Shopsmith Forums

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!).

dforeman wrote:The blue nylon abrasive wheels. Like this one (now to see if I can get this picture to past).
[ATTACH]19068[/ATTACH]

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.

Is this the one...Nyalox by Dico Products in 3 grits and 5", 6" and 8" with center holes:
http://www.dicoproducts.com/nyalox.html#5

fgrule wrote:Is this the one...Nyalox by Dico Products in 3 grits and 5", 6" and 8" with center holes:
http://www.dicoproducts.com/nyalox.html#5

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.

The larger sizes may be a better deal....Plus, they can be used on a mandrel/arbor on the SS with variable speeds.

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.