Another Surface Grinder Belt Conversion

[Tim Musselman]

Thought I would share this conversion since it doesn't require a lot of machining mostly off the shelf stuff and some welding, drilling and tapping.

The wheels came from www.sunray-inc.com the rest from the local hardware store except the collar that came from MSC.



The collar fits on the flat that the wheel guard attaches to it is a snug fit and has a set screw to secure it which seems to work really well.



The main tube is 3/4" black pipe welded to the collar with a 3/4" rod that slides inside holds the idler wheel a compression spring in the tube below the rod provides tension for the belt by the way crowning the tracking wheel makes a huge difference controlling tracking.



Now for the tracking instead of rocking the idler wheel I took the same approach that my 1 X 42 kalamazoo grinder used and twist the idler wheel to track the belt it means you have to have the belt pretty well lined up to get started but once you get the hang of it it works really well. Once you have the tracking where you want it a 1/4" locking screw keeps it that way I just tapped the black pipe for the screw but you could weld a nut on if you felt you needed more threads.

The whole assembly seems really solid with no vibration at the idler wheel and wow what a difference over grinding wheels.

 

[BossDog]

I'm sorry I didn't see this post before.
The tracking seems simple enough. I've never seen it done that way.
Can you tell us some of the details on the wheel? ie arbor hole, width, diameter, hardness, why serrated, etc.

Dave Curtiss and I keep talking about this his conversion and I need to flip mine over. I have the bench top Harbor Freight version.
I really like the simplicity of your conversion.

 

[Tim Musselman]

Tracy,

The drive wheel is 6" in diameter 2 1/2" wide with a 1 1/4" arbor hole that fits on the arbor (you'll need an extra arbor) that my grinder uses hardness is 97A and I chose serrated because it seems to be the standard that everyone else has used mainly I think because of cooling. If you go to sun ray give them a call and they can help you out ordering exactly what you want. I made a mistake ordering a 2 1/2" width on the drive wheel I should have gotten a 2" width. Basically I ordered the same specs as Ed Caffrey used on his conversion.

As for the tracking wheel I ordered one from sun ray but since you have them for the NWG I'd use one of those or get one from Rob.

The tracking seems to work really well and changing belts is simple but that first start after a change can be exciting if you don't watch the inital alignment. I put an index line on the pipe and rod when I got the belt where I wanted it as a starting point.

 

[BossDog]

the cooling of the serrated makes sense. I'll have to tear into my surface grinder and get my conversion going. I hate stones so much I've quit using it. I need the belt conversion.

 

[BossDog]

can you post another picture of how you did the collar?

 

[Tim Musselman]

can you post another picture of how you did the collar?

The collar is from MSC and as you can see it's solid with a set screw they also make them split and two piece but the only one I could get in the size I needed was a solid collar.

 

[BossDog]

thanks. I think that makes it even easier. making a compression collar out of pipe wouldn't be hard -- if you happened to have the right size pipe on hand. If you don't, then I think ordering a collar is the way to go.

 

[Tim Musselman]

That was my thinking as well I just couldn't find a pipe that was close enought to the right size and I didn't have the machining capability to make one.