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Welcome to Westwood Metalworks, What is he building in there?

Had a bit of a detour the last couple days, but back on track......Vevor wheel Package arrived too. I have not spun them yet, or verified dimensional accuracy in any way, but the machining is pretty nice. A far cry from the import stuff of just a few years ago.....Only $115 for these, I didn't feel like being hunched over my lathe for that long to make my own for that price. Pick and choose your battles, and even for my cheap ass, this was a no brainier.......Even though I won't be using the drive wheel on this grinder (have another project for it though....)

7JIIBlS.jpg


Won't post too many pics in this thread, I'll do a proper build thread once I get some more stuff going, but here's a couple.

I love these discs. Seriously the best things I've ever found to removed millscale. So fast. Just work from an edge and keep it moving. Gone in no time.
RjqYmlm.jpg


Some saw splitting action. Wish I would have made that bandsaw table years ago (this was the project I finally needed it enough for I guess....)
gRCIfFY.jpg


Then some milling to size.

mgSxo5n.jpg


And an assembly teaser.

P5Nbi6L.jpg
r0Lyhfj.jpg


I have my design about 80% done, with all the major decisions nailed down, so I felt like making some chips today. Still going round and round about how I'm going to make the 8" drive wheel with what I have. No material that big, 7" swing lathe..... Have a few options, one of them being building a bigger foundry to cast an aluminum one......Another one I'm entertaining is to make a weldment of steel with a rolled rim. I could also utilize a 8" polyurethane caster wheel too, by machining a hub for it to bolt on the motor shaft, but the other two options sound more fun, and one will lead to me having another tool.......A foundry is one of the projects I wanted to finish this winter.....Guess which way I'm leaning? I'm getting tired of all the yak shaving side quests though so we'll see......I have a few ideas about machining it, so I'm not worried there. Should be fun.....

Still A lot of stuff to make on the grinder itself before I have to make that call though. Should get a few more bits done tomorrow hopefully.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Vevor wheel Package arrived too. I have not spun them yet, or verified dimensional accuracy in any way, but the machining is pretty nice.
Click to expand...

What are the wheels Dan?

Dan Dubeau said:
I love these discs. Seriously the best things I've ever found to removed millscale. So fast. Just work from an edge and keep it moving. Gone in no time.
Click to expand...

And what is the disk?

This is one time when photos are not as good as words.....
 
PaulL said:
What are they called?
Click to expand...
I think they are Scotchbrite disks
www.kmstools.com

3M 4-1/2" Scotch-Brite Clean and Strip Disc - XC

The Scotch-Brite clean and finish disc is conformable and works well for finishing, paint preparation, surface blending, and scuffing applications. It also works well for contour finishing and lacquer sanding. This disc is flexible, making it effective fo
www.kmstools.com www.kmstools.com
 
Susquatch said:
What are the wheels Dan?



And what is the disk?

This is one time when photos are not as good as words.....
Click to expand...
PaulL said:
What are they called?
Click to expand...

The wheels are stripping discs from here. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09ZKTSZYR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought one as an impulse buy from Princess auto last year, expecting it was going to disintegrate on first touch, and I'd watch $5 evaporate before my eyes, but it surprised me. Ya, they don't last forever, but they do a surprising amount of work very fast. Amazon is a much cheaper source than PA.

The wheels are 2x72 belt grinder wheels. Two 2" for the fixed platten, a 3" tracking/tensioner wheel, and the 4" drive wheel. I'm not using the drive wheel as it would spin my belts too slow, for my 1800rpm motor, I need an 8" wheel to get me in the right SFM ballpark, the VFD can do the rest for the speed control. https://www.vevor.ca/belt-grinder-d...drive-5-8-bore-3-track-2-idler-p_010507434899

I'm cheap, but when you factor in buying material, turning the 3 bearing fits, and the snap ring grooves, plus the shaft bore and keyway. Not to mention buying the bearings (3 each wheel), I didn't think $115 was that bad. Sure they're "just rollers", but there's a couple hours of machining in them, and I just bought that time back cheaply. I still need to buy a 10" contact wheel, and I'll probably turn my own smaller ones once the whole machine it operational first. Those are extra add ons for later.
 
I agree about picking your battles and just buying those wheels for your grinder, hell the material alone would be that much. Looking forward to seeing it completed Dan!
 
6.5 Fan said:
Did you use shims on the inside tube before welding the outside box together?
Click to expand...
Yes, I will shim the plates out before welding the boxes. I almost milled the short bars to 1.510-1.515", so I wouldn't need to shim the sides, but decided to go straight to 1.5" and shim all around so I can get the fit I want. I'll play around with what feels right, but I think a Guinness or two might solve that problem..... I have a bunch more stuff to machine before I get to the welding part though. I might head into Kawartha Metal today and buy some 1.5" solid square bar for the tool arms. I was told to make a Costco run today, and I have a feeling my truck might veer into the KM parking lot on the way home from that....I should check the alignment...
 
