Who makes a better contact wheel?

[Tin.Man]

Looking at throwing down for a 14" contact wheel. Between beaumonts and bader which would you pick and why?

I like the bader bearing system and how it attaches to a tooling arm, with the kmg wheels I never understood the 1/2" bolt. Do I tighten it till tight(without big washers) it doesn't spin super well if I leave it a little looser it spins better but wobbles a slosh. The bader wheel is an added $96 for the bearing assembly


Love to hear your guys thoughts on this. Thank you I'm advance!

 

[javand]

I can't speak to the quality differences here, I've got the beaumont wheel and it works fine for my needs, but I wanted to mention that if you've got wheel wobble from not being tightened, your wheel probably doesn't have a proper bushing inside between the bearings. The less expensive poly wheels from USAknifemaker I think excluded those due to cost. That bushing should allow you to tighten the bolt down completely without causing the wheel to run slow.


The solution however, is to run a longer bolt completely through the tooling arm, long enough to put a shop nut on the other side, and tighten it down to the tooling arm. This'll eliminate the wobble and allow you to set just the right amount of play with the wheel, as opposed to just tightening the bolt into the tapped hole. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Bob Ohlemann]

I have a 14" wheel from Beaumont and I've used the 14" Bader wheel on a Bader 3. Functionally, I can't tell the difference. Both run true and my Beaumont wheel has a spacer in the hub. I attach all my wheels to the arms a bit differently. I pinch the bolt with the head opposite the wheel then slide the wheel onto the bolt and add the shim and a nylock nut. This lets me change over wheels easily if needed and allows easy adjustment of bearing preload.

This is one of the first arms I did with the pinch bolt arrangement. Works well enough but, now I do them with the pinch bolt on the other side like the next picture.
Untitled by Ranger_Bob, on Flickr

Not a wheel but, this is the same way I now do the pinch bolt setup to secure the bolt on my wheels.
Untitled by Ranger_Bob, on Flickr

14" wheel on the GIB
Untitled by Ranger_Bob, on Flickr

 

[Tin.Man]

Thanks got the help guys! Never knew that about the spacer and I've been doing this for over 2 years (doh!)

Ranger love that pinch design. When you say shim do you mean like a machinist bushing? Basically a washer smaller then the diameter of the bearing correct?

Javand I'll keep that in mind wish I would have known that solution earlier!

Thanks again chaps

 

[Don Hanson III]

I have both KMG & Bader wheels, both work fine. But I do like the bearing system better on the Bader wheels.

 

[John Katt]

Do I tighten it till tight(without big washers) it doesn't spin super well if I leave it a little looser it spins better but wobbles a slosh

Threaded rod has an OD of about 0.480, that's likely the wobble you are getting, you need a piece of machined rod with threads turned on the end and a double nut if you don't have a bushing, make sure and use machine washers, NOT the ones you grab a hand full of out of the bin for lag bolts, then use a 0.003 feeler gauge and snug to that, that should give you a good running wheel

also getting a die to start and finish on a full 1/2 rod will be difficult, it should be turned down to 0.490 or so, I was able to do it on a full 1/2 rod but it was very slow going, I put cheater handles on my die holder and did about a 1/16 turn and then back to clear the chips, at times I didn't think I was going to make that last 1/2 inch


EDIT I used a coarse thread die, cant imagine using fine thread and trying that