!.5" wheel on my Wilton needs new bearings...any help here?

G

godogs57

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Apr 16, 2004
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The smaller wheel on my Wilton Square Wheel is making more noise than Oprah squeeling at a buffet dinner...apparently the bearings are shot??? Thats what the folks that know say anyway. So can anydody tell me what the deal is to replace them? As I understand it, the dern wheel costs more than my bi-weekly allowance from my day job with the federal govt.

Any help, hints, advice, etc would be more than appreciated!

Everyone have a great weekend.

Hank
 
If you were closer I'd tell you to bring it by the shop and we'd press them out.

I'm not familiar with that wheel, but I can give you some general guidelines.

I suggest against using a screw driver or hammer etc. I'm not familiar with that wheel, but I expect a bearing puller would do the trick.

Also, keep them straight when pressing in the new ones, aluminum doesn't take kindly to ham handed moves. You will loose your precision concentricity if you damage your bores. This happens if they get cocked over if being hammered in, which is why I always use a press (you don't have to). The leading edge on one side skives up a burr on the way down - not good for maintaining runout on your wheel. I use a high pressure grease when installing new bearings into aluminum to reduce galling. I generally don't use heat with aluminum. Hot aluminum is softer. Press on the outer race - try not to put stress on the balls - you'll brindle something.

Perhaps someone with experience on that wheel can chime in.
 
Another Idea you may consider, I have been making knives with my Wilton since 1989 and have always found the extra width of the platten to a burdone that requires constant retracking of the belt while grinding the two sides of the knives. ED Caffery offers a set of plans for a platten that will fit the Wilton and eliminated the need to retrack the belt. I recently started collecting the materials to build the new Platten and have been able to gather all the neccessary items from my meager scrap pile the wheels have been the only real materials cost at $92 from SunRay Polyuruthane products, contact Shane and let him know what you are building and he will know what you need, I mentioned ED's build and he pulled Ed's file and sent me the same 1.5 and 3 inch wheels.
This may be another thought at finances permit. Good luck and have a great day.

Jim
 
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Nathan the Machinist said:
If you were closer I'd tell you to bring it by the shop and we'd press them out.

I'm not familiar with that wheel, but I can give you some general guidelines.

I suggest against using a screw driver or hammer etc. I'm not familiar with that wheel, but I expect a bearing puller would do the trick.

Also, keep them straight when pressing in the new ones, aluminum doesn't take kindly to ham handed moves. You will loose your precision concentricity if you damage your bores. This happens if they get cocked over if being hammered in, which is why I always use a press (you don't have to). The leading edge on one side skives up a burr on the way down - not good for maintaining runout on your wheel. I use a high pressure grease when installing new bearings into aluminum to reduce galling. I generally don't use heat with aluminum. Hot aluminum is softer. Press on the outer race - try not to put stress on the balls - you'll brindle something.

Perhaps someone with experience on that wheel can chime in.
Click to expand...

You can warm aluminum up, just not as much as steel. Hit it with a hair dryer to warm it up a little. You can also take the bearing and put it in your freezer and drop the temperature of the bearing to about 0 degrees F. Doing these two things will create a temperature differential of about 100 degrees F.

You may not even need to warm the aluminum up. You can figure out what temperature to take the bearing down to by doing a little measuring, but you'll have to measure to .0001" accuracy. Measure the aluminum hub bore first. Then measure the outside of the bearing and figure out how much press fit you'll have to overcome. Measure them both at room temperature.

The freezing effect can be calculated ahead of time. You'll get .0006" of bearing OD shrinkage per 100 degree F. difference per inch of aluminum hub bore. For example, if your hub bore is a 2" nominal and you freeze it to drop the temperature 100 degrees F., then you'll get .0006" x 2 = .0012" of shrinkage of the OD of the bearing for that 100 degree drop in temperature. Never freeze a bearing below -250 degrees F., as this will begin converting retained austinite into untempered martinsite, which is not a good thing to have happen to a bearing.

Greasing to create slipperiness is ok, but using White Paste "T" is better for aluminum then grease. I have no idea where exactly you can get it, but it's most likely at bearing supply houses.

The advice to keep it square is very good information. You can hit the bearing to drive it in, just make sure you use a mild steel punch, such as key stock. Do not use a drift punch or pin punch, as they are harder than the bearing and will damage it. I prefer to use the freezing method to avoid hitting the bearing altogether.

Hope this helps.
 
I just replaced , process of replacing the bearings in the small wheels on my Wilton. The bearings in mine are 6200 series (metric) pressed in. I used two different size sockets and my bench vice. The original bearings had a metal dust cover(why I dont know) but I replaced mine with the rubber seals. The original bearings in mine also had the loose fit internal. C3 RE: C3 loose fit is used in electrical motors or any application which have tension and vibration

Main thing is to not start the bearings in cocked. Oh yeah, they stacked up three bearings instead of a spacer.

http://bearingsdirect.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=207

(no , dont own or work for bearingsdirect. just a link FYI)

Ken
 
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I just replaced the bearings in my square wheel this weekend and the infor Ken just gave you is correct, I got my bearings from bearings and drives here in town (6200 series) number is stamped on all bearing, very easy to TAP out and back in, as for the platen I put a peice of 1/4 in steel on my platen to bring it out fron the platen to get a plunge cut on the left side of the blade, if you need pictures I will try to post some. A very good machime I have had mine for 20 years, the only thing to go wrong was these bearings, but I have added a vari-speed motor, I would not buy another grinder without it. Bill
 
Went to Bearings and Drives today...purchased the bearings and had it going in about 10 minutes of careful tapping and eyeballing. Thanks for everyone's help!
 
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