I was wondering, does anyone here have any exeperience or know anything about repairing the rubber on contact wheels because a few months ago I bought a 14" contact wheel that somehow got half of its serrerated rubber face ground off of one side. I was thinking if I made a plaster or wood mold that the contact wheel would fit in I could melt some old tires and cast the other half of the wheel. Do you think this would work and are there any other kind of rubber I could use?

Personally, I would let a professional do it. Here are a couple of places. PS; there is a place in Winchester KY, dont ever send your contact wheels to them, you dont want to know.www.contactrubber.com/home.htm (http://www.contactrubber.com/home.htm) The bader co., is another good one but I dont have info for them. Good luck to you.

well I did email contact rubber corp. but they quoted me some absurd price ($200 some dollors I belive) I don't want to spend more then $50, but then again I'm pretty cheep :)

Try Tru-Grit @1 800 532 3336 thay had two done for me last summer don,t know what it cost but it was resonable Gib

PLEASE READ BEFORE PATCHING RUBBER WHEELS!
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I do not think that patching the wheel yourself is safe.

These wheels are spun and balanced. If you melt something onto that wheel, and dress is off round, it may look fine "still".
When you turn that machine on, it is gonna find the place that is out of balance, and throw it at you at about 120 MPH.
It also broke you belt, that is slapping you 3400 times a minute now. If that doesn't beat you up enough, the time it takes to heal up, you can beat yourself up some more cussing that $20.00 dollars you were trying to save.

I don't mean this to sound harsh, but I do want everyone to have fun and work safely. A home-patched wheel is DANGEROUS!
(BTW been there- done that.It HURTS OK?)
We all do this with limited funds, but I would rather pay for the wheel to be done right, than to pay the doctor bills, and STILL find out that my wheel won't work either.

Good point Geno, I never thought of that I guess I'm going to have to take it to a profesional or just take all the rubber off and use as a aluminum wheel.

The hard wheel on my surface grinder is an old stripped rubber wheel, turned smooth and polished.
It works great.(for surface grinding)
Hard wheels are not very good for regular grinding though.

It scares me to see a patched wheel or a wheel with hunks missing, they are SO dangerous.
You gotta watch these high speed machines.