Chainsaw grinder questions, tips, tricks, and pics!!!!

[Moparmyway]

Is the price the downside to buying a new simmington, or does it have design flaws that people are not fond of?

Don’t know of any design flaws ....... at this point, I’m able to get any shape tooth I desire.

 

[wcorey]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

Like many of you, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an affordable square grinder for years now, unsuccessfully. Have only even seen a couple for sale locally in all that time and they were expensive, of dubious condition and far away.

So I finally decided to make my own. Both the RSII and swingarm setups looked pretty straight forward, design wise. No need to completely reinvent the wheel.

I had a couple small linear rail bearings on hand that looked like they’d do the trick for an RSII style setup, so that decided the general direction to go. To start anything, needed at minimum a motor and a wheel.
Of course since I’d be spending a lot of time on it then as an offset I want it all to be cheap, very cheap.

Over the summer ran into a $25 box of misc grinding wheels while doing a chainsaw search on cl, some of which were appropriate looking brown 8” x ½” Belsaw of a few varying thickness’. That got the ball rolling.

Now just needed a motor to spin one. Scoured swap meets and yard sales, ebay, etc. No luck, too much, too big, too small, too fast/slow, no reverse.

Finally realized I already had one sitting on a shelf, a smallish looking dc servo that I’d originally at first glance blown off thinking it had a ¼” shaft. It was actually a ½” that had been reduced on one end to mount an encoder. I have a controller for it that’s a bit overkill as it will power something like 1 1/2 hp but will be nice to have the variable speed. If it seems like one speed will do all then I can always switch over to a fixed power supply.
And with dc reverse rotation is a given..

Anyway, turned an arbor to mount a wheel, spun it up and bared down on it pretty hard with a hunk of steel before it slowed down. Motor didn’t get warm. Close enough…

Dug out a random hunk of aluminum for the chassis, 4 7/8” x 12 3/4” x 5/8” that fit minimum design parameters, most everything else is relatively small stuff/drops.

Found an abrasive encrusted hole saw at the flea market for ceramic or something that someone wiped out the bottom face but the sides were fairly untouched, a buck along with a handful of other stuff.
Seemed to hold up to shaping various grinding wheels just fine so I cut tiny little squares out of it and TIG’ed them onto threaded rod for my dressers.

The pieces of the puzzle came together.

I just pretty much finished up the whole deal the other night and ground my first cutter…


Same day I see a cl ad for a Prosharp for $500, funny coincidence.

Initially I blew it off as it would have been at the top of what I’d spend even if I still wanted one, was also a bit of a drive and no time to do it. Next day the ads still up so I just had to look of course and the ad/pics are a bit confusing because there’s a round grinder on a stand in the pictures that’s also being offered separately and an RSII that with the angle of the pics looks almost like it’s attached to the Prosharp somehow. And then a Silvey bar grinder on the floor that there’s no mention of.

Now I’m curious… and there’s a phone number…

It’s the last bits of an estate, they just want the stuff gone and amazingly no one else has called. They mention they’d take $400, those things were probly expensive ya know.
No, not $400 each...
Yeah, the silvey things with the motors…
Plural…

Well, a few hours driving, about 20 miles of it on dirt roads and I’m back home with ‘em. Didn’t even realize that the bar grinder was included in the deal as well as a breaker/spinner set.
RSII is missing the handle for some reason but otherwise it all looks to be in good shape.

The Irony of it, all these years and from bevel files to three square grinders in what was effectively a day.

Would’ve been really nice to have had the RSII through my build for dimensional reference, all I had was a handful of pictures.

Now to figure out how to really use these things, haven’t had much time to play. The RSII will likely go down the road but not sure about the Prosharp, will have to get a feel for what it does. Not in any hurry…

Pics of the home grown one soon.

 

[huskihl]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

Like many of you, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an affordable square grinder for years now, unsuccessfully. Have only even seen a couple for sale locally in all that time and they were expensive, of dubious condition and far away.

