Balancing A Bench Grinder Wire Brush

[Franko]

Use these wire wheels. 1.250 inch arbor with .250 slot, American made.

Charley

Charley, who makes them? What's the brand name? Who sells them? Do they come with an arbor adapter or is one available? Where, Who?

 

[Franko]

Franco,
10 grams is a lot to be off balance. The little bugger must have been chasing you around the shop! Perhaps you could try the angle grinder trick and check again.Drilling holes sounds like the answer and if your wheel looks like the one in Charleys photo above, perhaps fill the holes in the light side with soft solder or a small piece of rod glued/tapped into them. As a last resort you could break out the TIG and weld 500 wires on the light side.
John.

That's what I thought, John. It is nothing like the mystery wheel Charley posted. It is a 6" wheel. Not much hub to work with.
It irony is that although the wheel is badly out of balance, it is one of the smoothest running wheeels I have. I've seen larger ones so bad that they literally make the table walk across the floor. The same grinder with just composite grinding wheels, run very smoothly.

Maybe a solution would be to modify a flange by welding an eccentric weight on one edge and marking the wheel to position it.

Or make a disk with an off-center hole?

 

[Franko]

Here is a quick and dirty balance indicator I made for grinder wheels and brushes.
After testing all my brushes, I've decided that weighting or drilling the wheels is impractical. They are all severely out of balance. I'm working on some eccentric balance washers to attack the issue.

The balance tool is just a 1/2" or 5/8" rod center drilled for an 1/8" axle.
Rails are sections of 1/16" aluminum angle clamped to a table.
Using a Sharpie, I mark the heavy side of the wheel.

 

[chips&more]

I too have had wire wheel balance problems. The best I could do was buy a USA made wire wheel and make bushings with zero movement. Also a good bench grinder and mounted firmly helps. And after all that, I still get vibration sometimes when I wire wheel to hard. Seems to upset the wires I guess. It takes a day or two of use to smooth out again…Good Luck, Dave.

 

[Franko]

It surprisese me that the internet is almost silent regarding off-balance wire grinder wheels.

I'm working on a set of collars that I can turn to add weight to one side or turn two for adjustable weight off-set. For a quick and dirty solution, I put the offending (10 grams out of balance) wheel on the drill press and drilled a 1/4" hole on the light side. I ran a 1/4 bolt through the hole with a washer on the bolt head side and another washer on the nut side. Tightened it down tight and it come very close to balancing on my beam.

So, I stuck it on the grinder and the bad vibration I was suffering has almost vanished. The bench grinder hardly makes a noise or even moves a little bit. Drilling a hole through the roots of the wires presents its own problems, but I didn't have a serious case of wire shed.

A dab of red locktight and this wheel is ready for business.

 

[rick9345]

a wheel is a wheel wire or stone
offset flange weights for 3 point balance.(two pairs),use on inside and out side to also balance left and right.

 

[extropic]

Your story makes the price of higher quality wire wheels (Anderson, Osborne) quite a bit more palatable.

 

[GarageGuy]

I like the twisted knot wire brush wheels for the bench grinder and the angle grinder. They last longer and stay in balance better because they don't shed wires as bad. Your bolt fix is probably the best one I have seen. I'm not inclined to spend too much time trying to save a bad wheel though. They aren't that expensive. I usually get mine at Farm & Fleet or Menards. Farm & Fleet has the twisted knot style wheels.

GG

 

[xman_charl]

Wire wheels are 8 inch. From Enco. American made, stamped on wire wheel.

Red 8 inch grinders are Enco, cost about $80 now. Sort of cheapo, but work okay.

Charl

 

[turnitupper]

Franko,
Glad to see that little problem solved. Do you think a little warm epoxy poured into the drilled hole would be of any benefit in stopping wires coming loose?
John.