardware store. Maybe get a coupl e of wheels off Ebay. The grinders Harbor Freight sells are not too bad, o r at least mine is qkay. But the wheels they come with are crap. They do not cut well .

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

My Ryobi 8" on a Grizzly pedestal stand runs smooth as silk. Not expensive.

The wheels from McMaster are not all that cheap, but decent tools never are..

--sp

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

or my old 6" B&D bench grinder from the local hardware store. When mounted, both wheels are nearly 1/16" out of true both side to side and OD. Figured maybe the flanges were bad so I turned some new one from round stock to ma tch the ID of the wheels. Mounted them and they were still horribly out. My flanges are jam on, it's the center holes in the wheels that are so bad. B ought a new grinder from HF, yea, I know, cheap China crap, and it is just as bad right out of the box.I just want a general purpose grinder/wire whee l set up that will run decently true without shaking the whole bench, not a tool grinder. Problems seem to be the wheels, not the grinders themselves. Suggestions?

Shafts on both grinders are true. Installed just the flanges on the shaft w ith a spacer between the and they run true. Installed a new Norton 3X wheel and with the flanges I made or the Raptor flanges and it runs true. Replac e the Norton with any of the other hardware store wheels and the problems r eturn

Reply to
Gerry

Well, that seems to tell the story, then, doesn't it?

Tom

Reply to
tdacon

On 08/31/2015 10:40 AM, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote: ...

Certainly can be if they're not perpendicular to the faces...and given his later report when went w/ Norton instead of no-name, appears clearly the issue. Of course, they _could_ be trued up, too, and then sleeved for diameter.

Reply to
dpb

dpb fired this volley in news:ms26mc$cha$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Sorry, no. OR he's confused about what it means to have the flanges tightened down properly.

The flanges register to the shoulder on the arbor. If the stone's hole were cut so 'diagonally' that it couldn't seat on the flanges, then tightening them down until they seated flush to the wheel surfaces would break the wheel.

The radial run-out is probably the wheel. So what? That's what wheel- dressers are for.

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Have you checked the shaft for runout ? I've had a bi**h of a time trying to get my HF 8" to run smoothly . Turns out the shaft is bent just a bit , like .010" runout . I also turned new flanges , which like you didn't help .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

"Terry Coombs" fired this volley in news:ms2dbm$bfg$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

It's funny, I have a 'big' (8", belt-driven) grinder, too, but I have an old Dayton 1/4 HP bench grinder.

It's almost exactly 50 years old. My dad bought it in 1965. Except for replacing the deteriorated cord and the worn-out toggle switch on it, not ONE thing has ever been done to it, and it still runs accurately in both planes.

SOME day, I might even have to replace the bearings!

Lloyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Years ago as an apprentice boy I was taught that the first thing to do after mounting a grinding wheel was to dress the wheel.

Reply to
John B.

So, you bought trash and it wasn't satisfactory. You bought quality and it was satisfactory.

Seems to be a lesson hidden in there somewhere.

Reply to
John B.

"Local hardware store" is not same as HF. I think that it's generally safe to assume that the l-h-s stuff is not trash.

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

Another potential problem is the SAE shaft and metric wheel difference. Tape up the shaft to true the oversized center hole of the wheel, then dress the mounted wheel to round/concentric.

Even HF wheels don't mount tightly to HF shafts, and both are semi-metrical objets d' art. Amazing!

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I suggest that if grinding wheels sell for $10.00 your local hardware shop owner can figure out the difference between $4.00 and $8.00 wholesale costs.

Reply to
John B.

Well ... I've not bought 6" wheels recently, but I did buy some

8" wheels from MSC not too many years ago, and they ran very smoothly.

The grinder is a Jet FWIW --bought from a local builder's supply place which had had it in the window so long that the box was badly faded on the sides towards the window. :-) (I got it for a good price -- I think that they had figured that nobody was going to buy it. Anyway, the bearings on it were very smooth, too. Turn it off and it runs for a couple of minutes or more before the centrifugal switch clicks on slow-down. :-)

Note that I was after good white wheels, not the average gray wheels, and so I paid a bit more -- which may have made the difference.

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

If the centerholes are sufficiently angled with respect to the axis of the wheel, and are close enough to the diameter of the grinder shaft, it may indeed force it to wobble. (Maybe check the thickness at various points around the wheel, to make sure that it isn't a problem of the two sides not being parallel to each other.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

"DoN. Nichols" fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@Katana.d-and-d.com:

AGAIN... NOT-A-CHANCE, unless you don't seat the flange washers. If you don't do that, you have no reason to expect the wheel to run true, and if you DO it with a wheel so badly bored that it would run wobbly, you'll break the wheel.

This is really a dumb discussion. If the darned flanges are running true to the shaft, the wheel HAS TO.

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Depends. I've seen stamped flange washers which could be distorted by tightening on a wheel with a bad bore such as I described. Machined ones are a different matter -- depending on the thickness of the metal.

Granted -- a subsequent test with just the washers in place and now wheel would show the washers to no longer be true.

And -- you did not cover the other possibility which I mentioned (in one of my followups, perhaps not this one) that a wheel might even have the problem of the two faces not being parallel.

So -- dollar bin seconds may have been better back then. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

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