Thread: Trueing a large wheel

Nice find john!
I have no experience with wheels like that except that I don't think they were ever used perfectly round. When you use then free hand and at slow speeds, your hand can accommodate for any slight out of round movements. When you put a rest on it, you will start to notice any variations in the wheel.

I would be tinkering with it just like you though!

Is their any slop in the bearings? If their is it would be no point in trying to true up the wheel before correcting this. If the wheel slips on the shaft, the same issue will arise. You cannot just crank the nuts up on the old wheels. Fibre washers or blotting paper was used to key into the stone and give some friction to flanges as well as distribute the load of the flanges so you don't get one high point taking all the pressure. You might already know this though..

If they are all good, the tool rest will help you mount a tool to help true it up.

The problem with the diamond blade is that it is designed to work while it is rotating. At high speed, the diamonds just touch the surface. When the blade is static, the diamond deeply scratches and the supporting metal behind it comes in contact with the wheel and is ground off pulling the diamonds with it. A multi point diamond tool for truing wheels would be better. A tool rest will help you true up the wheel.
Nice find mate! I'm looking forward to seeing it in action! Make sure you put up some more pics when it is up and running.
An old modified singer sewing machine stand would look nice on this.

Thanks fur your reply Ben. I appreciate ur advice. I've just put it on the back burner for a while while I get a couple of other projects done.

Sounds like my shed! I found a very nice belt drive 12inch pedestal grinder a while back that I want to put a DC motor and VSD on it. I only figured out last week how I want to mount the motor on it. The solution was link v belts. I'm surprised it took me so long to figure that one out. I stripped it down and re lubed it. Bearings were fine so now it sits waiting for a lazy stretch of time so I can work on it.

I'm surprised no one else had any ideas on your grinder!

Maybe everyone is too shocked to see such a large wheel that they can't comment?!!

I used it dry to see how it'd go with my HSS lg gouge last night. Is a bit challenging to the novice without a jig, but it worked really well & hardly left a scratch on the bevel when done. The bevel was new, so it still had the tooling marks. I don't have a slip stone, so I used some 600 w+d over a dowel. Seemed to work.

It is a big wheel! It looks like a fine grit from the pictures....darn good find!

With or without jigs, as long as your happy with the level of sharpness. That's all that counts!

I'm a huge fan of free hand sharpening. Not because it sounds 'elitist', it's just quicker for me and lest costly. I sometimes use a jig if I'm feeling keen. I still bugger thing up free hand.. Not often but it still happens. The jig systems have a learning curve as well and in the end get fantastic results. They are very repeatable (that was an obvious statement I know).

If I was specialised in one thing, I would probably have a dedicated sharpening station with jigs for one thing... But ....I'm not special in anything! I have a crack at everything! ...must be the Italian in me! I can't help myself... I give the Italians stick at every chance! I might be half Italian, but I'm All Aussie!

On a side note, I just figured out a fast way to grind my slasher blades! I just back the tractor in the workshop, lift up the deck as high as it will go, knock over the blades with a 40grit flap wheel on the little angle grinder! Takes about five mins including reversing it into the shop! Bloody chuffed with that. I might even get into the habit of tipping them up at the end of the day before I pack it away. Maybe.

Good Morning John

Grind wheels like yours were the norm in workshops until about 50 years ago - both professional and amateur shops.

Yours is actually on the smallish size, and a little unusual in that it has a metal frame and metal, lubricated bearings. The vast majority had quite heavy wooden frames and sacrificial wooden bearings, lignum vitae was used in the better ones.

The crank connection rod was commonly solid - wood or iron bar - rather than a chain and your crank plate seems unusually short - that affects the leverage. Usually the crank plate almost touched the ground on the down stroke; you needed a comfortable foot cranking motion. Often the crank plate was the full width of the face frame and the crank rod was pivoted from its centre. This allowed the operator to crank from the front or the right-hand end of your picture - he needed to be standing there at the end of the frame to face the wheel properly.

