Set up a wet grinding system :)

G

gudspelr

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Jul 1, 2013
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I got inspired by some recent wet grinding threads and decided to give it a go. I must say, I'm really looking forward to less dust in my small work area. After doing some research, I decided to go with a pump rather than gravity feed. I picked up a Ryobi wet saw pump at the big box home store and a couple fittings. The guy there was helpful and gave me a couple suggestions. I wanted to be able to adjust the flow without reaching into the bucket of water to turn the little dial. I had a bunch of drip line left over from doing sprinkler stuff in the back yard. Got a little needle valve thing and a little pack with "delrin sleeves" to replace the brass ones in the compression valve (they can cut into the plastic hose).




Replace the little sleeves and tighten everything up.




The little elbow that plugs into the pump posed a problem after opening everything... It was a ways bigger than the drip line, but not big enough for the line to fit inside. I'm sure there's a couple specific adapters that would allow the fit to be just right, but I'm fairly impatient. So...I hunted around the garage and found some fittings, tube, and zip ties. A little time and a bit of filing, and things were working just right.




After testing it all out (and it actually worked), I got it out to the grinder. I zip tied it all together and plugged it in.




I had to help out the pump just a touch, but once it made it all the way up from the floor, it was flowing just fine.




Turned it down and it went to a trickle. Looks like it should work just fine .




I need to work on the mounting of it onto the belt, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Glad I ran into the other threads about this.


Jeremy
 
Looks good!

you mite have trouble with the water hitting the belt and it bouncing off and that's were a cheap stationary paint brush is handy to apply water on the belts.

Hope it works out for you!
 
Thanks for posting this...I'm considering a wet grinding setup as well. The brass valve is a great idea!
 
Crud may dramatically shorten the life of your pump, though most of these pumps are ridiculously durable- I have one in the pond outdoors that's been just pumping away in a mucky sump for about 12 years, non stop. I think when I do this I'll just hang a gallon jug of clean water above grinder height, since it's just a trickle.
 
Stacy, that's a fantastic idea. I've not seen those before, but makes great sense and would be easier than reaching under the bench to plug/unplug every time. I'll definitely have to look into that.

Elementfe, glad to hear the pump has done so well for you. Mine is in a new bucket under the bench and will have a lid over it to keep any gunk out of the water. From everything I've heard, the wet saw pumps generally do well in messy water and this one even has a little filter I can check and clean out if needed. But, I plan on doing what I can to keep it all clean. I've also seen where guys have used a gravity feed line with a jug hanging over head and that has worked well, too.

Jeremy
 
Oh, I see- I made a gigantic and unfounded assumption that it was going into your crud bucket/spark catcher.
Cool! Let us know how you like it, I'm right behind you! Have some carbon fiber handles to do and trying to minimize loose dust around the shop.
 
Looking forward to seeing how well this does for you.

I'm not impressed with my HF dust collector and simple spark catcher setup. The HF dust collector housing leaks like a sieve, just shooting all that fine G10, wood and metal dust back into the garage at a higher speed. I'm thinking a tube of caulk will fix my problem, but if the wet grind keeps the dust down I might switch at least for metal work. Running the dust collector is like having a jet engine in the garage/shop, that pump is probably a few db's quieter :)
 
Bano119 said:
Are there particular grinding belts that handle the water better than others?
Click to expand...


Yes, there are. From what I've gathered from various threads and emails, belts with the wrong backing will pretty much disintegrate when wet. If you look at some if the different belts (for example, I think on MSC's site), different belts will say wet or dry compatible. I'm also considering doing as I've heard others and call the vendors to ensure I order belts that are compatible with the water. I'm planning on ordering some 3m ones, but still need to narrow it down for which ones.


Jeremy
 
A lot of belts don't play well wet and will develops a black gunk that sticks to the platen and screws up your grind. If it's doing that it will also stick to the inside of the belt and wear grooves into the platen surface, chewing up a platen very quickly.

I've had good luck running the 3M micron film belts and the Hermes RB 406 as well as most of the waterproof ceramic belts such as the 977.

That needle valve would clog up pretty quick in my shop. I had to use a ball valve, YMMV.
 
Thanks for the belt recommendations, it's greatly appreciated. I was looking for a gate valve type fixture, but could only find this one... Hopefully with the clean water/bucket with a lid to keep everything out, nothing will end up in the drip line. If I pay attention, maybe it won't get all kinds of crud on the valve exterior to mess anything up, too. But theory many times is far different than in practice ;).


Jeremy
 
I think it's finished...mostly. I did some testing and checking and it appears like things will work. I know I'll be fine tuning as things go along, but it seems that it at least works relatively well at the moment. I got some Lexan from the big box store, cut it to size, then used my heat gun to get things warm. Bent it around the top wheel above the platen and let it cool. Bent up some flat bar, drilled holes in both, and bolted them together. I ground down the heads that were sticking through so I could position the guard close to the belt. I used rare earth magnets to hold the bar to the platen and it makes it easy to adjust the angle/position of it. (Noticed later the nuts were vibrating off the bolts, so I added some permanent thread lock to them.)






I used more flat bar and magnets on the tension bar with the drip line. Then I bent up some flashing I had for the gutter to catch any water/spray, since it was sitting around and I also had access to a metal break to make things pretty easy. I drilled a hole in the flat bar to put the drip line through and zip tied the end of the tube to "plug" it. I did some previous testing before cutting the drip line shorter to see what would work. I used some little drill bits and pin vises to put in some holes for the water to drip through. Just a little twist of the valve on and off and it controls the flow. A little fiddling with the Lexan shield and it keeps the water going where I want it. I found out when I position it close enough to the belt, I can actually see the water it catches from flying off gathering in a wide "drop" between the belt and the bottom edge of the Lexan before falling down the face of the platen.

It looks like the metal splash guard is out of alignment, but it's just the angle of the photos.







This was a fairly old/dull belt and when I started grinding to see how it did, things still heated up, though not as quickly as before. Guessing a sharp belt that actually cut vs this one would probably stay cool longer. At a minimum, though the dust will be kept down which is huge for me and my little shop.

Thanks to everyone for great advice and help. There's no way I'd have thought to try something like this without ideas from others.


Jeremy
 
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Looks like a good set-up...will be curious to see how you rate its performance when you actually grind a knife. So it looks as though the water simply drips on to the belt...curious if the "paint brush" method might be more efficient and more easily break the water tension so the water stays on the belt? Thanks for posting the pics...
 
I have small holes in the tube so the drops cover the belt width. I also held a brush in front of the drip line to see if that effected things as I'd seen others set theirs up that way. At least for me, it didn't seem to make a difference with the brush vs without in regards to the water staying on e belt better. I'll be curious as well for how it does with a new belt and a fair amount of steel to grind. If I'm lucky, I'll be grinding a blank tomorrow that I cut out today. I'll put my "findings" on here when I get to some more grinding.


Jeremy
 
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