Contact Wheel spacer/crush sleeve

[Hella Bread]

Was in the market for a nicer serrated 10-12in wheel since the aliexpress ones i’ve been using have enough runout to where they vibrate at anything under full blast and make the tension arm of my reeder spaz out and the bearings are just held in by circlips with no spacer so securing the contact wheel to the shaft feels like i’m loading them up too much by the time there’s minimal side to side play and wobble. I saw OBM had a nicer domestically produced option so I sent an email asking if they included the spacer sleeve or not in these wheels since it wasn’t listed in the product page. The answer to that very simple yes/no question I got just seemed…strange if anything else.

I’m not exactly sure how or why they’d be a bad thing. The purpose they serve makes sense in my head especially with how the majority of contact wheel spindles/mounts today are some form of threaded bolt on attachment which when tightened down to secure places axial load on both bearings towards the center of the wheel. I get that they’re not necessary for other mounting methods ie; an arbor shaft type mount that extends through the entire wheel and is held by a circlip but this just seemed like an odd response to me or i could just be crazy. What do yall think about it?

 

[Contender Machine]

A "crush sleeve" is a collapsible spacer used for setting preload on the tapered bearings in a differential. Maybe they are confused.

Spacers in the wheels on a belt grinder are a good idea. If the outer races aren't allowed to float when assembled, then the spacer is simply too short or the counterbores for the outer races are too shallow. Whichever way you want to look at it.

Edit to add that it is also important that the bearings are installed correctly. If not, then there can be undesired tension on the bearings even with a spacer.

 

[Hella Bread]

A "crush sleeve" is a collapsible spacer used for setting preload on the tapered bearings in a differential. Maybe they are confused.

Spacers in the wheels on a belt grinder are a good idea. If the outer races aren't allowed to float when assembled, then the spacer is simply too short or the counterbores for the outer races are too shallow. Whichever way you want to look at it.

Edit to add that it is also important that the bearings are installed correctly. If not, then there can be undesired tension on the bearings even with a spacer.

honestly i figured as much. Idk why it’s called a crush sleeve in this circle when it’s a solid spacer but i’ve seen it referred to as such by more than a few vendors and on the forums so I had a small feeling it could be a mix up of terms.

But yeah the obm reply making a hooplah about it and their wheels not having it as justification was just a weird vibe to me

 

[Contender Machine]

honestly i figured as much. Idk why it’s called a crush sleeve in this circle when it’s a solid spacer but i’ve seen it referred to as such by more than a few vendors and on the forums so I had a small feeling it could be a mix up of terms.

But yeah the obm reply making a hooplah about it and their wheels not having it as justification was just a weird vibe to me

Yeah I can see why some people may refer to it that way. Just to me when I think of a crush sleeve my mind goes to rebuilding rear ends haha.

Yes adding the sleeve is more work and costs more which is why a lot of manufacturers don’t do it. It is necessary for good bearing life in my opinion if a regular bolt is used as an arbor.

On the 2x72 grinders I build I use a specially designed arbor that doesn’t need a spacer. The preload is set by the arbor and the bearings “float” on the inner race instead of the outer race.

 

[SirSpice]

I think OBM sources their contact wheels from the same seller that most people buy from on ali-express, lpaladin. I'm fairly certain that the wheel I have on my OBM surface grinder was made by lpaladin. I also have some (presumably) lpaladin wheels that I bought from Ameribrade, before they started producing their own wheels.

Because lpaladin wheels don't have the spacer, they shouldn't be mounted directly to the arm with just a bolt and some washers. They need a nut on the other side of the arm so that the space for the wheel is exactly two inches (or the width of the wheel). As an example, here is my slack grinding arm. I have a Beaumont Metal works wheel at the top which has a spacer, and an OBM wheel at the bottom which does not. For the bottom wheel, I used a longer bolt and screwed it in just enough for the wheel to spin freely. I then added a nut on the other side so that the bolt stays in place. There are other ways to accomplish this, but this is the simplest.

Also, there is nothing wrong with the design using a spacer, it simply rests on the static inner ring of the bearing. It's a proven design.

 

[Hella Bread]

I think OBM sources their contact wheels from the same seller that most people buy from on ali-express, lpaladin. I'm fairly certain that the wheel I have on my OBM surface grinder was made by lpaladin. I also have some (presumably) lpaladin wheels that I bought from Ameribrade, before they started producing their own wheels.