It was common to have a water trough suspended beneath the wheel so that the wheel self-lubricated.

A special tool - whose name escapes me - was used to flatten the wheel - ie remove the U-shaped hollow that developed with use, but in my recollection, no effort was expended in truing roundness of the wheel. Given the primative bearings truing would have been virtually impossible.

Rests were never used on these wheels - a rest essentially requires a quite true wheel. The operator free-handed the sharpening and followed the contours of the wheel - the wheels turned quite slowly, especially when compared to a modern electric one. Part of the skill of sharpening was keeping the blade true to the wheel as the grind wheel wobbled around. Another one of those lost arts.



Fair Winds

Graeme

Thanks Graeme

That's great info. The frame us a little strange in that it's quite low. An idea height for my 7 year old, bit definitely too low for an adult.

Do u think that a DMT Diamond Plate would be ok for flattening the wheel?

When I make the frame I'll pull it apart and see how much free pay there is in the bearings. Currently, I estimate it to be about 10mm elongated.

Originally Posted by johnredl

Thanks Graeme

That's great info. The frame us a little strange in that it's quite low. An idea height for my 7 year old, bit definitely too low for an adult.

Do u think that a DMT Diamond Plate would be ok for flattening the wheel?

When I make the frame I'll pull it apart and see how much free pay there is in the bearings. Currently, I estimate it to be about 10mm elongated.

Don't know, John.

A Diamond plate seems an expensive option - would the substrate that holds the diamonds hold together adequately?? If you have the DMT plate then why not use that for sharpening.

It might be worth you ringing around folk museums in your area and also contacting mens sheds to see if you can have a look at a couple of functional grind wheels. Some must have survived, besides yours.

My great uncle was a professional stonemason/builder/joiner and his wheel was much larger diameter than yours. When sharpening blades he held them at about the two oclock position on the wheel and this would have been about 1200 mm above ground level. This might give you an idea about scale.


Fair Winds

Graeme

Originally Posted by johnredl

I've got 1 of these:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1393366478.298437.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1393366505.214597.jpg

As I've now got a pile of newly acquired old chisels and carving tools, it's time to make it more usable. I was going to make a new stand and have a plastic tub under it for water (with a bung naturally), and maybe a little splash guard also.

It's not too bad at the moment, but it is slightly out of round. How can I true it? I've played around with an old diamond tipped grinder blade, but the wheel just wore the blade out.

Once it's true and round I was going to make a tool rest.

I'd appreciate any help.

Glad to see a fellow woodworker picked this up.
It was on ebay a while ago.
I live in melbourne and was not able to organise any way of getting it from adelaide to melbourne.
From memory it was a pretty good price as well.
Let us know how you get on with sharpening all those tools
Cheers and well done on a good score.

Frank

I've got an DMT that I use to flatten my sharpening stones.

I think there's one in the Old Reynella Museum near me. I'll have a look.

I'd imagine the ideal height would be about hip level?

Originally Posted by mattocks

Glad to see a fellow woodworker picked this up.
It was on ebay a while ago.
I live in melbourne and was not able to organise any way of getting it from adelaide to melbourne.
From memory it was a pretty good price as well.
Let us know how you get on with sharpening all those tools
Cheers and well done on a good score.

Frank

Unfortunately I spent a great deal more at the sellers house - he buys a lot of antiques! I picked up a saw sharpening vice and a carter #4 that he just happened to have 'lying around'!!

Originally Posted by johnredl

Unfortunately I spent a great deal more at the sellers house - he buys a lot of antiques! I picked up a saw sharpening vice and a carter #4 that he just happened to have 'lying around'!!

I fully understand how that happened.
Look on it as opportunity that you wouldn't have had otherwise
And good tools are a reward in themselves

Cheers

Frank

The wheel is set low as it is designed to be used while sitting down

Originally Posted by China

The wheel is set low as it is designed to be used while sitting down

Really? Interesting. Seems to be a wealth of knowledge on these wheels around still.