<<Cheap & Easy Roller Alert>>!!

cannonball2

cannonball2

Well-Known Member
Had a roller failure Monday, naturally 8mi from home, What I found of the roller on the side of the road indicated it split through the center hole. I gathered the pieces and pedaled what mut be atleast a 75lb bike home. Looked it over and found it had been under extreme compression causing it to split The bolt in the crank is sized such that it bottoms soon after the roller is compressed, so the compression could not be from the roller slipping and tightening. Made another and hit the road, this time with a spare oak roller. After about 10mi I headed home and inspected the roller. The outer disc was starting to split, ****! I started to remove the roller and the bolt was very hard to turn. Then I noticed it the whole roller had expanded about 25% I had noticed by the seat of the pants that the engine was laboring more and the drive wasnt as smooth. The expanded roller was no longer very round and has greatly changed the ratio due to the expansion. The material though advertised a vulcanized is NOT heat stable! The conclusion is the second horse mat I bought from TSC is NOT!! the same material as the first I started this roller design with.
The first mat is very stable and long wearing. I still have the original roller with over 1Kmi on it. It had worn to the point.(.015) that I was beginng to loose top speed a little, so I just made another. To sum all this up TSC sells a 2x4' and a 4x4' mat, the big mat is the good material if it has a pebble grain top finish and is 16mm thick. The small mat with the diamond tread top finsh and 14mm thick is NO *******Good!!!
I apologize to anyone who might have followed my advice involving the latest round of roller material. The old material is killer.
Wayne C contact me with your address and I will cheerfully refund your money.
The roller in the pics assembled on the fuel line has 1K+miles.
 

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If you could find some old flat belt stock or conveyer belt, that would work great, they have cording inside, and shouldn't distort and prolly wear well too. Maybe take a holesaw to the sidewall of an old truck tire?
 
Had thought about the tire carcass thing earlier, might give it a look. They have the good material over at TSC. Figured Id experiment around a bit before I spend 40 bucks on a lifetime supply. See what I can come up with.
 
If I was to use a tire sidewall, I would cut out a section large enough to get a complete roller from one piece.

I've seen this done with a worm drive saw.

Then, before sawing or drillilng, I would sandwich it with plywood and screw it together thru waste areas.
This method also guides a holesaw thru any soft medium better than the pilot bit

The trick to drilling or sawing rubber smoothly and accuratly, is to deep freeze it a while. It gets hard and machines or drills way better than at room temp.
Just my experience.
 
Yah, tnx for the freezer tip!
I put bearings, shafts, and all kinds of things in there, from time to time.
She is used to it now.
(I almost always put the stuff in a plastic bag)
rc
 
What was the down fall of the latest roller was the instability with heat. It wasnt the heat from the driving, so much as the heat from the engine through the crankshaft. You wouldnt think it would expand that much but WOW. Neighbor down the road has a tire stack, gonna check there seems like I saw and old tractor tire.
 
cannonball2 said:
Wayne C contact me with your address and I will cheerfully refund your money.
Click to expand...

CB
Don't sweat it. If what you say is true and the motor is causing the heat problem, that may not be an issue with my setup since the roller will be on a jack shaft; if I ever get to finishing this thing. Besides, I've got a backup plan to use a polyurethane skateboard wheel that happens to be the same diameter. So we'll see how they go and I'll report back here in the future.

CB, you're an honest and decent guy and I appreciate the offer. It shows real integrity; Rare these days. I hope others will follow your example. Maybe I'll just keep the disks as a token to remind me there are still fine people in this world.

WC
 
I hope you have better luck with the skateboard wheel than I did. I had one of those on the bumblebee bike I had a few months ago. It wore down almost instantly. I think it was just too soft for the job. maybe I just bought the wrong kind though since I know nothing about them.
 
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