So I finally decided to make my own. Both the RSII and swingarm setups looked pretty straight forward, design wise. No need to completely reinvent the wheel.

I had a couple small linear rail bearings on hand that looked like they’d do the trick for an RSII style setup, so that decided the general direction to go. To start anything, needed at minimum a motor and a wheel.
Of course since I’d be spending a lot of time on it then as an offset I want it all to be cheap, very cheap.

Over the summer ran into a $25 box of misc grinding wheels while doing a chainsaw search on cl, some of which were appropriate looking brown 8” x ½” Belsaw of a few varying thickness’. That got the ball rolling.

Now just needed a motor to spin one. Scoured swap meets and yard sales, ebay, etc. No luck, too much, too big, too small, too fast/slow, no reverse.

Finally realized I already had one sitting on a shelf, a smallish looking dc servo that I’d originally at first glance blown off thinking it had a ¼” shaft. It was actually a ½” that had been reduced on one end to mount an encoder. I have a controller for it that’s a bit overkill as it will power something like 1 1/2 hp but will be nice to have the variable speed. If it seems like one speed will do all then I can always switch over to a fixed power supply.
And with dc reverse rotation is a given..

Anyway, turned an arbor to mount a wheel, spun it up and bared down on it pretty hard with a hunk of steel before it slowed down. Motor didn’t get warm. Close enough…

Dug out a random hunk of aluminum for the chassis, 4 7/8” x 12 3/4” x 5/8” that fit minimum design parameters, most everything else is relatively small stuff/drops.

Found an abrasive encrusted hole saw at the flea market for ceramic or something that someone wiped out the bottom face but the sides were fairly untouched, a buck along with a handful of other stuff.
Seemed to hold up to shaping various grinding wheels just fine so I cut tiny little squares out of it and TIG’ed them onto threaded rod for my dressers.

The pieces of the puzzle came together.

I just pretty much finished up the whole deal the other night and ground my first cutter…


Same day I see a cl ad for a Prosharp for $500, funny coincidence.

Initially I blew it off as it would have been at the top of what I’d spend even if I still wanted one, was also a bit of a drive and no time to do it. Next day the ads still up so I just had to look of course and the ad/pics are a bit confusing because there’s a round grinder on a stand in the pictures that’s also being offered separately and an RSII that with the angle of the pics looks almost like it’s attached to the Prosharp somehow. And then a Silvey bar grinder on the floor that there’s no mention of.

Now I’m curious… and there’s a phone number…

It’s the last bits of an estate, they just want the stuff gone and amazingly no one else has called. They mention they’d take $400, those things were probly expensive ya know.
No, not $400 each...
Yeah, the silvey things with the motors…
Plural…

Well, a few hours driving, about 20 miles of it on dirt roads and I’m back home with ‘em. Didn’t even realize that the bar grinder was included in the deal as well as a breaker/spinner set.
RSII is missing the handle for some reason but otherwise it all looks to be in good shape.

The Irony of it, all these years and from bevel files to three square grinders in what was effectively a day.

Would’ve been really nice to have had the RSII through my build for dimensional reference, all I had was a handful of pictures.

Now to figure out how to really use these things, haven’t had much time to play. The RSII will likely go down the road but not sure about the Prosharp, will have to get a feel for what it does. Not in any hurry…

Pics of the home grown one soon.

View attachment 148014

Hooo
Leee
Shìt

That's an awesome find Bill. Still curious to see your homemade concoction, though

 

[Philbert]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

WOW! (Although, this post really belongs in a 'You S*ck!' kind of thread!)

Congrats on a great find.

Philbert

 

[Skeans1]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

Like many of you, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an affordable square grinder for years now, unsuccessfully. Have only even seen a couple for sale locally in all that time and they were expensive, of dubious condition and far away.

