[Ashbys]

Thomp ,
Was before mine as well, I know they make a wheel designed for honing , but if this is your finial finish point , they also make hard buffing wheels which will hold your compond and not "Blow" out like a leather covered wheel .

I have worked to many years in a factory, and because of it I have seen all too many accidents, from sanding buffing , grinding , many of which could have been eaisly advoided. And to be quite honest , I have been amazed at the equipment that is sold to the public which could never be used in a factory and especially when it comes to grinders buffers. No safety is the norm, from no simple belt guards to opened running wheels with no protection. Every seen a new grinding wheel shatter , because it was dropped before you got it ? Will give you something to think about. Or a belt drive on a motor break with someone in front of it ? Neither is a pretty site , I saw a chip from a new wheel hit a guy in the leg , 7 hours later he got out of surgey , it when through his work apron , his jeans and lodged into his thigh and because of the possibility of the cloth from his clothing causing infection, it had to be removed, a week later he returned to work .

You said your using a 3 inch wheel moving at 300 rpm, when you increase the dia. of the wheel you will increase the rpm of the surface area. I would have to go and check but a 6 inch wheel will more than double the rpm. If you decide what size your going to I can check and see what you rpm will be you might need to reduce it . Here is what I mean , if your running a 3 inch wheel at 300 rpm the surface ft. per min is 250 , to get the same surface ft per min with a 6 inch wheel you need a rotation or rpm of 159 .

Ash

[Thomp]

After i retired from USAF. i went to the industrial machiene shop school, i bought some tool deals from flunkers & dropouts and along with one of the deals there was a rpm checker, with instructions, it has all kinds of doo gagets and thing-a-ma-bobs and doo-hickeys in the box with it. but it will measure rpm from the end of a shaft or from a wheel it will measure feet per minuet if you use the book and the math recipee for the feet per second divided by cercomfrence and time... or something likr that..

i asure you, i will not make a man eater i worked in steel fabrication for many years, it can get grizzly if the safety rules arnt followed.

i wear a belt and suspenders so accidents dont happen.... haw!

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

you can buy the paper wheels, both wheels, sharpening and stroping and the compound for I believe about 32.95

[Thomp]

HI Ho,

i got the materials to make paper wheels, i used them in the 5 inch and 3 inch viriaty, i dont like them, even though i can make them on the lathe center hole boared and running on a mandrell and make them perfectly round using a side grinder after i get the shape and weight close and vibration stops.. they deform easily,
i was thinking a 8 inch wheel running abour150-350 rpm might last longer,,
old 1/4th hp fan motor pullies and piller blocks will be used running a double reducing set of shafts...
but having a softer leather surface would actually hold the compound on the wheel for more than one rotation....as the leather would asorb as the wood fills and the compound winds up on the tool.... from my experiance.
im thinking like rick said of putting the disk on the side of the wheel instead of the top surface it will illiminate the bump at the joint, and centrifical force will keep the leather pulled taught, one thing i worroed about with banding the wheel with leather was after time the leather would streach or srink andwork loose or off...

[Tom H]

Hey Thomas, Consider using silicone adhesive caulk to attach the leather to the wheel. A very respected carver and sharpening expert (Joe Dillett) does it this way. Tom H

[Thomp]

tom,

thanks for the suggestion, ill remember the silicone caulk adheisive

im rethinking the whole design for the moment... wondering if its possible to adapt my 1x30" belt sander to a honing tool.. but regulating speed would be the problem,,,

why try to reinvent the whole wheel. keep it simple....

leaning towards 8 inch disks of leather, stacked and glued on a shaft still though... it should last forever..

[AlArchie]

Thomas, I put together a system similar to what you described, with a mandrel turning a 6" hard felt wheel and a 6" wooden wheel with a leather belt glued on, at just under 1000 rpm (measured speed) The motor is a 3/4 hp, 1725 rpm salvaged from an old food processor. I cut the belt to fit using what Hi-Ho described, and glued the belt on with epoxy. Even though I pinned the belt ends down, the leather seemed to shrink away from a perfect fit by about 1/16". It really doesn't matter, though, because that 45 degree joint doesn't provide a skip point when it's turning, and it REALLY puts an edge on a knife or gouge. The felt wheel on the other end of the mandrel can be used on th einside of large gouges with a low sweep.

Al

[Ashbys]

Al ,
What type of speed reducer are you using? Or just pully conversion ?

Ash

[AlArchie]

Ash, I use a 2" pulley on the motor and a 4" pulley on the mandrel. That should give me an output RPM of around 860, and if I remember right I merasured it at right around that.....my statement of "just under 1000 rpm" was meant to give a VERY rough idea of what can be gotten with the pulley reduction and I figured 860 was close enough for "just under 1000"

A 3.5" pulley on the mandrel would yield 985 RPM.... I used what I had,the 4" pulley.

A 5.75" driven pulley would give the 600 rpm speed Rick recomends, but that would require raising the mandrel mounts another 1" or so.

I haven't been spanked yet, but heck, I'm game!

Al

[Tom H]

Thomas, Wood Butcher Jan makes a simple stropping device out of an old fashioned home model floor polisher. The polisher is turned upside down and mounted in a box. The two discs have leather on them. One is for compound the other left plain. Don't have any idea how fast they revolve, but as I remember these floor polishers, not too fast. I bet they work just fine. Tom H