Machining belt-grinder wheels

J

jwmelvin

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I’m gathering the materials, plan, and gumption needed to build a 2x72 belt grinder. While I know that purchasing the wheels from Origin Blade Maker on eBay would be a good plan for success, I’d like to make my own to further my education and hopeful feeling of accomplishment.

My lathe is a 10x22, Grizzly G0602. I have the 3-jaw and 4-jaw that came with it. And some centers.

I have some 2.5”, 4”, and 6” diameter aluminum bar stock that I’ll be using for the wheels.

The bearings are 6000-2rs, going in a nominally 26 mm bore with a 10 mm shaft. The inner race will be bolted with spacers between bearings. The outer races will be slight interference fit, though possibly with an internal retaining ring for one bearing in each wheel.

I am looking for advice on my machining operations. It seems like it might be worth it to drill and bore the ID, put in the retaining ring groove, and then mount the wheel on an expanding arbor to machine the OD.

Alternatively, I could simply machine the OD in the same setup, since my stock has some extra length. Maybe I support the end of the stock with a center when I machine the OD? In such a setup, I’m not sure how to best cut the finished part off the remaining stock other than to remove it, band saw, then return it to the lathe to face the cut end. But holding it for that seems difficult, to avoid marring the OD and to accommodate the tapered OD for some wheels (OBM does crowned drive and tracking wheels).

I appreciate any guidance before I jump in.

Thanks,
Jason
 
It sounds like you're making several wheels, so I'd bore all the wheels first.
My preferred method would be to machine a arbor and don't remove it from the lathe.
Now you can machine all wheel O.D.'s
 
Thank you both. My first bore ended up marginally on the large size. Focusing on the bores for now seems good then I’ll work on an arbor and the ODs.

To make an expanding arbor I suppose I’ll need to make an arbor for my slitting saws. All part of the process. :)
 
You actually don't need an expanding arbor. Just one that traps the wheel solidly. The arbor should have a shoulder on the inside to back up the wheel. The arbor shaft that fits into the bore of the wheel should be a close slip fit. Then a thick washer will go on the outside of the wheel to trap the wheel on the arbor. The nose of the arbor shaft should be just a tiny bit shorter than the width of the wheel. Drill and tap for a good sized bolt that locks the outer washer to the arbor shaft. Done, easy peasy.

You'll use arbors like this many times for many different projects. Its good to know how to build them. The only issue will be to make the bores very close to the same size. Since these are bearing bores, they will be.

You got this, Jason. Go for it.
 
Jason,

I undertook the same project about a year ago. As others have mentioned I bored the centers and offsets then mounted on an arbor and turned the outside. You want your bearing seats depths as accurate as possible but I know from my experience that some Loctite 680 will cover a thou here and there. I’ve been using my grinder heavily for the last year and no issues so far.

I also decided to crown the tracking wheel by turning a simple taper on the lathe when I turned the outside diameter.

This was one of the first lathe projects for me that required decent tolerances. I spent more time wondering if I could do it than it took to actually accomplish once I jumped in. I learned a lot about my lathe, my DRO and my skills. Go for it and I bet you’ll find it’s an enjoyable project. Worst thing that can happen is you need an extra chunk of aluminum if something goes awry.

I have since built a couple of expanding arbors but for this project (and many relatively small diameter projects) I used these:

 
Like @Cooter Brown I also turned a crown on my tracking wheel, mine 1-2* if I recall. Works fine. One other thing, I turned my drive wheel to 12” circumference so an rpm tach reads sfpm. Picked up a $10 tach of eBay, works fine.
Sounds like you are on the right track.
Show us your success
 
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