So I finally decided to make my own. Both the RSII and swingarm setups looked pretty straight forward, design wise. No need to completely reinvent the wheel.

I had a couple small linear rail bearings on hand that looked like they’d do the trick for an RSII style setup, so that decided the general direction to go. To start anything, needed at minimum a motor and a wheel.
Of course since I’d be spending a lot of time on it then as an offset I want it all to be cheap, very cheap.

Over the summer ran into a $25 box of misc grinding wheels while doing a chainsaw search on cl, some of which were appropriate looking brown 8” x ½” Belsaw of a few varying thickness’. That got the ball rolling.

Now just needed a motor to spin one. Scoured swap meets and yard sales, ebay, etc. No luck, too much, too big, too small, too fast/slow, no reverse.

Finally realized I already had one sitting on a shelf, a smallish looking dc servo that I’d originally at first glance blown off thinking it had a ¼” shaft. It was actually a ½” that had been reduced on one end to mount an encoder. I have a controller for it that’s a bit overkill as it will power something like 1 1/2 hp but will be nice to have the variable speed. If it seems like one speed will do all then I can always switch over to a fixed power supply.
And with dc reverse rotation is a given..

Anyway, turned an arbor to mount a wheel, spun it up and bared down on it pretty hard with a hunk of steel before it slowed down. Motor didn’t get warm. Close enough…

Dug out a random hunk of aluminum for the chassis, 4 7/8” x 12 3/4” x 5/8” that fit minimum design parameters, most everything else is relatively small stuff/drops.

Found an abrasive encrusted hole saw at the flea market for ceramic or something that someone wiped out the bottom face but the sides were fairly untouched, a buck along with a handful of other stuff.
Seemed to hold up to shaping various grinding wheels just fine so I cut tiny little squares out of it and TIG’ed them onto threaded rod for my dressers.

The pieces of the puzzle came together.

I just pretty much finished up the whole deal the other night and ground my first cutter…


Same day I see a cl ad for a Prosharp for $500, funny coincidence.

Initially I blew it off as it would have been at the top of what I’d spend even if I still wanted one, was also a bit of a drive and no time to do it. Next day the ads still up so I just had to look of course and the ad/pics are a bit confusing because there’s a round grinder on a stand in the pictures that’s also being offered separately and an RSII that with the angle of the pics looks almost like it’s attached to the Prosharp somehow. And then a Silvey bar grinder on the floor that there’s no mention of.

Now I’m curious… and there’s a phone number…

It’s the last bits of an estate, they just want the stuff gone and amazingly no one else has called. They mention they’d take $400, those things were probly expensive ya know.
No, not $400 each...
Yeah, the silvey things with the motors…
Plural…

Well, a few hours driving, about 20 miles of it on dirt roads and I’m back home with ‘em. Didn’t even realize that the bar grinder was included in the deal as well as a breaker/spinner set.
RSII is missing the handle for some reason but otherwise it all looks to be in good shape.

The Irony of it, all these years and from bevel files to three square grinders in what was effectively a day.

Would’ve been really nice to have had the RSII through my build for dimensional reference, all I had was a handful of pictures.

Now to figure out how to really use these things, haven’t had much time to play. The RSII will likely go down the road but not sure about the Prosharp, will have to get a feel for what it does. Not in any hurry…

Pics of the home grown one soon.

View attachment 148014

If you need a hand walking through the pro sharp let me know, check the wear of the cable hole in the main frame.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Frank bierce]

Wow!! Killer score. Congrats!!

 

[chipper1]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

Like many of you, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an affordable square grinder for years now, unsuccessfully. Have only even seen a couple for sale locally in all that time and they were expensive, of dubious condition and far away.

So I finally decided to make my own. Both the RSII and swingarm setups looked pretty straight forward, design wise. No need to completely reinvent the wheel.

