Reducing speed on a grinder

A

Alex Johnson

New member
I've decided to add a soft wire brush to my equipment for rust/ belgium blueing. Brownells suggests using their brushes at around 500 rpm but I have been unable to find any grinders or buffers that operate at that low speed. I've got a couple of old belt driven grinders lying around and I've thought about gearing one down to run at the 500 rpm, but it seems like a lot of work and it wouldn't be all that portable when finished. I would like to be able to transport the rig into my house when I boil parts over the stove. So just curious to hear what anybody has done to solve this problem, I've thought about using a drill press to run the brush, but haven't decided how well that would work and again the portability problem.
 
Drill press works, specially if you swing the head out to the side to get more workin room.

Do not put much side thrust on the quill.

Wear safety glasses and if you do buffing/brushing in the kitchen, make sure everybody in and in line with the room wears wrap around glasses.

A wire in the eye is a memorable experience of the bad kind.

Sam
 
The exact name of the gizmo escapes my mind now, but what I am thinking of is a shaft with a pulley on it that is mounted to a base. You can mount the motor and the pully shaft on a piece of wood and adjust the speed by use of the correct pulleys. I would start with an 1800 RPM motor.
 
Unless you are setting up for mass production, it might be easier to just use steel wool or a hand brush and card by hand. You could have done a set of barrels while reading these posts.

Jim
 
Thanks for the information, most of the work that I want to do is on pistols (I like to work on reproduction 1858 Remingtons). In the past I've used both the hand carding brushes and the steel wool, however, I think I would get a more uniform finish if I used a power wheel. carding the parts with either steel wool or a hand brush seems to involve to much hand contact with the work piece and I think it would be simpler to simply use the power brush and would provide more consistant results. The hand brush and steel wool will still find use in areas difficult to reach in any event. Who knows, when I have the opportuntiy to try it out I'll let you all know what happens.
 
The speed is varied bey different size pullies and shivs, and fine tuned to speed by adjusting the pullies by screwing in or out. I dont have the chart handy right now that gives the specifics. I'll try to find it this weekend and post it for you. If you dont want to wait any motor shop or HVAC supply houseshould have it.
 
How about chucking the wire wheel into a regular drill and mounting the drill in a vice- I did my first rust blue this way...

Do you boil off in distilled water? There is another post in another forum about water distilled through copper tubing versus water distilled through glass tubing. The copper tube distilled water leaves a blotchy finish when doing a rust blue.

I am unable to tell the difference between the distilled waters I buy in a jug at the supermarket... And I have seen some evidence of blotching especially on large flats...

Any thoughts???
 
I've been using distilled water from my local supermarket, don't know what type it is. I've seen an occasional blotch in the finish, but I remain convinced it's due to an uneven treatement with the steel wool during carding (this was belgium blueing however). John Bivins recommends either distilled water or rainwater, but he also says that water reclaimed from the airconditioner during summer could be used as well. I've wondered if filtered water wouldn't work too, I've got one of the filters on my tap, but I don't know if that would remove enough stuff to make it work or not, I guess I could try it, but I don't really want to risk a botched blue job to find out. I've also thought about using rainwater like Bivins suggests and next time it pours here I'll definitely catch some of it. Also thought about fresh snow for during the winter, figure if I can catch it while it's falling it would offer the same properties as rainwater.

As far as the motor goes, I've decided to use a small benchtop drill press to run the wheel. I can set the speed for 500 rpm and move the press where I need to when I'm carding the rust. When I find a more permanent job (I'm only a year out of college) which will allow me to set up a more permanent shop, I'll probably mount a grinder with pulleys to set the speed at the 500 rpm, but for now the drill press should work. Thanks for the information.
 
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