Dressing the sides of an AlOx wheel?

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

A recent thread on sharpening brought to mind a conversation I had a while ago with a fellow woodturner.

He's only a beginner, so I helped him set up his tools. He'd bought a cheap 8" AlOx wheel, which didn't have a sticker on the side to use as a reference while mounting on the grinder. So I simply tried it in several positions on the shaft, rotating it until it had the least wobble - which was very little and, IMHO, acceptable - then used a black marker to mark the side of the wheel in line with a dimple on the grinder's shaft.

"If ever you remove the wheel," I told him, "just line those two marks back up. Also, if the wobble gets worse, check that they're still aligned. If they don't, realign 'em & tighten the arbour better... but if they do, throw away the wheel and buy a new one."

Common sense, I thought.

The conversation I mentioned earlier came up a few weeks later... he wanted me to check the balance so he could put a new mark on the wheel. When asked why, he said that when he dressed the side of the wheel my original mark was removed. He also asked me how he's supposed to dress the side of the wheel facing the motor, cos after he'd dressed the outside and then flipped the wheel around to dress t'other side it started wobbling again..!

To me, dressing the side is absolutely pointless, if not potentially dangerous. If there's so much wobble that it needs side-dressing, the wheel is better off being broken up and used for hand dressing.

Now I'm wondering: what do others think?

[jmk89]

Unless it's a wheel that is rated for grinding on the side, which I never knew existed until I read Jim Kinghott's book on Sharpening, I agree - dressing the side is an invitation to a disastrous fracture and projectile followup.

[joe greiner]

Makes no sense at all, if the wheel was originally flat. After dressing out the wobble on the first side, the wheel is no longer flat, and the second side has a built-in wobble to make things worse. Assuming it, and he, survived the first attack.

If the wheel was not originally flat, it shouldn't have been used from day one.

Why do people dress the side? Because they can

Cheers,
Joe

[Woodlee]

He shouldn't be even grinding on the side of an ordinary wheel let alone dressing it .They are not designed to take pressure on the sides.
There are cupped wheels available for such purposes.

When fitting a wheel I have never seen a mark on the flange paper to show the high spot .the idea of the paper washer id to protect the wheel from the flange when tightened and they should be fitted when installing the wheel .If there is not one on either side then I would make them from a corn flakes box or similar thin card.
.
I fit the wheel , loosen the rest and move it back far enough to fit my dressing block with the diamond dresser ,hook the block over the front edge of the rest ,tighten the rest and adjust the diamond dresser to the wheel face.remove the dresser and block ,stand to the side and switch the grinder on and wait until the wheel has reached operating speed .Place the dressing block onto the outer edge of the rest and slowly move it across the face of the wheel ,adjust the diamond dresser in a tad and run the block back across the rest .That should be it. Wheel balanced and dressed.
I have seen the results of an exploding wheel and they demand the utmost respect ,luckily no one was injured, but they sure go off with a bang and make a mess of what ever is in line with them.

Kev