Update on wire brushing

ANY time you get a lot of vibration, whether a stationary piece of machinery or hand held, it is a red flag. Something is out of balance, something is off center, or just not right. You did the right thing checking it out before it wound up in your forehead or somewhere that would have really hurt you. ;-)

Steve

In fact, I was stupid and should have stopped a lot earlier. You are

100% right. i

FWIW those blocks of abrasive used to clean a diamond wheel do a bang up job of "sharpening" a wire wheel and making it cut better.

(...)

That makes me wonder if I ran the wire wheel in reverse against one of those blocks, would I get a 'sharper' wire wheel?

--Winston

From what I've seen in periodic browsings through the tool section in the Menards near me, they seem to sell just about the cheapest tools on the market and I try to limit my purchases there to stuff that isn't safety critical or needed for more than a use or two.

Mike

I have finally come to the same conclusion. McMaster price is not much greater and the quality is much better.

i

Shush! Nobody's supposed to know that. The usual method of using wire wheels is to press the workpiece harder into the under-powered, under-revved, wrong trim length, wrong wire size, wrong diameter, wrong width wire wheel. I'm convinced that less than 1% of people use a wire wheel properly and I want to keep it that way! You're supposed to use a brush once, destroy it and throw it away...then go buy a new one.

Tom, what would be a proper HP and RPM for a 8", 3/4" wide wire wheel?

i

What wire size? What trim? EG. my shop brush is 10" x 2" x .014" wire x 3" trim and it's on a 2-1/2 HP (maybe a bit over-kill) 3600 rpm. An 8" x 3/4" x .014" oil-tempered wire at 4500 rpm (or about 75% MSFS) with at least 1 hp is a good GP set-up for most anything you will want to do. If it slows much under load, not good. If you find you're pushing the work, not good, only the wire tips do the work. DON'T CHANGE ROTATION!!! = early death! The right set-up will last hundreds of hours. (PS...I sell to McMaster)

Dont cange rotation? Id be grateful for aproper technical explanation for this.

I do that regularly and it doesnt effect the life ofc the brush, in fact it extends the life. you get more work done this way. Read my last post on brush usage. Could it be that as you sell these youve a vested interest in seeing the brushes last as little as possible? Its not meant as a chriticism just an normal engineering question.

...

McMaster is one of my favorite vendors. How are they as a customer?

The reason I ask, I know of at at least two examples where a good vendor is a terrible customer: 1. Walmart, 2. The Produce Distributor for my area

Karl

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:42:47 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, "Tom Gardner" quickly quoth:

Can you say "porcupine"? I knew you could.

But your brushes can be mishandled like that and keep on ticking, right? No wonder you get the big bucks.

Tom, the brush is McMaster item 4840A48. I doubt that I have a 1 HP

3450 RPM motor, but these are not hard to come across, so I will keep looking. I currently use a 1/2 HP motor. i

Walmart is not a good vendor. Most of their things that I bought, lately, broke very soon under regular use.

i

I've found the best way to sell more brushes is to just keep my mouth shut!

If you're reversing a brush, it is not the right brush, speed, alloy, HP or trim...take you pick of one or more. If the wire is laying over by more than a couple of degrees, something is wrong. Engineers sometimes spend weeks with clients analyzing an industrial application to match all the variables. On the other hand, for general shop use the cost is no real concern and no brush manufacturer makes any money on that family of products.

Is there some place that describes the variables and how to select a wire brush. How many different wire brushes ( Short of the answer you really want to give of thousands ) could a home shop justify having. How about a commercial shop? In a commercial shop, is it really worthwhile to do some sort of maintenance on wire brushes? If a home shop is only going to have one wire brush, what should it be?

Dan

Next question: How do you judge quality in a wire brush? Other than buying it from you, that is. d8-)

to expand on Ed's question - how would one compare in terms of life and utility, a "high quality" wire brush (you specify what that means) and the Harbor Freight special out of balance thing that resembles a wire brush? the Harbor freight thing costs $6 to $7, the "good" one costs more - what more does it do so that those of us unsophisticated in the ways of wayward wires can justify the (presumably) higher price

Ok you sell wire brushes, however I am sorry but I have to disagree with you on theis question of reversing rotation . you can all try this simple test at home. take you 2 to 6 month old tooth brush, take a pair of sharp kitchen cissors, trim 1/8in off the bristles wether there real or nylon. then use it. youll know the difference right away. Why? because you have restored the end of ythe bristle to its original sharp square end. its that sharp ness that does the work wether its a tooth brush or your rotary wire brush. Restore that sharp edge and you restoreits cutting ability. its like sharpening any cutting tool wether its a drill,lane iron , chisel orlathe tool. Come on!! you all know a blunt tool cuts less than a sharp one. By reversing you then use the other side of the wire thats not been blunted. All cutting tools get blunt with use ,so does a wire brush. And yes, its a good enough resason to buy a new one, if you dont know how to sharpen it.