wire wheel problems.

[1971ford]

so im stripping the under-side of my bed with a twisted wire wheel. there is a undercoating on the bottom of the bed. the wirewheel (on my ginder) wipes the thick coating clean off down to primer. then it strips down to metal. anyways, now the wire wheel is flinging wires everywhere. ive used it for about 40 min. of grinding on the undercoating. there are tons of wires sticking out of my tarp (what the portable garage walls are made out of) and out of my pants. dont worry i have full face protection.

anyways, am i using the wire wheel to harshly by making it tear through the undercoating? it seems like it tears through undercoating with no problem at all. maybe its ripping the wires out

i went and bought a 3m paint/rust stripper pad, so i wont be pegged with wires this time. but i like using the wirewheel better, its more effective.

im thinking i can put the time into scraping the under coating off with a metal putty knife, but this is hard to do and takes alot of time.

also, i noticed Lowes has Hitachi twisted-wire wheels, and Dewalt ones.
are some brands better than others when it comes to wire wheels? ive been using a Dewalt one.

[ford4x4fun]

I would say that the undercoating gets to much stress on the wheel. I would suggest either getting a lot of wire wheels or using something else.

[fordman]

the better the wire wheel the fewer wires will fly out when you use it.

[1971ford]

yeah but whats a "good wire wheel" ? what brand? i thought Dewalt would be excellent, guess not.

think Hitachi would be better?

[FORDification]

The wires in a wire wheel are just clamped/crimped in...they're gonna come out, there's nothing you can do about that. I just buy the generic versions and use 'em till they're gone.



OK, maybe I don't (usually) use them up to this point, but this one time I did.

Just make sure to wear heavy clothing, 'cause the wires will hurt you. I was wire-wheeling one day and decided to take a bathroom break. I walked by the bathroom mirror and had to do a double-take...I actually had one of those wires sticking out of the bridge of my nose!

[1971ford]

you sure get your money's worth!

i guess ill try scraping the undercoating alittle before wire wheeling.
i dont like having tons of wires making holes in my garage tarp walls though
and i cant fit that sheild over my wire wheel. i wish it fit. the wires dont hurt too bad, but they do let you know when your hit (at least 1 hit every second) and they are all sticking out of my jeans when im done.

[fitzwell]

you sure get your money's worth!

i guess ill try scraping the undercoating alittle before wire wheeling.
i dont like having tons of wires making holes in my garage tarp walls though
and i cant fit that sheild over my wire wheel. i wish it fit. the wires dont hurt too bad, but they do let you know when your hit (at least 1 hit every second) and they are all sticking out of my jeans when im done.

Heat (carefully applied) will go along way in helping to remove the undercoat. Heat gun preferably, propane torch with a wide head if necessary. If you use the torch,
A) Have the fire extinguisher handy...just in case
B) Use some sort of respirator, the fumes can get real nasty

[worldsmysterie]

A lot of times they come out because you pushing to hard or you've used them for a good while. There going to go bad no matter how much you pay.

[1971ford]

great responses guys, fitzwell - wish you told me that earlier just finished scraping the undercoating off the whole underside of the bed
But the underside of the cab has the same undercoating, and my dad just happened to tell me that he just bought a heat gun!

ill try the heat gun

[mike_morgan21]

on that wire wheel you might want to check the rpm rating. mabe the grinder is turning to many rpms which would make the wires fling out.