[knotnut]

So having read some threads about using those fabric buffing wheels on power grinders, I bought both today and installed them. I also bought the white stick compound that was in the same section.
For grinding stuff, I know the wheel is supposed to turn downwards, but for honing, shouldn't it turn upwards? I darn near broke a knife trying it tonight. But it worked ok when I held the tools upside down facing down to hone them.
Is there a different tool I should be using instead? Or is there a way to reverse the rotation?
Thanks!

[FK]

Be very careful when power stropping with a high speed buffing wheel, the knife or tool will frequently be grabed in the spinning wheel fly away, and could cause serious injury.

Use a leather strop with compound, it is much safer and you do not overheat the steel and ruin the heat treatment.

Regards,
FK

[cats pa]

Knotnut, in an ideal world, grinders would spin toward you and buffers would spin away. However, sometimes we make do with what we got and mount a buffing wheel or strop on the grinder motor, turning toward you. Then we have to be extra careful, because it can grab the tool or workpiece and throw it very quickly and very hard. and the operator is standing right in the way.

I've had that setup before, and I always made sure to do two things: 1) apply the steel only to the "9:00 to 6:00" quadrant of the wheel, i.e. the down and away from you direction, and 2) never give the wheel an edge to grab, i.e. apply the steel only in a trailing fashion to the wheel, not into the rotation. The same principle applies to wire wheels as well.

Depending on your grinder or motor, you might be able to turn it around and work from the back side of it. I've done that more often when mounting the wheel directly on a motor.

Parker

[AlArchie]

I'll have to agree with FK, here; at least for a knife, stick with a flat leather type strop.....no need for power there.

A power strop can be usefull for chisles and gouges, and I've got wheels on both right and left rotation motors. Either will work, but you have to be carefull with either to make sure you don't feed the edge into the wheel.

If you are working with just an arbor on an induction type motor (one without brushes), you can reverse the rotation by switching the capacitor leads around. Changing the line leads will NOT make a difference. There should be a plate attatched with two screws on one end of the motor housing. Remove that and find the two leads that go to the capacitor.....that's that big round thing attached to the top or side of the motor housing....then loosen the screws holding them and switch the leads. That will start your motor in the opposite direction. Simple and safe, as long as you unplug your motor firs...hehehe!

I wouldn't even mess with this on a dedicated grinder... the small bench type grinder...just get used to stropping on the down side of the wheel....that part from 3:00 to 6:00 and then make sure you hit your tools at a very shallow angle, or you may actually blunt the edge.

OOOOPS, just re-read Parker's reply and noticed the 3:00/9:00 difference.....guess we were looking at this wheel from different angles...either can be right, but to clarify; buff only on the lower quadrant of the wheel on a down turning wheel and only on the upper quadrant on a wheel turning away from you.

Al.

[knotnut]

It would really be for chisels and gouges. I should have made myself more clear, but I did try a knife with it and will stick to hand stropping for knifes. I was actually thinking of trying to turn the grinder around and use it backwards. Are there specific power tools made for honing where the wheel turns upwards?
Would I be better off just clamping a drill to a vice with the buffing wheel on it?

[mdallensr]

I use an old grinder, turned backwards, for my cloth wheel. You really need a high speed (3600 rpm) motor for a cloth wheel. An 8" wheel, spinning that fast, present a lot of resistance to the tool and doesn't round the edge as you might expect. There's a lot of air movement when the wheel spins, and that helps to keep the tool cool. The wheel MUST spin away from you at the top, otherwise you're going to get hurt at some point. Just bring the tool down from the top, at or near 12:00, with the edge pointing away from you and you'll be fine. If I lose my grip on a tool, it smacks the wall behind my wheel, usually with no harm done to anything. You need to remember to just let go if the wheel grabs your tool, but it hardly ever happens. I buff all of my edge tools on my cloth wheel, including knives (except folding knives). Mike

[knotnut]

So I turned the grinder around and took apart the covering to the wheel, completely exposing the cloth wheel. Will the wheel be stable enough? Or should I put the cover back on?

[Plain_Ol_Ed]

There's are techniques to using a cloth wheel on a grinder as a strop. It can be a quick way to strop a tool or it can be extremely dangerous if done in the slightest way improperly. A tool can be stropped perfectly well with the wheel turning in either direction. As has been mentioned before, with the wheel turning in the traditional grinder direction, the top of the wheel coming toward you, make sure you are using the lower quadrant of the wheel. When stropping a kinfe, do not hold the knife perfectly horizontal as that will give the wheel a good surface to grab. Hold it at and angle this / or \ vice _. Not that exaggerated, but that's the general idea. If you do it wrong and the wheel grabs the knife or tool, it will be flying somewhere at a VERY high rate of speed. Hopefully that somewhere will not be a part of your anatomy. The same thing can happen with the wheel turning in the other direction, both ways can be dangerous.

[TreeWizard]

I always have the wheel turn away from me. It's easy on my motor since the starter windings are shot and when you turn it on it just humm's and you can spin it in either direction to get it started.