Low cost small wheel attachment for your NWG

[Drew Riley]

There is no way your drive wheel wore down from the belt slipping off because of alignment issues. I could see your tracking wheel taking some minor wear over long term use if it was not parallel to the ground and the belt ran on one side of it for an extended period. Even then you should be fine once you get the right alignment.

I used 1/4" wall on my 2" tool arm adapter. I found that 1 1/2" square tube I bought will fit in there very nicely if it was oriented so the weld seams are on the same side. I don't know if using the 1/8" wall could create enough play in the tool arm to make an alignment issue. I have not heard of anyone having problems sticking to the plans in that regard.

Is your abrasive belt tight enough? Some of my belts have about 1/16th side to side travel which looks normal in the videos I have seen. Other belts I use have no side to side travel, but they all behave poorly if there is not enough tension. I played with different springs to get the tension I was looking for. I have read that the KMG has a really stiff spring on it, so much that many add an extended arm for leverage when changing belts. I did the same thing on mine, I think my spring set up pushes close to 50 pounds when it is compressed.

Make sure your belt is fairly tight.
Do your best to figure out the alignment. If you are in good shape, you can run directly from your drive wheel to your 8" contact wheel or small wheel and be close enough to stay on the wheels (completely bypassing the tracking wheel). The tracking wheel should be working to fine tune belt location, not overcome bad alignment.
Make sure your bearings on your small wheel are nice and parallel and not binding. - Loosen the mounting bolts and check how well they spin. They should spin just as well when the bolts are tightened. Even if they bind or are causing enough friction to slip the rubber bushing on the shaft, the belt should still track fine, you will just melt your rubber bushing. PS, make sure that your small wheel shaft is clean and dry so it's not slipping for that reason, although alignment and belt tension really seems like the overall problem here. Good luck.

Try this, once you have confirmed that your drive wheel and 8" contact wheel are reasonably aligned, put the belt on all three wheels and stand above your grinder looking down at the tracking wheel. Using the belt as a reference line, you should be able to see if your tracking wheel is rolling in line with the other two.

Hmmm.... I'm definitely not getting 50lbs of tension on my door spring, but at the same times, it always seems to have been enough in the past. I.E., my belts have never "flown off" the machine when starting on high.

Originally I thought that maybe the drive wheel had just polished the back of the belt so smooth that the belt just didn't have enough grip to be turned by the drive wheel, and this was "pushing" it off. But when I switched to a brand new belt, the same thing happened.

Concerning the play between the tool arm and socket: That problem doesn't exist for my main tool arm socket because it's tapped from the side, so that the tool arms are always tight to one side. It's only on the tool rest socket that there's side to side play because I tapped from the top.

I ran a straight edge from the side of my 8" CW to the drive wheel, and if there are any gaps, they are so insignificant that I doubt it's a contributing factor. As for my tracking wheel, I more/less have that centered so that the crown ALMOST matches the center of the drive and CW. It appears the the edge of the wheel is parallel with the belts and wheels for the most part.

I suppose I could try stepping up to the next heaviest door spring I can find. Perhaps over the last year or so, the spring has just loosened up a bit...

 

[Drew Riley]

Okay, I just went out to the shop and tensioned my spring as much as I could, then turned the sander on high speed... and....

no problem!

I started thinking about it, and I think it's a combination of issues. For one, it looks like the 3/8" threaded rod that I used to attach my spring to my tracking arm may have bent down slightly, and probably released a few pounds of tension from what used to be there. On top of that, my pivot probalby needs to be greased again, as it may be sticking just a bit, and preventing the full tension of the spring to transfer to the tracking wheel. Besides that, maybe the spring just loosened up a bit after so many belt changes and whatnot, and maybe my sanding belts stretched a little. Who knows.

Anyway, I'll probably just replace the 3/8" rod with a 1/2" threaded rod, and maybe see if I can shorten things up a bit. That should easily add a bit more tension to the spring. If all else fails, I can also go get the next biggest spring, or try shortening the one I have up a little.

Just another bit of minor tweaks and adjustments, and I should be ready to start grinding some steel again.

My Aeroshell 22 is supposed to get here tomorrow, so I should have my bearings greased back up and ready for review.

