The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest wire wheels for bench grinder

Who makes the best one?

Osborn, big bucks but they won't fly apart like the hardware
store wheels and a good one will last for many many years.
dg

I have had pretty good luck with Weiler for bench grinders. For hand held grinders I use Fein or Metabo.

Just came in form the barn Ken, and happened to be looking for
something and ran across a stack of wheels, got some Weiler
wheels in there also.
dg

Dosen't make any difference what brand name wheel you use always wear a shield or safety glasses when using one, even the best will spit a wire out every once in a while

My forehead (fivehead, actually) concurs with the recommendation for the full face shield. I'm tired of my wife telling me, at the dinner table, to pull the wire out of my head.
Carl

Luckily, I need reading glasses.

Luckily, I have safety-reading glasses that I use at all times in my garages or in my house-yard.

I have never had to pull wire out of my head (from my HF wire wheels), but I do not take chances with my eyes.

Out of my pants, out of my shirts, out of me coat, out of my
hair. As mentioned earlier, even with the best grade of wire
wheel the wires will fatigue and shed from time to time. But
the cheap ones just pull out of the crimp and shed like a
dog after a bath.

Had an itch one time in my Quadriceps femoris, that be the top
of my leg above the knee. Bugged me for a couple of weeks.
One day I was itching it and it snagged my finger. Put the
5x Opti-Visor on and saw a little silver something stick out
of the skin. Grabbed it with my tweezers and believe it or
not, pulled a 3/8" long curly wire out, I'd been walking
around with it stuck in there for weeks. They'll get ya
even through your Levi's.
Had to check my pulse to make sure I was still alive cuz all
it did was itch a little.

dg

I had a 1"+ one go in my inner thigh all the way under the skin. Ended up going to the hospital and having it surgically removed. It was close to my fumer(sp) artery. With in 45 minutes of going to the hospital, they had me on the operating table and removing it.

That's a great success story, but those HF wire wheels are dangerous. Give it time, that wheel will make you have a bad day.

I liked the price of them, too.

Brad

I do wear large bi-focal/reading safety glasses.

That first sentence I would agree with ya Brad. Every one of
them, whether on a bench grinder or mandrel for a drill or
grinder sheds from day one, and the more wires that pull out
the looser the pack is and the worse they shed.
The best way I know of to prove the point is to suggest
spending fifty bucks on a Weiler or Osborn, big difference.
I've got some of those that I've had on bench grinders for a
decade and they're still holding together, a little smaller
in diameter but still got all their hair. Like I said, they
break from fatigue rather than shed.
DG

Although we still have wire wheels, for at least the last 10 years we use MBX blasters more than wire wheels. They have hook shaped bristles that really work. When they get dull, we turn them around and run them backwards on a whet stone.

http://www.monti.de/en/

The bristles come on carbon steel as well as stainless. The stainless is really nice to clean up before welding. We keep several of them around. One dedicated to carbon wire and the other to stainless wire. The rubber attachment works really well to remove decals to de-identify trucks.

Very interesting, Kenneth.

I wish I had seen that a few years ago. Well, we do have bed to cleanup . . .

Will the Monti work on a bench grinder?
Carl

It's obvious from many of you replies over the years Ken, that
you connect with Germany for many things. I notice that you
cater to a lot of their tools.
Where are these sold here in the states, or do you have to get
them shipped across the pond??
And same as Carl axed, do then make them to fit a bench grinder?

dg

A different perspective, recently used some Chinese made mandrel mounted disks bought at a car show. It seemed I was having to work the same area much longer than expected. I changed over to an older disk, bought years ago from, most likely a hardware store. Hey, I"m old and can't remember the source, cut an old coot some slack. Anywho, the old disk made short work of the effort. My best guess is the steel quality is different; one softer than the other.

I don't think Monti or MBX makes a wheel for a bench grinder. I have been to their factory, and it is a very small factory.
We visit my wife's relatives in Germany 2 or 3 times a year.
One of her relatives is a quality control engineer for Mercedes and I get tips from him. And her relatives have some her relatives have friends that are real gear heads. They are seriously into performance. 20 years ago I brought stuff along as checked luggage and fibbed a little when I came in through customs. Since all the names we grew up with have moved their production to China, I have lost interest in buying their junk. Apparently there are others who share the same sentiment. If you Google names like Knipex, Würth, Hazet, Stahlwille, Wera, MBX Blaster and Fein you will come up with a lot of US vendors that sell them. There are even a lot on eBay. I have a lot of Metabo tools, but the last sawzall I bought from them was also built in China. I have used Jancy Slugger magnetic drills for years. Fein bought them a couple of years ago. The last Slugger I bought had the Fein name on it and I think they have improved the quality of when Jancy was still an Iowa company. Once you use an Albrecht chuck in a drill, you will never want to see another Jacobs chuck. I found one for my Clausing drill press on US eBay for almost nothing.

I have even bought stuff on eBay.de and had it sent to relatives. Some of my wife's relatives are arriving at DFW tomorrow and will probably be here Thursday, but time got away from me and they are not bringing anything.

Thanks for the information, Ken. So since they (probably) don't have a bench grinder wheel- which setup do you use the MBX wheels on?

Brad

Ahh, so that's your connection to the Vaterland, often
wondered why you spend so much time over there, thought
you might have business interests across the pond.
Back when I was a contributing citizen and working at the lab,
I had Albrecht chucks in my machinist cabinet. They were the
first keyless chucks that I ever encountered. They're great,
but I couldn't afford them for my shop after retirement and
settled for a couple of Chinese copies from Shars. They're
not to bad, a little sticky, but no where near as smooth as
the Albrecht chucks.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/159541042

dg

I have several of these.

http://www.tcpglobal.com/DENDF-701.html?gclid=CNzM2Mjuw8QCFQmpaQodsQ0AqQ#.VRLaLOEbKWA

I have pneumatic ones at the shop. I have an electric one at the house. They are sold under the MBX name as well as Spitznagel Dentfix. I have never used one that looks like a die grinder. I think it might be a little awkward.