I had a couple small linear rail bearings on hand that looked like they’d do the trick for an RSII style setup, so that decided the general direction to go. To start anything, needed at minimum a motor and a wheel.
Of course since I’d be spending a lot of time on it then as an offset I want it all to be cheap, very cheap.

Over the summer ran into a $25 box of misc grinding wheels while doing a chainsaw search on cl, some of which were appropriate looking brown 8” x ½” Belsaw of a few varying thickness’. That got the ball rolling.

Now just needed a motor to spin one. Scoured swap meets and yard sales, ebay, etc. No luck, too much, too big, too small, too fast/slow, no reverse.

Finally realized I already had one sitting on a shelf, a smallish looking dc servo that I’d originally at first glance blown off thinking it had a ¼” shaft. It was actually a ½” that had been reduced on one end to mount an encoder. I have a controller for it that’s a bit overkill as it will power something like 1 1/2 hp but will be nice to have the variable speed. If it seems like one speed will do all then I can always switch over to a fixed power supply.
And with dc reverse rotation is a given..

Anyway, turned an arbor to mount a wheel, spun it up and bared down on it pretty hard with a hunk of steel before it slowed down. Motor didn’t get warm. Close enough…

Dug out a random hunk of aluminum for the chassis, 4 7/8” x 12 3/4” x 5/8” that fit minimum design parameters, most everything else is relatively small stuff/drops.

Found an abrasive encrusted hole saw at the flea market for ceramic or something that someone wiped out the bottom face but the sides were fairly untouched, a buck along with a handful of other stuff.
Seemed to hold up to shaping various grinding wheels just fine so I cut tiny little squares out of it and TIG’ed them onto threaded rod for my dressers.

The pieces of the puzzle came together.

I just pretty much finished up the whole deal the other night and ground my first cutter…


Same day I see a cl ad for a Prosharp for $500, funny coincidence.

Initially I blew it off as it would have been at the top of what I’d spend even if I still wanted one, was also a bit of a drive and no time to do it. Next day the ads still up so I just had to look of course and the ad/pics are a bit confusing because there’s a round grinder on a stand in the pictures that’s also being offered separately and an RSII that with the angle of the pics looks almost like it’s attached to the Prosharp somehow. And then a Silvey bar grinder on the floor that there’s no mention of.

Now I’m curious… and there’s a phone number…

It’s the last bits of an estate, they just want the stuff gone and amazingly no one else has called. They mention they’d take $400, those things were probly expensive ya know.
No, not $400 each...
Yeah, the silvey things with the motors…
Plural…

Well, a few hours driving, about 20 miles of it on dirt roads and I’m back home with ‘em. Didn’t even realize that the bar grinder was included in the deal as well as a breaker/spinner set.
RSII is missing the handle for some reason but otherwise it all looks to be in good shape.

The Irony of it, all these years and from bevel files to three square grinders in what was effectively a day.

Would’ve been really nice to have had the RSII through my build for dimensional reference, all I had was a handful of pictures.

Now to figure out how to really use these things, haven’t had much time to play. The RSII will likely go down the road but not sure about the Prosharp, will have to get a feel for what it does. Not in any hurry…

Pics of the home grown one soon.

View attachment 148014

That's sweet!
Whats sad is to think that could happen to our stuff one day, no-one knows what those old tools are, but they look cool .

 

[chipper1]

Still curious to see your homemade concoction, though

Me too. Read almost all the way to the bottom before , then back to reading.

 

[srcarr52]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

Like many of you, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an affordable square grinder for years now, unsuccessfully. Have only even seen a couple for sale locally in all that time and they were expensive, of dubious condition and far away.

So I finally decided to make my own. Both the RSII and swingarm setups looked pretty straight forward, design wise. No need to completely reinvent the wheel.

I had a couple small linear rail bearings on hand that looked like they’d do the trick for an RSII style setup, so that decided the general direction to go. To start anything, needed at minimum a motor and a wheel.
Of course since I’d be spending a lot of time on it then as an offset I want it all to be cheap, very cheap.

