Bench grinder to drive flexible shaft?

Leigh Seaver

Member
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6
I would like to use the spindle of my bench grinder to drive a flexible shaft for a pneumatic drum/ball sander. Can I do this? How do I go about it? I've seen some motors with drill chucks installed on one or both sides ...
 
Leigh, I'm sure it can be done. I would question the flex-shaft for the speed (3450 rpm's) of the grinder. I have an old shaft (pix later if needed) that attaches to a plain shaft motor, but mine runs @ 1725 rpm's. I never tried it faster.

Another thing would be the attachment of the adaptor to the grinder shaft. The adaptor bore will have to be precise in the ID to fit properly on the THREADS of the grinder shaft. Most flex-shaft hubs have set screws to hold to the motor shaft. These are going to damage the grinder shaft threads. And, if the ID is any over-size, the hub will be off center, because of the set screws, and cause vibration.

Why not just use an extra motor whose shaft size fits the flex-shaft hob (adaptor) correctly and the motor shaft should have a flat for the setscrews to seat on. Then you keep your grinder free to do what it was intended to do, with wheels on it, instead of a flex-shaft.

Just my opinion.

Aloha, Tony
 
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