Flywheel Finishing

George Best posted a question:

Here's another topic that someone suggested:

How do you finish flywheel rims?

Do you paint them same as the rest of the flywheel?

Paint rims a different color/colour than the rest of the flywheel?

Leave the rim as bare metal?

Polish the rim?

For myself, I prefer bare metal although it usually means having to clean surface rust before each show I take the engine to.  I like the bare metal especially when the flywheel face has machine tool marks from when the engine was made.

I really haven't thought about it that much, but wonder which companies painted the flywheel faces and which companies left them unpainted?  Or did it vary depending on the model of engine?


Paul Pavlinovich (me :) responded:
I follow different courses for different engines. If the flywheel will be used to drive a flat belt
then I tend to keep the face clean of paint and give it a going over with oil and a rag at shows with the engine running. You have to be pretty careful and fold up the rag so it is a pad with no
trailing bits to get caught. You can only do this if the flywheel is clean of burrs and nicks otherwise it will get caught and likely hurt you. I've also been known to use sandpaper if there is particularly bad rust, but use gloves, the sandpaper gets very hot very quickly! 

If the engine will never drive anything (ie. it has a pulley or is just for display) then I paint the rims red. Some people go for black, some red, some the same colour as the rest. I just like a bit of variety and fire-engine red certainly draws people over at shows.

Steam & Engine of Australia

Orrin Iseminger responded:

I prefer to keep my flywheel rims unpainted and bright.  This might not work
in a damp climate, but we're blessed with near-zero humidity, here.
However, even when we do get a heavy dew or rain shower during a show, the
flash rust isn't a disaster.  As soon as I start the engine I'll polish the
flywheel with a bit of motor oil and a Scotchbrite pad.   It takes but a few
seconds and afterward there's no sign that there ever was any rust.

The longer one does this, the nicer the flywheel looks.

My 2¢

Orrin

Joe Betz said:

Depending on the condition of the flywheel face.

If the faces are pitted, I prefer to paint them a different color as I
like to use a 2 or 3 color scheme in painting the engines.

If the faces are nice, I'll clean them with emery and coat them with oil.
Constant attention is required so they don't rust.
Once done, they can be kept clean with Scotch-Brite pads.

I haven't clear coated the rims of any flywheel yet.

Have no idea what the manufacturers did.


Joe Betz said that. 

Rick Strobel added:

The original flywheels on the small Gal (the one with cracked hubs) had real
nice faces..would have looked good shined up, imo.  The replacement ones are
badly pitted and required "icing" and paint.  Newest BF is too invent a
tooling device that clamps on the engine and re-surfaces the face, plus put
the tooling marks back into the face..I like that look.
    Friend wants me to try gun blueing.  Says it will rust over a period of
time but should look good.  Might try that on the saw rig or piglet..kinda
pricy.

George Best told us about Kerry Morris' device...

Kerry Morris made a setup for cleaning up a flywheel while the flywheel was mounted on the engine base.

and Patrick Livingstone provided an URL to Kerry's page

Try:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/kmorris/Webpages/Crossley1.html

Patrick M Livingstone
02 96920137
Leichhardt NSW

Bob (Blacksmith) Willman added:

    The gentleman that I got my 25 hp Superior from, told me that the face
of the rim
was never painted. It was the job of the apprentice to keep them clean and
rust free.

Bob Willman
The Eagle's Anvil
Bowling Green, Ohio

Jack Watson added:
In days of yore, we used to shine up the flywheel rims in the power houses
holding a brick against the running wheel. Then we had to clean up all the
brick-dust! The machining marks did look nice, though, not highly polished,
just a lovely soft gleam.

Living within spitting distance of the Indian Ocean, where rusting is a
problem, I now tend to paint everything including flywheel rims.  However,
as I needed to drive the generator by vee-belts running on the flat of
flywheel of my Buzacott to get the necessary speed, I was concerned that
they might not grip on the paint, so I used a set of three instead of the
two I calculated I needed, and have no problems.

Ray Freeman might tell us how he treats his rims.

JW²
Perth W.A. Oz
jacknade2@bigpond.com
WB8NQW

John Hammink added:

I file the high spots of the flywheel and sand them with
industry paper. Paint three layers thick first coat in
different colors. Let it dry for a few weeks and sand it
with 100 paper. Spray a thick layer primer and sand
it light with 240 paper. When the moment is there I
spray them to finish with automotive quality paint in
the color I want mostly 2½ layer.
The rims get the same color, in the beginning I let them
blanc polish, but it's here to dampy and it rust to quick.
Here at this Url you can see some stages in flywheel
painting.
http://www.oldengine.org/members/hammink/Paintstages.jpg

John Hammink
Anna Paulowna, Netherlands.
jg.hammink@quicknet.nl

George Best added a comment:

When Harry and I were doing the EHOWT last summer, we visited a collection in Belgium.  The owner really liked to have everything clean and polished.  He had a Czech sideshaft engine with flywheels that from a distance looked liked the flywheel rims were chrome plated!  However, when you got closer to the engine it became obvious that they were just highly polished.  The bad part is he had a couple kids buff the flywheels with what I assume was an electric handheld buffer.  The flywheels were sure polished and looked like chrome, but in doing it by hand they made the flywheel face so wavy that in my opinion they ruined the flywheels.

George

Ronald J Mattson had another method
A few years ago I turned the surfaces of some small flywheels (22") on a
brake drum lathe, with a little fudging I was able to use the tool that
would normally be used to turn automotive flywheels. It did a real nice
job.

I'm currently working on a 3 HP, IH Famous vertical. The flywheels rims
were quite rusty and appeared to have never been painted. They are also
too big to put on the drum lathe. The rust was thick but it didn't have
the deep pits that you would get if they were buried in the ground or
covered with water.

For the initial clean up I ran them in the hot tank that we use for
cleaning cast iron engine blocks and heads. This removed all of the
grease, old paint and some of the rust on the rims. I then sanded the
outside face and the inner and outer sides with a hand held sander. 

The sander is made by B&D and has a section for nondirectional or
straight line sanding. To avoid the little swirl marks I selected
straight line and held the sander in line with the way that the wheel
would turn. Using progressively finer paper and about two hours of elbow
grease, the surfaces are now bright and shiny. After the engine is
running, I will polish them with either scotch brite pads or fine emery
cloth.

As to painting, I find that trying to mask the rims is a big waste of
time. I just paint them, keeping the over spray to a minimum and when the
paint has set a little wash off the over spray with thinner.

Ron in RI

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