 

[howiesatwork]

I like the overall project idea, as it removes the small bearings from the small wheel itself, which overheat Very quickly, and puts the load onto the much larger bearing on the shaft.

 

[ERIK KNIVES]

Okay, I just went out to the shop and tensioned my spring as much as I could, then turned the sander on high speed... and....

no problem!

I started thinking about it, and I think it's a combination of issues. For one, it looks like the 3/8" threaded rod that I used to attach my spring to my tracking arm may have bent down slightly, and probably released a few pounds of tension from what used to be there. On top of that, my pivot probalby needs to be greased again, as it may be sticking just a bit, and preventing the full tension of the spring to transfer to the tracking wheel. Besides that, maybe the spring just loosened up a bit after so many belt changes and whatnot, and maybe my sanding belts stretched a little. Who knows.

Anyway, I'll probably just replace the 3/8" rod with a 1/2" threaded rod, and maybe see if I can shorten things up a bit. That should easily add a bit more tension to the spring. If all else fails, I can also go get the next biggest spring, or try shortening the one I have up a little.

Just another bit of minor tweaks and adjustments, and I should be ready to start grinding some steel again.

My Aeroshell 22 is supposed to get here tomorrow, so I should have my bearings greased back up and ready for review.

Nice work! That's funny because I recently greased my joint on the tracking arm and adjusted the bolt to keep it true but allow for free movement of the arm. Let me know how you like the grease.

Erik

 

[godspeed]

excellent tip! I just ordered one of those spindle kits. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Drew Riley]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIlGtzetQk

Went ahead and made a quick update video after I greased the bearing with Aeroshell 22. Seems like it's beginning to work better than the original grease I pumped in there. I've definitely noticed that the bearings turn a bit easier by hand now.

There's still some heat buildup (a little more than I'd like), but that could just be from the remnants of old grease and penetrating oil that I sprayed in the bearings. I'm gonna keep pumping Aeroshell in there every few uses and see if it gets better. Seems like there was at least some improvement as I pumped it in the bearings a 2nd and 3rd time this afternoon. I'm gonna leave it alone for a little while and see how it goes, but so far so good.

I was also able to mitigate my tracking issues. I made a couple of quick vids showing that as well. They can be found on my youtube channel if anyone is interested.

Thanks again for all the help Erik. So far, you've been right on the money.

 

[ERIK KNIVES]

Hey Knife,

Thanks for the link to the video, you did a really nice job. I'm glad that the aeroshell seems to be helping. The RPMs on the small wheels are really high, so heat is going to show up no matter what. Reportedly, the conventional small wheels with the small bearings can burn up, I don't think these bearings will as big as they are. If someone knows how to mount sealed bearings in the same fashion, that may be the real ticket.

I'm really happy with it, but I do give it some breaks if I'm doing prolonged grinding, not for the bearings, but for the rubber.

I'll have to check out some of your other videos.

Erik

 

[Drew Riley]

I appreciate the compliments. Thanks for coming up with such a simple low cost solution. This is definitely going to expedite my knife making, as any attempts to grind finger choils and similar notches have been somewhat unsatisfactory in the past. I'm very pleased with the results I'm getting at the moment.

As for my YT vids, you'll have to forgive the quality a little bit. I'm just now getting into posting these things, and for the most part I've been using my iPhone.
I'm gonna start posting some better quality vids in the near future though, using my sony handycam. I'm also gonna try a little series of vids on making my first knife, so we'll see how that goes.
Other than that, I'll probably sprinkle in some knife and tool reviews and things of that nature. Stay tuned!

 

[ERIK KNIVES]

Another thread got me thinking about horizontal grinders and how useful they can be. A BF friend of mine uses an oscillating spindle sander. I dont have either but I realized I could modify my small wheel attachment. I used it today on two knives and it works great. So nice to keep things lined up while profiling a radius Sorry I only took one angle, but I simply used a longer stud (bolt) in the lower bearing mounting hole. If someone wants to see another angle I will add it.

Erik

 

[rodfoqzy]

http://www.ereplacementparts.com is where I ordered the Ridgid spindle sander bushings. I don't have those yet so I can't comment on the quality.

http://www.toolmarts.com/oasis/SD-03.html is the link to the rubber I have. Quality control is all over the place, but two of the three pieces were good in the box I got. A google shopping search for "spindle sander kit" brings up everything I found.