1018Machine said:
I agree about picking your battles and just buying those wheels for your grinder, hell the material alone would be that much. Looking forward to seeing it completed Dan!
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'm a cheap stubborn ass sometimes about wanting to make everything myself, but when I started mentally running through making all those wheels the price suddenly seemed very reasonable lol.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
The wheels are 2x72 belt grinder wheels.
Click to expand...
I've seen (guess) that you are well into your "building a belt grinder project".
I'd love to have a 72" belt grinder. I thought about buying a $1,200 Vevor 72" grinder or doing a DIY build, but I don't know: why I need one, where I'd put it; and when the money tree will bear enough fruit.

But I'm still smiling about my Kijiji deal for a (much smaller) JET 42" grinder, it's being delivered in a few months (which is explained in my "It followed me home" post titled "Baldor 6" grinder and 42" belt/disc grinder).

I assume you have done lots of research on building your grinder and you've seen the video below. IMO, for anyone considering such a build, seeing this YouTube Clough42 video is a must.

 
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Yes, I've seen the Clough grinder. Pretty standard design like others, relatively easy build. I've always been more of a fan of Jeremy Shmidt's tilting design though. IMO The initial Shmidt gen1 model had a flaw that he corrected in the gen 2 redesign a few years ago. Specifically the tilting axis geometry doesn't line up to the belt in either orientation. Something I actually noticed when I started drawing mine up and playing around with the geometry in cad back in (checks cad file date...) in 2018. Initially I was going in a bit different direction with mine, still drawing inspiration from his, but when I re-kindled this project recently I was armed with a bunch of fresh ideas both borrowed from many other designs and a few of my own over the years since then, so I basically started from scratch again. Any resemblance to Shmidts design at this point is purely coincidental being that there are only so many ways to make them different and retain that same independent tilting function. But I do credit him with the initial creativity and idea for sure. IMO the tilting feature like his, is the best one out there.

Once you draw in your fixed constraints, like the belt size, motor, 10" platen (plus 2" wheels), 10" contact wheel, pivot points, etc, filing in the blanks, is really just filing in the blanks at that point. I based mine off the parts and material sizes I have on hand (so far only bought the wheels above).

One feature of my design that was important to hold for me, was the parallelism of the belt on the bottom to the base table. That is important for future proofing an add on I have in mind.....One that is causing me a bit of pause right now though, as I'm now considering reducing the size of my drive wheel to 6.5" so that I can both turn it on my lathe (7" swing), and when I need to run faster, use the vfd to do so. I think it's better to speed up a motor, than to slow it down for motor cooling (please correct me, anyone if I'm wrong in thinking that way). Might seem like a minor detail, but drive wheel size has a cascading effect on the rest of the build and maintaining that parallel belt so I want to get it right from the start. I can always chop the motor mount off and shove it down or up if I need to switch drive wheel sizes later, but I'd rather not do that. I hate live iterations....Or make it adjustable from the start, but that adds time and complexity for something I might never need.....Is it becoming obvious, why my projects take so long to build yet......or simply just never get done....? :D

belt grinder side view.png


This is a quick side view I just screen pulled. Not all layers are on, or features shown here as solids, but it gives a general sense of the layout and where I'm going with it.....Still some small details to work out with the tension arm and springs, and minor ones with the fixed platen wheel mounts, but those are just that, details....I'll work those out as I go, with what I've got to work with from the material rack, and how I feel like tackling that problem at the time. I like solving problems out on the floor as much as I like doing them behind the screen, but sometimes those two personalities clash, and theres nothing worse than the machinist arguing with the designer when they're the same guy......:D. It happens a lot.... I find I work best, when I have a good solid plan of attack, but I allow for some creative leeway and design deviation during the build process. Painting myself into corners from the start is something I try to avoid.

Here's another front view highlighting the geometry issues I mentioned above.
BELT GRINDER GEOM.png

Jer's gen1 in blue, mine in orange. Seems minor, but it bugged me. In his latest gen2 he fixed that, but also moved the platten's vertical center to align with the pivot. I didn't feel that nessesary, nor did I actually want that as it burys a lot of useable platten below the table for no reason. I kept mine so that with both the 10" fixed platten (plus 2" wheels), and a 10 contact wheel the belt would remain horizontal, but the pivot point would be in the center of the contact wheel both horizontal and vertical. A 10" wheel is the largest I can go, and I think that'll be fine. The small wheel attachment I'll make later will be on the same pivot point as well. Makes it easy to design stuff like that when it all shares a common constraint.

Anyway, enough rambling. I was saving a bunch of these explanations about how and why I did what I did for the build thread, but I'll do that when the time comes anyway. Probably be another week or two before I'm far enough along to start up a thread about it. I'll try and sum up my words better too, instead of an incoherent rambly mess, but hey, that's what THIS thread is all about lol.
 
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