Over the summer ran into a $25 box of misc grinding wheels while doing a chainsaw search on cl, some of which were appropriate looking brown 8” x ½” Belsaw of a few varying thickness’. That got the ball rolling.

Now just needed a motor to spin one. Scoured swap meets and yard sales, ebay, etc. No luck, too much, too big, too small, too fast/slow, no reverse.

Finally realized I already had one sitting on a shelf, a smallish looking dc servo that I’d originally at first glance blown off thinking it had a ¼” shaft. It was actually a ½” that had been reduced on one end to mount an encoder. I have a controller for it that’s a bit overkill as it will power something like 1 1/2 hp but will be nice to have the variable speed. If it seems like one speed will do all then I can always switch over to a fixed power supply.
And with dc reverse rotation is a given..

Anyway, turned an arbor to mount a wheel, spun it up and bared down on it pretty hard with a hunk of steel before it slowed down. Motor didn’t get warm. Close enough…

Dug out a random hunk of aluminum for the chassis, 4 7/8” x 12 3/4” x 5/8” that fit minimum design parameters, most everything else is relatively small stuff/drops.

Found an abrasive encrusted hole saw at the flea market for ceramic or something that someone wiped out the bottom face but the sides were fairly untouched, a buck along with a handful of other stuff.
Seemed to hold up to shaping various grinding wheels just fine so I cut tiny little squares out of it and TIG’ed them onto threaded rod for my dressers.

The pieces of the puzzle came together.

I just pretty much finished up the whole deal the other night and ground my first cutter…


Same day I see a cl ad for a Prosharp for $500, funny coincidence.

Initially I blew it off as it would have been at the top of what I’d spend even if I still wanted one, was also a bit of a drive and no time to do it. Next day the ads still up so I just had to look of course and the ad/pics are a bit confusing because there’s a round grinder on a stand in the pictures that’s also being offered separately and an RSII that with the angle of the pics looks almost like it’s attached to the Prosharp somehow. And then a Silvey bar grinder on the floor that there’s no mention of.

Now I’m curious… and there’s a phone number…

It’s the last bits of an estate, they just want the stuff gone and amazingly no one else has called. They mention they’d take $400, those things were probly expensive ya know.
No, not $400 each...
Yeah, the silvey things with the motors…
Plural…

Well, a few hours driving, about 20 miles of it on dirt roads and I’m back home with ‘em. Didn’t even realize that the bar grinder was included in the deal as well as a breaker/spinner set.
RSII is missing the handle for some reason but otherwise it all looks to be in good shape.

The Irony of it, all these years and from bevel files to three square grinders in what was effectively a day.

Would’ve been really nice to have had the RSII through my build for dimensional reference, all I had was a handful of pictures.

Now to figure out how to really use these things, haven’t had much time to play. The RSII will likely go down the road but not sure about the Prosharp, will have to get a feel for what it does. Not in any hurry…

Pics of the home grown one soon.

View attachment 148014

Well that is a score worthy of some envy.

I've had to remake a handle for an RSII before. I might even have the material and a recessed bolt around still.

 

[Moparmyway]

Irony and coincidence. And work. And I’m now in the square grinding game.

Like many of you, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an affordable square grinder for years now, unsuccessfully. Have only even seen a couple for sale locally in all that time and they were expensive, of dubious condition and far away.

So I finally decided to make my own. Both the RSII and swingarm setups looked pretty straight forward, design wise. No need to completely reinvent the wheel.

I had a couple small linear rail bearings on hand that looked like they’d do the trick for an RSII style setup, so that decided the general direction to go. To start anything, needed at minimum a motor and a wheel.
Of course since I’d be spending a lot of time on it then as an offset I want it all to be cheap, very cheap.

Over the summer ran into a $25 box of misc grinding wheels while doing a chainsaw search on cl, some of which were appropriate looking brown 8” x ½” Belsaw of a few varying thickness’. That got the ball rolling.