Thanks for your explanation! It is exactly what I need.

 

[ERIK KNIVES]

Hey Rod,

I'm still using the same 4-5 rubber bushings I started with. It will be easy to order more when these wear out because they are so cheap, but so far so good.

 

[Sticky]

looks good! i always like seeing all the variations on the NWG...
I made an attachment and had sunray make me a 1" diameter roller a while back which has been working brilliantly. I think it was 30 bucks. They kept my drawing on file and i think im going to order some more with smaller diameters. The small roller has made knifemaking much more fun on those handles!

As far as tracking goes, i used a mill to drill all my holes and still it isn't perfect, i went through each attachment and found it's sweet spot where it ran best and scribed a line across the tool arm where to put it in the holder. Im using a 35lb spring and have noticed my drive wheel is worn, may need to get a bigger spring...or a rubber drive wheel.

 

[ERIK KNIVES]

Sticky,

Great grinder and I love that attachment, but check your pulley alignment!

Let me know if you get some more small sunray wheels blueprinted.

 

[amcardon]

looks good! i always like seeing all the variations on the NWG...
I made an attachment and had sunray make me a 1" diameter roller a while back which has been working brilliantly. I think it was 30 bucks. They kept my drawing on file and i think im going to order some more with smaller diameters. The small roller has made knifemaking much more fun on those handles!


As far as tracking goes, i used a mill to drill all my holes and still it isn't perfect, i went through each attachment and found it's sweet spot where it ran best and scribed a line across the tool arm where to put it in the holder. Im using a 35lb spring and have noticed my drive wheel is worn, may need to get a bigger spring...or a rubber drive wheel.

I dig your setup, you say you had sunray make some, will they make some for others? ;-)

 

[Sticky]

I dig your setup, you say you had sunray make some, will they make some for others? ;-)

Sure, this was back in january 2010 so prices may have gone up. They have my drawing at sunray im sure they could pull it up Its under Jim Hinson. They can make it whatever size ya want, mine is a 1".



This is the description on my invoice:

1" X 2" FACE, 3.125" OVERALL
.437" STL. CORE, 60A BLACK
INCL. R6-2RS BRGS (x2)

Btw i think you bought my NWG plans! How did your machine turn out?

 

[Sticky]

Sticky,

Great grinder and I love that attachment, but check your pulley alignment!

Let me know if you get some more small sunray wheels blueprinted.

oh yeah i just noticed in the pic my pulleys look whacked! hehe... dam guiness beer. Actually after ya mentioned it i went downstairs and looked at it, the set screws on the shaft were loose and it slid over a half inch or better! GOOD EYE and THANKS!

They have the drawings there at sunray, i went back and read my old emails and it sounds like people get these a lot. He said "yeah guys usually order 3.125" overall for their grinders etc"

heres the description on my invoice:
1" X 2" FACE, 3.125" OVERALL
.437" STL. CORE, 60A BLACK
INCL. R6-2RS BRGS (x2)

If you wanted different size rollers just change the first dimension, in this case the 1" spec. the rest will be the same.

 

[amcardon]

So, I am getting ready to order the rubber to put one of these together and was wondering where you guys got the aeroshell 22? I'm in Portland, OR, any chance of me finding it locally? I'll be putting this on my GIB I am almost done putting together and am really looking forward to trying it out. I had planned on saving up for the beaumont small wheel attachment but that was going to take a while as I have many other things that are higher on the priority list...

Thanks for posting this, by the way!

 

[ERIK KNIVES]

Just google it under "shopping."

 

[amcardon]

Yeah, I've found multiple places online to order it from, just didn't know if there was a local store that I might be able to walk in and purchase rather than pay shipping and wait for it to show up...

 

[amcardon]

Please do. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. Tonight I added a bushing and washers so I can tighten the nut and squeeze the wheel. That took all of the slipping out. I might try some lower viscosity grease to loosen up the bearings a bit.

For those of us who are less mechanically inclined, what type of bushing is that? Is it something I can pick up at a local hardware store or is it pressed on?

I ordered the rubbers, picked up some cold rolled bar stock, just need to find some bearings locally and hopefully locate some aeroshell 22 locally as well.

By the way, would these pillow block bearings work or should I go with the heavier cast blocks with zerks?