MIMF

I picked up a balloon sander setup from my boss today, it's got a nice sturdy frame with a pulley welded to the middle of a one inch threaded spindle, and the balloon sander on one end. The balloon sander is useful to me, but it's also removable which I was hoping meant that this rig could pull double duty as a buffing station as well. Now that I've got it home and done some internet searching I'm finding it pretty difficult to come up with any hits for buffing wheels with 1 inch arbors that will fit on my shaft. So I think I have three options, find a place that can make a custom size for me or modify an existing one, order some and modify them myself or make my own buffing wheels. Does anyone have any advice on which way I should go, what suppliers I should look into, or what they've done to deal with oddball sizes with regard to buffing rigs? I'm hoping to get into a 12-14 inch setup, and probably a minimum of 2 inch wide, which will likely require 2 or more wheels on the same spindle.

Thanks in advance!

Why not get the standard 1.25" id buffs and put a short piece of acrylic pipe over your 1" shaft. I've gotten buffs from Bayland Products in Rockaway NJ http://baylandproducts.com . I got a pair of 14" x 1" airways and some flannels for the final coloring. Bayland will provide whatever size hole you need. You can try their tripoli and white while you're there.
I got my 6" arbor plates from Grizzly and got the compounds there at the same time.
http://www.grizzly.com/products/Buffing ... 1-4-/H2800 I don't think they sell the 6" flanges anymore which is too bad.

Yeah David, that was the closest I could find, so I'll probably give them a call. I'll have to find somewhere to get those flanges or make some myself I guess. I did find an interesting tutorial on making your own, which included soaking the center of the fabric stack in super glue and drilling it out for the arbor, though I'm a bit concerned with getting good concentricity...

John, Bayland sells the 6" flanges ($56/pair)http://www.baylandproducts.com/storepro ... nd_Flanges
All their airway buffs come with metal center plates pre-installed. They will bore them out to your desired arbor size. You want the flanges to be 1" larger in diameter than the center plates.

The grizzly H2799 6" flange plates have been "discontinued".

This place sells them but no prices http://www.formaxmfg.com/buffing-suppli ... ccessories

McMaster-Carr has stuff like that. Great industrial supplier.

Sure enough. http://www.mcmaster.com/#4899a51/=sjpyu6 Same price. I'm wondering if you could make birch plywood flanges for a relatively low speed buffer. The 1/4" steel cups seem like overkill.

You might check with LaGrand Supply locally. I bought buffs and rouge there a couple of decades ago. They had a lot of curious items and the visit was like going into a time machine to the 1950s. Things may have changed judging from the website. http://lagrandindustrial.net

Yes, I found them at McMaster Carr, looks like they only offer the cotton and not the flannel in the size I want but I'm not sure if I need flannel anyway. I'll check out LaGrand Supply, and see what they have too. I'm thinking I'll need at least 4 half inch wheels to get a decent setup for each compound, does that sound right? A nominal 2" width per setup, or should I be looking for more? At a certain point price will become a factor.

I have been considering alternatives to metal flanges, and I'd be pretty confident in some 3/4" plywood, I certainly have the space on my arbor for it too...

Thanks guys!

The first link I posted, baylandproducts has everything you need; http://www.baylandproducts.com/storepro ... nnel_Buffs
No price listed on the 14" flannel so you may need to call them.