A Wire Wheel Balancing Method

A cheapie Harbor Freight wire wheel when first fitted gave excessive vibration. Checked it on a simple device made originally for model propeller balancing and found very significant out-of-balance. Made some additional bore slugs for hub to allow use of balancer and after some checking and adding couple of sheet metal screws to wheel outermost hub metal, achieved a near balance - result? - pretty smooth running. Certainly worth checking any wire wheel I think and balancing not too difficult. Remember eye protection in use, as sheet metal screw fitting can loosen a few bristles.

[@cgis123]

What a clever idea Chris, Same system as balancing car tires. Had you not put up this video I would never have thought of it, and just bought a new wheel. Thanks ATB Matt

[@dekebell3307]

Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks so much for sharing, I'm going to do this right now.

[@ChrisB257]

Thanks. There are better methods but this was adequate to make a big difference.

[@keldsor]

Hi Chris ! Your video comes right time to me - I just making both wire- and buffing-jigs from scratch and I never thought I would have balancing problems too - but now I know I need to be aware of this too - thx ! Nice and nifty jig you made for balancing - I'll make me one too ;-))

[@JackHoying]

Like you, I have a balancing stand for model airplane propellers that hasn't seen the light of day for a while. I'll give my wire wheel a spin! Thanks for the video!

[@AmateurRedneckWorkshop]

Great video. I never gave much thought to balancing wire wheels. I do need a new one but I got a horror freight wheel and it was so bad I threw it out. I am busy making some new jaws for my drill press vice to be more like yours. Thanks for sharing.

[@cosimomarotta9552]

Hi Chris, some years ago I made a balancer to adjust 1/10 Rc cars wheels. In accord to my experience, when you have very light weight to balance, you need e very drag free surface where letting the rod turning. After several attempts, I found easy and precise to build a balancer where the rod can rotate on two blades glued to the structure. And I added four (one for each corner) screw to the base to proper level alla the assembly. In this way my balancer was able to discover even the smallest amount of unbalanced weight on the little wheels. You can try to glue some pieces of cutter blades just to see how can improve that.

[@ChrisB257]

Indeed, for very light items drag-free is essential. Fortunately with the weight of wire wheels, not so critical. 1/10 wheels - now that's a challenge!

[@ExtantFrodo2]

There's a few things wrong here. First you don't note that the 080 piano wire MUST be perfectly straight. Better to use the largest diameter rod you can get away with. Second: riding in that groove means an up hill climb either direction. Better to let it ride along 2 straight knife edges. Third: You know you have true balance when you have the condition that when spun the wheel never stops in the same place. That your propeller swings back and forth like a pendulum shows not so much that it is balanced on either side along the blades but that it is out of balance 90 degrees from the blade tips. (Former watchmaker who had to adjust balance wheels all the time)

[@ChrisB257]

Thanks for the input - it was mainly that I had the v simple prop balance set up on hand. Certainly knife edges would be better but in the end even this basic approach did (maybe by luck!) achieve a huge improvement.

[@ExtantFrodo2]

ChrisB257 It's certainly better than nothing (as demonstrated by the evident imbalance of the wheels in the video). I'm just point out that there are significant improvements to be had. The knife edge is extremely low friction allowing you to super fine tune the weight distribution. I still love your videos and sense of humor. I hope your health improves and you can maintain. You look to be about my age, but I'm just starting out with machining so I gain a lot from you "oldtimers". :-)

[@pjhalchemy]

Thanks Chris, never thought of that technique for wire wheels and the screw is real smart idea. Those Cheap and Cheerful wire and grind wheels are pretty problematic, some decent others horrible. Have run into that thin hub issue and built AL flange bushings for them to give them a bit more meat. I'll give your technique a try. Did a lot of prop balancing back in the AMA days for Rat Race and 1/2A speed...UControl of course. We used razor blade V's and similar cone bushings. Thanks for sharing. PJ

[@ChrisB257]

The AL flange idea is good - may well do that for these thin hub items. :)

[@453421abcdefg12345]

Surely the grub screws in the hub bushes would give you an out of balance before you even put the wheel on the mandrel, some sort of threaded and tapered cone would seem to be a better system. It looks like your big wire wheel will need quite a few PKs screwed in on the light side to get it in balance. Chris B.

[@ChrisB257]

I don't think that small factor matters too much compared with a potential gross imbalance in a wheel itself. I like your idea - but thus far this approach does seem to deal with the major imbalance, enough to get a good improvement anyways.

[@outsidescrewball]

Good info...

[@MrEh5]

i find the cheap ones never stay true for very long as the bristles don't seem to break off uniformly around the wheel.

[@ChrisB257]

Sometimes Bob that can be so. However, I am thinking that if vibration seems to worsen - take off and check and perhaps re-balance.