Now just needed a motor to spin one. Scoured swap meets and yard sales, ebay, etc. No luck, too much, too big, too small, too fast/slow, no reverse.

Finally realized I already had one sitting on a shelf, a smallish looking dc servo that I’d originally at first glance blown off thinking it had a ¼” shaft. It was actually a ½” that had been reduced on one end to mount an encoder. I have a controller for it that’s a bit overkill as it will power something like 1 1/2 hp but will be nice to have the variable speed. If it seems like one speed will do all then I can always switch over to a fixed power supply.
And with dc reverse rotation is a given..

Anyway, turned an arbor to mount a wheel, spun it up and bared down on it pretty hard with a hunk of steel before it slowed down. Motor didn’t get warm. Close enough…

Dug out a random hunk of aluminum for the chassis, 4 7/8” x 12 3/4” x 5/8” that fit minimum design parameters, most everything else is relatively small stuff/drops.

Found an abrasive encrusted hole saw at the flea market for ceramic or something that someone wiped out the bottom face but the sides were fairly untouched, a buck along with a handful of other stuff.
Seemed to hold up to shaping various grinding wheels just fine so I cut tiny little squares out of it and TIG’ed them onto threaded rod for my dressers.

The pieces of the puzzle came together.

I just pretty much finished up the whole deal the other night and ground my first cutter…


Same day I see a cl ad for a Prosharp for $500, funny coincidence.

Initially I blew it off as it would have been at the top of what I’d spend even if I still wanted one, was also a bit of a drive and no time to do it. Next day the ads still up so I just had to look of course and the ad/pics are a bit confusing because there’s a round grinder on a stand in the pictures that’s also being offered separately and an RSII that with the angle of the pics looks almost like it’s attached to the Prosharp somehow. And then a Silvey bar grinder on the floor that there’s no mention of.

Now I’m curious… and there’s a phone number…

It’s the last bits of an estate, they just want the stuff gone and amazingly no one else has called. They mention they’d take $400, those things were probly expensive ya know.
No, not $400 each...
Yeah, the silvey things with the motors…
Plural…

Well, a few hours driving, about 20 miles of it on dirt roads and I’m back home with ‘em. Didn’t even realize that the bar grinder was included in the deal as well as a breaker/spinner set.
RSII is missing the handle for some reason but otherwise it all looks to be in good shape.

The Irony of it, all these years and from bevel files to three square grinders in what was effectively a day.

Would’ve been really nice to have had the RSII through my build for dimensional reference, all I had was a handful of pictures.

Now to figure out how to really use these things, haven’t had much time to play. The RSII will likely go down the road but not sure about the Prosharp, will have to get a feel for what it does. Not in any hurry…

Pics of the home grown one soon.

YOU SUCK !!!

Great things happen Bill, and I’m very happy for you with this !!!

Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy !!

Congrats !!!!

 

[wcorey]

 

[srcarr52]

View attachment 148185 View attachment 148186

What did you use for the slide?

 

[wcorey]

What did you use for the slide?

Linear rail bearing.
I think that's the common terminology, I forget the brand but similar to Thompson accuglide.
Takeoff from a decommissioned handicap van, used for a type of hand or knee operated electric throttle/brake.

Was a bit of a pain to get sealed up...

 

[chipper1]

View attachment 148185 View attachment 148186

That's great, nice work.

 

[Philbert]

You know, there is a market for people willing to make these things new . . .

Philbert

 

[srcarr52]

Linear rail bearing.
I think that's the common terminology, I forget the brand but similar to Thompson accuglide.
Takeoff from a decommissioned handicap van, used for a type of hand or knee operated electric throttle/brake.

Was a bit of a pain to get sealed up...

That is a square linear bearing? They are expensive.

I use two shaft style linear bearing on my retrofit kit. The price of the bearings isn't that bad and the package tightly.

