No Weld Grinder questions

BossDog said:
There have been hundreds, maybe thousands of these built and are running well. We'll get yours going too.

You are really close on this. It's a nice build so far and the hard part is done. Just a little tune up and it will be a good machine for you.

1. The bottom platen wheel had the nuts too tight. These should be tight just enough to not let them slide back and forth. Any more than that and there will be friction. Heat kills these things. They will all get warm but not boiling hot. Poly melts at 185F. Keep the wheels below that. This goes for all the idler wheels which are the small ones and the large contact wheels. You said you had used a machinery bushing against each side of the wheel bearing so the nuts (or additional washers used for spacing) should not be binding against the bearing and wheel at the same time.
2. Belts break occasionally. It's spooky when it happens - especially if you are grinding a sharp blade at the time. Cheaper belts break more than expensive ones. It is rare and if it happens again soon, there is a problem. My guess is the top of the ceramic glass on the planten was sharp and wore down the joint tape on the back of the belt. Make sure it is rounded over slightly to prevent excess wear on the back of the belt. You can grind this glass just like steel.
3. The platen needs to be brought back a bit to better line up with the top and bottom wheel. To do this, use smaller or no washers for the nuts holding the angle iron. This will allow it to come back more. If that isn't enough, drill new holes to hold the wheels closer to the front edge. Flip that piece over to drill these holes if the existing holes don't allow new holes.
4. I've never seen or heard of the step pulleys acting that hot like they did for you. I use them here on two different machines. We have several grinders here and the step pulley one is the grinder that gets used the most. Make sure the center steps are in alignment so the belt rides centered in the V channel on both pulleys. If it is crooked, the belt wearing on the on the side of the V channel is going to create a lot of friction. I can't tell from the picture if the pulley's are lined up or not. They *appear* to be off center but again, the picture makes it hard to tell. Belts like these need to be tight. Run them awhile and then as they stretch a bit, take out a link. They should sag no more than a 1/2" to 3/4" when depressed in the middle. Loose belts slip and heat up and cause massive loss of power.

Keep us posted. Call me if you need to. We'll get it going. Like I said, this is very close. It just needs to be tuned up a bit which is really normal. You will have a great machine when you are done and you will know it better than any other machine in your shop.
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Thanks! I checked my pulleys, and they may be 1/8" off, is that enough to cause problems? The reason being because I had to adjust my pillow block alignments to get my drive wheel to track everything properly, and that angled my pulley ever so slightly. I can't really get my motor to shift over now though, not sure what to do about this one.
 
the platen sticking out that far from the plane of the two wheels should not be a problem.
The wheel should spin a bit more....just a bit looser please.
closing in on it..
t
 
BossDog said:
the platen sticking out that far from the plane of the two wheels should not be a problem.
The wheel should spin a bit more....just a bit looser please.
closing in on it..
t
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If I loosen it up more then it will have play if I take the belt off and move it back and forth, is this fine?
 
Being an 1/8" off will cause SOME unwanted friction and uneven wear, but it's not the worst shape you could be in. You may be able to just move the pulleys in or out on the shaft about 1/16" each to make up the difference. You also want to make sure they are parallel to eachother.

Your platen looks better. I'd say that's pretty close to where mine is in relation to the idlers.

If you can avoid any lateral play, you'll be in better shape on your wheels, as this will help reduce vibration. It could just be that your bearings need to "break in" before they free spin more than a 1/4 turn.

I'm also wondering if some "Nyloc" nuts wouldn't be a better choice over using 2 nuts? That way you may have a little more control over how tight everthing is.
 
Well it seems like we're talking about 2 different things here... 1. the step-pulleys and 2. my contact wheel.

The step-pulley's are the exact same distance out from the base bar, so I known they are lined up in that sense. what I mean by 1/8" off is that they are that far off when you check to make sure they are parallel. This is because I had to adjust my drive shaft that connected to the drive wheel through the pillow blocks.

I may loosen up my contact wheel just a bit more... I have found that the double nut system works very well for being able to control tightness without having them back out on you =)
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Well it seems like we're talking about 2 different things here... 1. the step-pulleys and 2. my contact wheel.

The step-pulley's are the exact same distance out from the base bar, so I known they are lined up in that sense. what I mean by 1/8" off is that they are that far off when you check to make sure they are parallel. This is because I had to adjust my drive shaft that connected to the drive wheel through the pillow blocks.

I may loosen up my contact wheel just a bit more... I have found that the double nut system works very well for being able to control tightness without having them back out on you =)
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So the pulley is cockeyed? Sounds like the bore was drilled at an angle? You might be able to slide a thin shim to correct.
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Thanks for the input Josh! I will try to respond to your points...

That small wheel at the bottom of my platen WAS a 2" contact wheel from knifemakers supply... that's what Tracy said he uses on the attachment so I figure it should be fine.

The problem w/ the platen is that I don't have any more adjustment room... the plans for the NWG called for the holes where they are, which puts the platen out too far for the wheels. This seems like its a design flaw. I will have to re-drill those holes in order to move that platen in some I guess.

