Shopsmith Forums

Yes, she responded to each and every email was very satisfied with her. Was just very anxious to have engineer’s results. I’ll have to admit that even though I thought they should be replaced I expected to get some kind of answer telling me that they wouldn’t because of some reason they would state.

Once again happy they are being replaced and very satisfied with Kaylee!

Sounds like a keeper.

Done. Casters arrived today and installed same. No more posts on this subject unless questions are asked. AMEN!

Question is: why did they 'crumble/separate'?

JPG wrote: ↑Fri Jun 03, 2022 8:29 pm Question is: why did they 'crumble/separate'?

I doubt that you will ever know

I was not told. I was too happy hearing they were replacing them that I didn’t think about asking and wouldn’t want to have pushed my luck. Thinking back Even though I would like to know I have to agree with Dusty I don’t think we’ll ever know.

wrmnfzy wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 12:43 am I was not told. I was too happy hearing they were replacing them that I didn’t think about asking and wouldn’t want to have pushed my luck. Thinking back Even though I would like to know I have to agree with Dusty I don’t think we’ll ever know.

It really is not important (especially to Shopsmith) for us to know why they failed. We can only hope that Shopsmith will take the appropriate action, what ever that may be.

For what it is worth, I have two sets of wheels on the ground that work as well today as when they were new. These wheels were purchased when the 3" wheel was first introduced. However, these wheels have NEVER rolled on unfriendly terrain. The expansion cracks in my shop floor is the worst they have encountered.

My wheels never rolled on anything but two different concrete garage floors. Both were and are in good condition.

As I said before I had a set of similar wheels I got from Woodcraft. I think? They were on my workbench about 5 years. In that time I probably moved my bench about 10 times always on smooth concrete. No chemicals were ever on them that I know of. The orange urethane portion broke down and started chunking off the inner wheel. You could peel it off and it broke in chunks. I replaced the wheels with similar ones and they seem to holding up fine but they are only about 3 years old.

My opinion the “urethane” tread either was a not urethane or a bad formula, it lost its elasticity and became almost like wax. I do not think weight or usage was any factor in it breaking down. My guess some plant in China tried to increase profits and changed the recipe in the manufacture of the urethane injected on these wheels.

Possibly a container full of those wheels sat in the sun for a long time. Or they were just defective right off the bat. The wheels have been distributed so widely among users not in contact with each other so that thousands of them will fail without anyone ever tracking down the problem. The factory might have let them ship knowing they were defective. It's similar to the concept of filling an order for 100 products by supplying enough parts for 99 of them.