Re-using felt Dremel wheels

Hi Gents,
So I was working on a razor yesterday, and started going through these darn expensive felt wheel I use to buff Mass...they get all black and slick fairly quickly, and then become pretty useless, so I was thinking to myself, well, I wonder if I could "dress" a felt wheel.

I took a quick look around my shop, and saw a paint scraper I had been using the weekend before - It had a fairly keen metal edge, was pretty sturdy, so I gave it a go - on about a "3" speed, I gently "dressed" the felt wheel, cleaning the metal edge on the scraper periodically, and low and behold, the felt came clean! A little fuzzy, but nothing that two rubs of the hand didn't take care of!

Just a little tip from my bench...every bit helps, right guys?

Mark

Sounds like an excellent idea, you can bet that I am going to use it the next time the dremel comes out.

very nice tip!

They're a lot cheaper if you get'em from Widgetsupply.

Nice tip....even if they were free, I'd still probably try to dress them, as I am both cheap and lazy...I know, but I just hate to see things go to waste.

...well, as a bit of an update, I tried again with a seriously dirty wheel I had left over, and while it did improve the felt wheel, it didn't completely restore it...so it half works - sorry to get eveyone's hopes up! I was really excited about it yesterday when it took a light-to-medium dirty wheel and completely restored it to like-new.

Mark

haha either way that's an extra 2-3 uses out of it :P which means 2-3 less that you have to buy :-)

Eventually the "rake" will become dull and lose its effectiveness and you will have to replace the rake or buffing wheel, but you can also soak or wash the felt wheel in lighter fluid (naphtha), it will dissolve the black oily residue in the wheel.
Pour a generous amount of the fluid in a jar and drop in the wheel, then give it a good shake, then squeeze out the excess and allow it to dry.

If you feel adventurous you may put the still soaked wheel in your dremel and run it at high speed to help “throw” out the remaining gunk and dry quickly (do this over a sink).
CAUTION: naphtha is flammable; the sparks from the motor's brush could set it off.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smythe

CAUTION: naphtha is flammable; the sparks from the motor's brush could set it off.

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that sounds interesting :-)

I should add... I use the dremel to dry the still wet wheel, and it works very well, never had a "flame-up". However I do this outside where there is plenty of ventilation.

Great tips guys.
You can also use 60 or 80 grit paper to reshape the tapered buffs. Just spin em up on the dremel and let the paper do the work.

Nuther good way is to use an old, fine-tooth hacksaw blade. Hold it into the wheel at an angle and work it back and forth a bit, reduces the "printing" of the teeth. As for the "washing", alcohol (denatured) will disolve most all of the binders in the stick or cake type compounds, and isn't quite as flammable or nasty as naptha...........Mike

Great ideas!

I've been thinking of a way for cleaning up these wheels...

I was thinking along the lines of soaking them in dawn/dirt-grease detergent ....

If anything comes of it, I'll post.

C utz

i use dawn dish detergent and hot water to clean them works pretty well for me