• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

It's this a dangerous setup?

T

Tellurian

New Shoots
Joined
Oct 10, 2022
Messages
116
Reaction score
33
I never use the grey wheel on my grinder so when I saw that there are polishing mop adapters available I bought one and have just fitted it and mounted the large polishing wheel I have.
I've fitted it up and there is a lot of vibration so it's definitely out of balance.
What's the dangers of this? It's not going to explode but I suppose it could become a high speed projectile.
Does anyone have any thoughts?

IMG_2982.jpeg
 
Sorry about the upside down picture. I tried to fix it but ended up with three pictures in there post. :eusa-doh:
 
If it’s a cheap adapter it may not be very accurately made, when you’re projecting that far out of the grinder you’re going to have an exaggeration of the inaccuracies which will cause vibrations. I would check it with a dial test indicator first to see if the arbour isn’t out, if it is that will likely be your problem unless the grinder is also out itself.
 
I think it's ok if the motor isn't running too fast.

I can still remember being shown how to use a polishing mop in metalworking lessons at school, many years ago. We were told then that there was no guard or rest because of the danger of a workpiece getting trapped between the rest and the wheel. Yours looks right in that respect.

You have the motor properly screwed down, which is good.

I use a similar adapter on an old washing machine motor, which runs quite slowly. If your adapter has two grub screws you might be able to get it centred more accurately by adding shims (eg a bit of an aluminium can).

I do use a simple face guard for this sort of work.
 
I can't see if your adapter is a "pigtail" - a long cone shape, threaded to screw into the mop and tighten up. If it is, then it needs to be the right way round so it tightens up as it spins - they are made in right and left hand threaded varieties.
Sorry if this is too obvious to say!
 
These are fairly cheap machines and prone to vibration anyway. I would take the redundant grinding wheel guard off on the left side, and mount the polishing mop much closer to the motor. If you are using paste sticks on the mop, these tend to help bring them into better balance in my experience.
 
If you plan to carry on using it, cut a short length of oversized plastic drainpipe to fit over the shaft.
Being loose it will probably add to the noise a bit, but will prevent anything wrapping around that live shaft.
 
Lurker":9y2121kr said:
If you plan to carry on using it, cut a short length of oversized plastic drainpipe to fit over the shaft.
Being loose it will probably add to the noise a bit, but will prevent anything wrapping around that live shaft.
Click to expand...
That’s brilliant! :text-goodpost:
 
The basic set up looks similar to the one I use only instead of a grinder I use an old mortiser motor which runs around 1400rpm, I can’t see if your grinder is a slow grinder or not.
If the vibration you refer to is solely down to the addition of the mop & holder then personally I wouldn’t use it as it will be a pretty quick way to ruining the bearings in you grinder.
 
Blimey, loads of replies. Thanks guys. I put the original post up then went off to see Brian Cox in Swansea. Just looking back in again now.

I suppose it could be a cheap adapter. I bought it off of eBay for about a tenner and have no idea what a quality one would look like. It is a pigtail and is a left handed one. There is a grub screw towards the back of it and holes for two more at the front. These don't end up over the shaft though so wouldn't be much use.

I did try to take off the redundant guard but ended up rounding off the screwhead recess on two so gave up. I'd probably have to drill them out or something.

It's the Axi 8" slow running grinder. Quite an old one and I wouldn't say it'll be the best quality and it could be that this big wheel, the long adaptor are combining to produce a large visible wobble.

I did use that big wheel on my lathe for a long time. I think the pigtail for that would have been a right hand one so putting it onto a left hand pigtail might be the cause of the problem.

I have now tried a small wheel, about 6" I think, and that spun up no problem with no vibration.

I'm thinking it is probably a balance problem and I'll have a look and see if I can adjust the way it is sitting on the pigtail.

Lurker: great idea about the pipe, I shall dig out a bit and fit it.

Unless I can improve the balance, I don't think I'll use it. I seem to be getting more risk averse in my dotage and wouldn't like it to either knacker the bearings or end up flying off. I'll stick to smaller wheels.

Thanks all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top