Thread: Linisher Upgrade

My father purchased a Versitile Enginnering 26" Linisher new many years ago. It is a horizontal linisher that he mounted on a portable stand. I have now borrowed it to assist with my car building project.

It is a very handy tool but there are a couple of things that I was not happy with.
Firstly the belt would not track parallel to the body of the machine. This was caused by the driven end of the body not being square to the frame. See photo.

To fix this I cut off the end mounting plates and squared it all up and re welded it.

The horizontal linisher is great for facing flat surfaces. However I need to use it to fabricate a lot of suspension mounts which will involve grinding up to scribe lines. This is not very easy as you are having to tilt your head on the side to see what is going on.

The solution has been to fabricate a stand to allow the linisher to be mounted vertically. I have designed the stand so it can easly be removed so i can switch back to horizontal operation if required. I have also fabricated a tool rest to position the work on while grinding.

just finished attaching the tool rest tonight and will investigate reversing the direction of the motor so I can fire it up over the weekend.

cheers

Piers

Hi Piers,
Looks great.

Originally Posted by Piers037

will investigate reversing the direction of the motor

This confuses me. I thought the belt had to move from the work to the drive pulley? How did it end up running the wrong way?

Stuart

Hi Stuart,

When my Farther bought the unit it did not come with a motor. He used an old washing machine motor which when mounted up, was spinning the belt in the wrong direction. While the unit was used without a tool rest it worked fine like this.

Cheers

Piers

Yeah, really needs to be powered by a blown 400ci Chevy.
Nice try though.

As I know very little about electrics, I got a mate around to give me a hand. On removal of the motor inspection plate there was no capacitor present. My mate surmised that this must be a pre capacitor motor with two windings. One to power the motor and one to set the motor in motion. To test this we disconnected the secondary set of wires and turned on the power. There was a slight humming noise and when the pulley was spun the motor took off.

we then swapped the two secondary winding wires around and put it all together and it now spins in the correct direction.

I have now mounted the new stand for a test run using g clamps.

WOW what a difference this upgrade has made. It is effortless to grind nice radiuses in 6mm flat stock and squaring up Box tube is a breez.

Now all I need to do is bolt down the frame and make a guarded for the v belt.

cheers


Piers

Well done Piers,
I have a "big boy 80" linisher from carbatec. It is used for both timber and metal. One thing i learned pretty early on was that the standard timber belts don't like steel, they go blunt pretty quick (at least the carbatec ones do!). It may be worth you while, if you havn't already, to look into some proper metal belts. Trizact is the best i know of, it cuts faster, cooler, and lasts longer than any other belt i have used, but i'm not sure if you can get it made in any belt length/width. Bruce (Abratool) is the one to talk too about abrasives, but he is off on another caravaning adventure i believe.....
The other thing to do is to put some graphite slip cloth on the platen. The belts don't like being sandwiched between 2 hard steel surfaces. There is a Sandpaper Man add on the right of my screen right now- he sells it.

Thanks Ueee for the tip about the graphite slip cloth, I have been in contact with the sandpaper man and will measure up how much I need tonight.

What grit would you guys recommend for sanding mild steel?

Cheers

Piers

Depends on the job......
I usually range from 40g for heavy shaping to 120 for finishing, then onto the trizact belts, but this is on a multitool. I usually just have an 80g on the big sander.