Polishing a bell with an angle grinder

[Matty F]

Today I got to try out my theory about polishing a rough cast bell with an angle grinder. If the rough casting was polished as is, there would be irregularities that would show. That would also takea long time. The angle grinder makes the surface flat so that polishing is easy.

Here's the rough casting:

cut the head off a bolt and screwed it through the bell and put the smooth part of the bolt into a large drill press. Someone's moved the collet chucks so I can't find them. So I used the three jaw chuck at about 120 rpm. Since I was applying almost no pressure with the angle grinder, there's no danger of the bell coming out of the chuck. However a collet chuck would be safer. I used a flapwheel on the angle grinder and here's the result: bit of sanding with sandpaper, and then off to the polishing wheel for a superb polish: lot of bells are needed, so we can't muck around polishing for hours!

[Andrew Mawson]

there

angle

Very nice job. Be a tad careful with all the brass dust in the air - not nice to breath in.

AWEM

[Matty F]

Ah I was wondering about that. Up until now I've only used the angle grinder on steel, which I assume is not that dangerous. I can't find safety glasses that don't fog up when I'm wearing a dust mask and earmuffs.

[Chris J Dixon]

Chris

[The Medway Handyman]

Matty - you are 'Angle Grinder Man'!!!

[John Rumm]

Might be you need to change the dust mask to one with a proper vent. The

3M disposable respirators I find very good in this respect - they don't fog glasses or goggles etc.

[Dave]

Snip

Try wiping the inside with a smear of normal hard hand soap (no water) and report back.

Dave

[Matty F]

Well, I went to all the hand basins around here and there is no hand soap any more. I put some liquid soap on my glasses and that did reduce the fogging. I also have a better dust mask which seals on my face better.

[Tabby]

tinypic.com/b876ev.jpg

Fine job. Would you mind if this were copied onto the wiki so mroe people can see how to do it?

NT

[Matty F]

result:

> > A bit of sanding with sandpaper, and then off to the polishing wheel

OK, as long as there are cautions about using a dust mask, and it's unwise to spin such an object fast in a three jaw chuck, because if it comes loose it will fly across the room. The idea is to use the lowest speed of the drill press, as the angle grinder is doing all the work.

[Tabby]

Great, I'll move it over at some point. Cheers

NT

[geoff]

Gob on the glasses is a good demister