"The old way involved manually grinding the shoes until their contour matched that of the turned drum. That is why brake grinders never lived much past 40 (that and the chain smoking of Camel non-filters)".
Carl,
When this has come up in the past I have passed along my experience with my own Huck brakes that asbestos linings are vastly more effective than the "organic" stuff that auto parts stores carry now and that "arc grinding" to correctly match the shoe curvature to the drum ID also adds to brake effectiveness. Here's a discussion of that:
http://www.mafca.com/tqa_c_brakes.htmlThe asbestos friction is abundant on ebay and is perfectly legal to buy and own. Brake specialty shops still arc grind linings for customers who know how to ask discretely and know how to keep their mouths shut. If I were a young guy instead of a gray headed granddad I would buy one of the many arc grinders offered on ebay. The tiny amount of asbestos a hobbyist would encounter grinding his/her own linings would hardly affect his/her health or longevity.