 

[wcorey]

That is a square linear bearing? They are expensive.

I use two shaft style linear bearing on my retrofit kit. The price of the bearings isn't that bad and the package tightly.

I guess you could also call it square linear, two rows of balls that ride in a groove on either side of a square rail and yes, relatively pricey.
Mine were used and free so not an issue.

I have a selection of round shaft linear bearings but none are sealed so would’ve still needed to use a boot.

What you refer to as ‘packaging tightly’ was an issue for me. I initially set it up with two bearings on the same rail for additional strength and rigidity but found it to be too wide with the boots to get enough side to side to compensate for wheel wear.

Was then going to try them face to face with two rails but decided alignment would get fussy and was probably overkill anyway.

I ended up narrowing the overall width a little so the boots could extend all the way without stretching them too far and interfering with the feel. A bit wider and I needed one more boot pleat but then it wouldn’t go in far enough for a really worn down wheel.

So not needing a boot on the sealed round bearings is a nice width advantage, design wise.

The boot setup was probably the biggest pain of the whole thing, mostly due to the width constraints, can’t just clamp down a spigot on the boot end.
Had to get pretty creative there...

The good things with the square bearings are only needing one shaft, good multi axis rigidity and virtually no drag from the seals.

In the end I likely overthought much of it and would’ve been fine with a number of easier solutions.

 

[srcarr52]

I guess you could also call it square linear, two rows of balls that ride in a groove on either side of a square rail and yes, relatively pricey.
Mine were used and free so not an issue.

I have a selection of round shaft linear bearings but none are sealed so would’ve still needed to use a boot.

What you refer to as ‘packaging tightly’ was an issue for me. I initially set it up with two bearings on the same rail for additional strength and rigidity but found it to be too wide with the boots to get enough side to side to compensate for wheel wear.

Was then going to try them face to face with two rails but decided alignment would get fussy and was probably overkill anyway.

I ended up narrowing the overall width a little so the boots could extend all the way without stretching them too far and interfering with the feel. A bit wider and I needed one more boot pleat but then it wouldn’t go in far enough for a really worn down wheel.

So not needing a boot on the sealed round bearings is a nice width advantage, design wise.

The boot setup was probably the biggest pain of the whole thing, mostly due to the width constraints, can’t just clamp down a spigot on the boot end.
Had to get pretty creative there...

The good things with the square bearings are only needing one shaft, good multi axis rigidity and virtually no drag from the seals.

In the end I likely overthought much of it and would’ve been fine with a number of easier solutions.

All things I considered when I went with the two shafts. No way to get a boot on it so I went with sealed bearings that are inexpensive and easy to change if needed. The shafts are chrome plated and shouldn't get damaged easily.

 

[Ryan Browne]

Man, sweet score on the Silveys.

I thought about buying a Simmington briefly not that long ago, but the price was just too much.

Finally decided to just go for a round grinder instead. Anyway, I posted a thread about it, but I just wanted to pass along the tip that Stens is distributing Tecomec Super Jollys aka Oregon 620-120 grinders. I paid $270 for mine with free shipping. From Maverick Mower Supply.

Anyway, no affiliation with Stens, Maverick, Tecomec or anything, just seemed like a good enough deal to mention.

I'm looking forward to picking up some tips on using grinders. Thanks for all the knowledge you guys post up here.

 

[D B Cooper]

here is a Silvey R S 2 for you grinder junkies.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Silvey-Razur-2-Chainsaw-Grinder/352494055477?_trkparms=aid=111001&algo=REC.SEED&ao=1&asc=20160908105057&meid=4fcb5dd376df44548039268b62bc8040&pid=100675&rk=1&rkt=15&sd=352494055477&itm=352494055477&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci:f46e31cc-e039-11e8-911f-74dbd180ce89|parentrq:df062ab41660aadcc913d8d4fffd1d94|iid:1