Winston wrote:
beecrofter wrote:

On Nov 16, 9:24 am, Ignoramus11967 ignoramus11...@NOSPAM.
11967.invalid wrote:

(...)


FWIW those blocks of abrasive used to clean a diamond wheel do a bang
up job of "sharpening" a wire wheel and making it cut better.


That makes me wonder if I ran the wire wheel in reverse against one of
those blocks, would I get a 'sharper' wire wheel?

--Winston

I need to wire brush lots of rusty items as well, so ive done a no of
things to improve my motor driven round wire brushes.

1. as the wires wear, if you look closely at a wire you will see it had
become taperd at an angle to the wire.
2. also the wirestend to bend backwards from the direction of rotation.
3.You can improve the brushing action by taking the wheel off the
arbour and putting it back on so it runs the other way.
This will work for a while till thewires wear once again back to 2. above.
4. Now a much more drastic way of restoring your wire brush is to take
it off the arbour and take it over to your bench grinder.

Offer up the wheel side on to the grinding wheel to effectively square
up the wire ends.
This will restore the wheel to what it cut like when it was new., as
the wires are in fact guillotined square when made..
Now as the wires get shorter you will find that they get more aggesive
in their cleaning action if youfollow 4. above,
So the trick is to have several wire brushes, some with short wires
for heavy cleaning and some newonesfor final burnishing.,
For someof my production work I use a very fine steel wire brush, wire
thicknessof 10./1000 in
Perfect for burnishing say a minted plaque without destroying the detail
thereon
I run this wire brush against a 120 grit broken grinding wheel. this
cleanes the wires and makes them slightly rough. this works wonderson
brass bronze ,silver etc.
Rotation speed is also an important variable.
A say 6in wheel running at 3000 rpm cuts well the same wheel at 500
rpm has quite a different action and finish.
Dependson what you want.

Hope this helps.
Brushing is a long forgotten process in a silversmiths workshop
Canning published a book on wire and all sorts of other brushing wheels,
treatmentsetc. Published about 1940.
For example one technique for preparing nickel silver for plating is to
use abristlebrush with a drip feed of water and pumice powder . This has
the scouring action of your kitchn sink cleaner. This is used with
aguard to keepcthewater and pumice out of your face etc!!.
Aword of caution, wire brushing wheels shed wires.
Always wear eye protection shields. and riggers gloves if your
pressing hard. Wire wheels take off skin very fast.