tred1956 wrote:Hi,
Been cleaning some of the parts with a steel wheel. Everything is comming out fine, all parts shinning an looking good. Light pressure is even doing a good job on the aluminum parts.
When I get all the rust and film off now , the wire wheel is leaving a dark color on the metal. Not heat related, still cool to the touch. It comes off fairly easy with steel wool by hand. I believe wheel is just dirty. It did not do this on the first few parts.
My question is is there a way to clean the wire wheel or will I have to replace it?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading
Doug
The wheel will tend to clean itself with use(the 'stuff' migrates to whaever is being brushed!).
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Goldie(Bought New SN 377425)/4" jointer/6" beltsander/12" planer/stripsander/bandsaw/powerstation /Scroll saw/Jig saw /Craftsman 10" ras/Craftsman 6" thicknessplaner/ Dayton10"tablesaw(restoredfromneighborstrashpile)/ Mark VII restoration in 'progress'/ 10E[/size](SN E3779) restoration in progress, a 510 on the back burner and a growing pile of items to be eventually returned to useful life. - aka Red Grange
dforeman wrote:The blue nylon abrasive wheels. Like this one (now to see if I can get this picture to past).
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I picked up a couple of these at Sears one day. But, I did a little search and I believe Harbor Freight also has some of these. They come in both a blue and a redish color (different grits). I know the blue ones are listed as 150 grit. I was also looking to see if somebody made one for bench grinders but so far the largest ones I've been able to find are the 4" wheels.
I used the same wheels mounted in a drill recently on the aluminum auxiliary tables and they worked well - the blue was a finer "grit" and I found the brownish one I also had (courser "grit") worked better and really made things shine. I bought them at Ace Hardware but they seemed a bit overpriced (something like $7-8 each), so I'll check Harbor Freight to see if they have something similar for cheaper. Do they make these in a larger size that can be mounted on a grinder? I was only able to find smaller ones for mounting on a drill.
Yes, those are them - I used the disc type in my drill but thought the cup and end brush types could be useful as well. I initially bought the blue wheel, as it is the finest grit (noted as 240 grit on that webpage - on the card in the store I seem to recall it just being listed as fine). Since it stated they were nylon with imbedded abrasives, I was sure how aggressive they would be on aluminum surfaces. I found the blue alone didn't do the job satisfactorily and now that I see the stated grit, I understand why. I then found I had one of the grey ones in my garage from a car rust removal project a while back and I switched to that. It worked fine and then I switched back to the blue to finish it off. They seem indestructible in terms of the nylon brushes not coming off and seeming to wear, but I wondered about the longevity of the imbedded abrasives. My guess is at some point the abrasives will wear away with use and you'll be left with just a nylon brush, but I was able to get a couple extension tables finished without problem before the blue seemed to be fading a bit. At $7-$8 a piece, not a big deal but I'll poke around to see if they can be found cheaper as this could add up if you had a bigger restoration project with more substantial oxidation etc.
Thanks for posting up that site with the larger sizes. I'll have to keep that site in mind if or when I go looking for larger sized wheels.
I only found the drill mounted ones at Sears and Harbor Freight. I picked up a couple of the 4" brushes the other day at Harbor Freight. I found that they were a little cheaper there than Sears. I have only tried the blue ones. So, I will have to give the red ones a try and see how they work.