Because lpaladin wheels don't have the spacer, they shouldn't be mounted directly to the arm with just a bolt and some washers. They need a nut on the other side of the arm so that the space for the wheel is exactly two inches (or the width of the wheel). As an example, here is my slack grinding arm. I have a Beaumont Metal works wheel at the top which has a spacer, and an OBM wheel at the bottom which does not. For the bottom wheel, I used a longer bolt and screwed it in just enough for the wheel to spin freely. I then added a nut on the other side so that the bolt stays in place. There are other ways to accomplish this, but this is the simplest.

Also, there is nothing wrong with the design using a spacer, it simply rests on the static inner ring of the bearing. It's a proven design.

yeah obm has their import wheels which are the lpaladin sourced wheels but i was looking at their more expensive supposedly domestically made serrated wheel that only goes to 10in. And the hubs on those don’t quite look like any import sourced wheel i’ve seen yet (they look like the same manufacturer beaumont was using just visually) and it was just kinda strange that they didn’t come with spacers combined with the weird justification email on why they didn’t come with spacers and how that’s somehow better instead of just telling me “no they didn’t have them sorry end of story”.

I already got wheels from Lpaladin the main issue i got with mine is runout. Balance is pretty good and wobble is actually decent for the price but the runout of the rubber is enough to spaz my tension arm and vibrate the grinder until i’m near full blast on the speed where it kinda settles out bc it’s just moving so fast.

The smaller 2-4in wheels i planned on throwing on the flat platen are actually somehow worse than the 12in wheels i own. I got a suspicion that seemingly like a lot of wheel manufacturers that were solid options in the past from reading the forums the quality may have had a drop off over the years. I plan on picking up wheels that were trued by reeder or just the ameribrade wheels for the platen purposes but i’m still on the hunt for a decent 10-12in 90a serrated wheel that doesn’t make my grinder tension arm experience parkinson’s at under full blast without paying a left kidney for a wuertz wheel

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I have found the wheels from Reeder to be super balanced. He lathe turns every wheel.

Are you sure part of your issue isn't with the shafts your wheel is mounted on. If they are worn or bent even a few thousandths, the wheel can do all sorts of vibrating. I would change the mounting shaft first to see if it changes the problem before buying a new wheel.

 

[Hella Bread]

I have found the wheels from Reeder to be super balanced. He lathe turns every wheel.

Are you sure part of your issue isn't with the shafts your wheel is mounted on. If they are worn or bent even a few thousandths, the wheel can do all sorts of vibrating. I would change the mounting shaft first to see if it changes the problem before buying a new wheel.

doubt it’s the shaft, grinders only 2 months old and i have 3 contact wheel shafts + I get there’s always a defect/stacking tolerance possibility but rolling the lemon lottery on 3 out of 3 for the shafts ain’t really very likely and I doubt gregs qc is that hit or miss considering the quality of everything else. Not that i’m complaining too much the aliexpress wheel were like 60-70 per 12in anyway and they’re not completely unusable. They’re relegated to profiling and just bulk hogging work but i’d like something a lil more stable for beveling.

I know it isn’t the platen idler shafts for the smaller wheels i have either bc it’s night and day from swapping between the aluminum idlers to the 2in + 4in contact wheel in the vibration and movement of the tension arm while running

 

[Hella Bread]

on the 12 inch wheels they pass a static balance test but while running there’s a tiny bit of wobble but noticeable runout evidenced by the tension arm spazzing out and if i lock down my workrest as close as you can get it to the wheel while still seeing a visual gap (which i’ve ground a lil cutout in but i doubt that matters too much) you can hear it intermittently contacting it while running.

Vibration goes away/settles out for the most part once you’re in the top 1/5 of the speed range. It isn’t the vfd/motor combo harmonics either. Drive is smooth throughout the speed range except for at around 45hzish where just with my particular setup the harmonics start to vibrate but smooth out past that again

 

[Hella Bread]

semi unrelated, been very very heavily considering picking up a wheel in the past few days bc it’s starting to bother me more.

Basically torn between picking up from ameribrade or reeder since both seem to be pretty highly rated and the price difference isn’t massive if any for certain sizes

If anyone who’s owned either would like to chime in it would be appreciated

also I primarily use my wheels for profiling and bulk hogging of the initial bevel via tim hancock push stick method before going to the platen. The wheels I currently use are 12in. Should I stick with that size or would a 10in be more appropriate for my use case?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

My Reeder wheels are zero wobble and runout. They run so smooth it can be unsettling to realize it is running at full tilt.