I wouldn't imagine that the motor was the issue... I got it brand new recently. It's TEFC. But yeah, the pillow blocks and especially the pulleys are both SUPER hot when I'm done, so you're right, there is an issue somewhere. I think it may be a combination of 1. wheel too tight, 2. platen out too far. 3. pulley belt too slack.

My platen is Pyroceram glass that I have put in there with JB weld. The glass on top of my table rest is also put in with JB weld, but is just a regular piece of 1/4" thick glass. I realize now that I should have went with Pyroceram here too as it is much tougher. I will probably fix this at some point in the furture. I needed it so my jig would slide smoothly on the top - it was binding and being hindered with the metal only on my table rest.
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Am I reading this right, that you have regular glass on your work rest? I would consider that a HUGE safety issue. If anything comes off that belt or a blade shatters it, it is going to throw shards of glass around. To me, I wouldn't turn that grinder on with that work rest on there.
 
ARCustomKnives said:
I think it's just that his drive shaft isn't parallel with the motor shaft.


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correct, but barely off... i ran it for about 30-45 min on medium speed yesterday without any issues! I felt both pulley wheels and i could touch them without burning myself, so it seems as if it is working fine. Man, it made a huge difference getting the wheel on the correct direction and the correct tension!

the only other issue Is that my tracking wheel at the top is a little cockeyed... i put a shim in where the bolt goes through, so i think i pretty much got it lined up close now. closer than it was yesterday anyway, and it worked pretty good then =)
 
Mooseyard said:
Am I reading this right, that you have regular glass on your work rest? I would consider that a HUGE safety issue. If anything comes off that belt or a blade shatters it, it is going to throw shards of glass around. To me, I wouldn't turn that grinder on with that work rest on there.
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Yeah, you read it right moose... I have had a little chip near the belt, but I don't consider it that much of a safety issue because 1. the belt is going down toward the floor, 2. I am wearing face protection and 3. I have never had my belt grab anything and throw it...

I will probably change it at some point, but its working great for now. I put a little grease on top of it and my jig slides perfectly =)
 
you guys have been a huge help and I just wanted to say thank-you!! I will keep you posted on progress =) I think I found my new favorite knife forum!

oh, I ended up finding the rubber poly on the floor... apparently it slid off of my bearing? I contacted beth at KMS and I am going to be sending it back. Tracy, you guys have been great over there, keep up the good work!
 
I have used regular glass before on a platen. It will crack from the heat soon and create issues. It will also wear faster than ceramic glass. To get it off, heat the platen with a torch (or something) until the JBweld finally loosens and up replace it with fire place glass that you can buy locally or get some ceramic glass (fireplace glass is the same thing) from one of the supply places. Having a piece of regular glass shatter is spectacular and dangerously catastrophic. Aside from all that, it's great to hear it is working well for you know. Congratulations. Grind something...
t
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Yeah, you read it right moose... I have had a little chip near the belt, but I don't consider it that much of a safety issue because 1. the belt is going down toward the floor, 2. I am wearing face protection and 3. I have never had my belt grab anything and throw it...

I will probably change it at some point, but its working great for now. I put a little grease on top of it and my jig slides perfectly =)
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razor, I have found that sometimes debris will follow the belt and throw it in directions other than down. A chip is much different than shatter. I've seen first hand what shattered glass does, and it is never pretty. I've never heard of anyone using a glass work rest before, and I think there is a reason for that.
 
Another question guys :)

I think I got everything tracking properly now (finally) to where I can run it on the fastest speed without any issues. The only thing that I ran across is that the 2" wheel on my flat platen attachment seemed to be getting hot enough to cause steam to come off of the bolt/nuts going through it... Is this OK or normal? I loosened it as much as I can without there being wabble/play in the wheel. This is only a problem when I'm running it at the fastest speed and isn't an issue when I'm running it medium speed or slower.
 
It means you're getting hot enough to burn off the grease/oil that's in the bearings. You can likely run the grinder at full speed for short times, but I'd suspect you won't be able to run full speed for an extended session.
 
way too hot. Check for binding by washers or just loosen the bolt a touch more. The wheels will get quite warm but not steaming hot.
razor-edge-knives said:
Another question guys :)

I think I got everything tracking properly now (finally) to where I can run it on the fastest speed without any issues. The only thing that I ran across is that the 2" wheel on my flat platen attachment seemed to be getting hot enough to cause steam to come off of the bolt/nuts going through it... Is this OK or normal? I loosened it as much as I can without there being wabble/play in the wheel. This is only a problem when I'm running it at the fastest speed and isn't an issue when I'm running it medium speed or slower.
Click to expand...
 
Really? I can't loosen the wheel more because then it causes tracking issues (because of the play)... So I should be able to run it full speed on a 3400 rpm motor?

Let me rephrase it... They don't get to the point that they hiss when water hits them, but some steam does come off if I spray it with water, make sense?
 
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