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My 600 (8") wheel has a defect and I need to replace it. I figured that I would just get a new set, for consistency. The brand is Inland Lapidary and when I bought them, they were about $800 each. Prices have come down considerably. (China has probably entered the market?)

Does anybody have any recommendations? I would greatly appreciate it.

OH ... and while I'm on the subject, the last time that I took my metal wheels off ....... I pounded them with a rubber hammer for hours. Does anybody know a way to help get them off of the machine (more easily)??

Sorry that I haven't been around very much. Thanks in advance!
Don Pulitzer

I can't offer any advice since I have a flat lap, but it's good to see you pop in and to know you're alright, Don. Hopefully someone whose lap has wheels will have a solution for you because that sounds like an awful lot of work and a big waste of time, so surely there must be some trick to it. Hope you can make it by more often.

Howdy Don. Well, when I bought this last used Diamond Pacific Genie from the community college the wheels had cracks & were contaminated by it. I had heard good things about Johnson Brothers supply company & saw their prices at out show, so I mailed them off & had them refinished. They came back promptly, Im not in a hurry or I could have bought new ones from them for less than I could replace them with OEM from Diamond Pacific who at times has "blems" for sale from their product lines at a discount. Not that they last long at the show. Both also vend at the Quartzsite shows.
There were instructions on how to resurface them yourself with diamond powder & epoxy online, but i have a space problem larger than my time allocation one.
Getting them off I cant say. Mine always slid off Diamond Pacific arbors. Gear puller? Put a little moly (Never seize) on the shaft when reassembling? In a machine we would use heat to expand the size of the outside piece. A small propane torch?
China is in the market, but supply lines are more expensive & slower now. If I was a worrying man I would have been stocking up supplies like i did silver wire. Especially if it was essential to my daily operations. HAVE spares.
Well, as much as i could after i bought a bunch of AMC & GME stocks to ride this squeeze for a new house.......
I'm impulsive if you didnt know.

Only experience I have close is rusted and seized bolts on my farm/farm equipment. I've had success using two doses of penetrating oil, and a rubber hammer to get it started. I'm talking fractions of a mm movement. Then more pressure. The rubber hammer to get just a slight shock movement is only if I'm concerned about bending another part. Truthfully, I tend to want to get a bigger hammer right away...lol...
Probably the lubricant and heat method is more common, but if any warping is a question then lube and cold spray may work. Just my thoughts.

I don't know through experience brands or prices on 600 8 inch sintered wheels. Lapidary Mart, covington is at about 475 I believe (just a quick web check).
Good Luck, and Good Success to you.

I just realized I answered for soft wheels. I remember my friends once were not impressed with the faster cutting the hexagonal patterned ones were. That was decades ago. I've never had to replace a sintered wheel. It was AN OPAL MACHINE or she'd get mad seeing jaspers & agates done. That was a pixie tho. Johnson Bros were good prices for most everything I ever checked on. Ive always wanted a Bull wheel to do faster, bigger, better roughing. I do have a pair of Richardsons style standing sanders for doing thunder eggs & flats.

PinkDiamond wrote:I can't offer any advice since I have a flat lap, but it's good to see you pop in and to know you're alright, Don. Hopefully someone whose lap has wheels will have a solution for you because that sounds like an awful lot of work and a big waste of time, so surely there must be some trick to it. Hope you can make it by more often.

Thanks, PD! I need to get here more often! This is one place that I KNOW that I'm surrounded by REAL opal people. The comments on YouTube ... I know some of them (actually, quite a few), but it's hard to know how much they know about opal. Not a problem, but it's nice to know who is who.
Baltic Abrasives sent me three new sintered wheels and they are pretty nice. Oddly, when I changed the wheels (I did a fast=motion version in a recent video), I HAD NO Difficulty removing the wheels. I had avoided touching them because of my bad experience last time. Maybe it was the WD-40? (But I've used WD40 for a very long time; I had to have tried it that first time)

BTW, when OA people leave comments on my videos on YouTube, I'd like to know that you are OA. I know several, but...
Thanks for all that you do for OA, PD. It's a tough job and you're great at it!
Best wishes,
Don

SwordfishMining wrote:Howdy Don. Well, when I bought this last used Diamond Pacific Genie from the community college the wheels had cracks & were contaminated by it. I had heard good things about Johnson Brothers supply company & saw their prices at out show, so I mailed them off & had them refinished. They came back promptly, Im not in a hurry or I could have bought new ones from them for less than I could replace them with OEM from Diamond Pacific who at times has "blems" for sale from their product lines at a discount. Not that they last long at the show. Both also vend at the Quartzsite shows.
There were instructions on how to resurface them yourself with diamond powder & epoxy online, but i have a space problem larger than my time allocation one.
Getting them off I cant say. Mine always slid off Diamond Pacific arbors. Gear puller? Put a little moly (Never seize) on the shaft when reassembling? In a machine we would use heat to expand the size of the outside piece. A small propane torch?
China is in the market, but supply lines are more expensive & slower now. If I was a worrying man I would have been stocking up supplies like i did silver wire. Especially if it was essential to my daily operations. HAVE spares.
Well, as much as i could after i bought a bunch of AMC & GME stocks to ride this squeeze for a new house.......
I'm impulsive if you didnt know.

Thanks for the info, though! I do have Nova wheels and I am always buying new ones. I'm kind of afraid to a different (cheaper) brand (MUCH LESS MY OWN "resufaced" ones) because I don't want to change my work procedure. I bet that I can get some from Baltic Abrasive to "try." They make some that sound identical to Novas (and are just about as expensive!). As I told PinkD, I was able to get the wheels off easily this time. Don

skywalker753 wrote:Only experience I have close is rusted and seized bolts on my farm/farm equipment. I've had success using two doses of penetrating oil, and a rubber hammer to get it started. I'm talking fractions of a mm movement. Then more pressure. The rubber hammer to get just a slight shock movement is only if I'm concerned about bending another part. Truthfully, I tend to want to get a bigger hammer right away...lol...
Probably the lubricant and heat method is more common, but if any warping is a question then lube and cold spray may work. Just my thoughts.

I don't know through experience brands or prices on 600 8 inch sintered wheels. Lapidary Mart, covington is at about 475 I believe (just a quick web check).
Good Luck, and Good Success to you.

I actually used WD-40 and they came off easily. I didn't even have to threaten them with the rubber hammer. I bought a new rubber hammer after my last wheel removal ...... my aluminum handle one BENT from that episode! It may have been the WD-40, but now that I think about it, while I was cleaning up the scale left on the axle last time, I did several passes with fine steel wool. Maybe I reduced the diameter of the axle just a tiny bit? Possibly. Sorry for the late reply, but ..dp

I'm delighted to hear the wheels came off easily this time. If the WD-40 ever fails you, try Superzilla. It's a penetrating oil that travels up threads and gets into places you need freed up. The ads even show it blasting off graffiti paint on a stone wall, and it removes rust, so if it's even half as impressive as it appears to be it ought to be a great product.

And thanks so much for the compliment. I really appreciate the nod because I enjoy the forum so much that if I have to miss a day due to technical issues, I'm calling poor John frantically; not that he can do anything to help but at least he lets me vent to him.

Hope to see some of your opals, and don't forget that you can embed YT videos here on the Board, which we always appreciate.

As far as rust penetrating goes; when we were dissembling the Gold mills to make a molybdenum mill plant out of them at the Ashdown Mine, we bought PB50 Rust Buster by the case. Since they gave me organizing and stocking a parts canister warehouse, besides electrician job, I can't remember how many boxes of bolts i bought for the construction. Bigger wrenches seem to help a lot.