Performax 16-32: Anyone recognize this piece?

[Bill Rogers]

I was using my Performax 16-32 drum sander yesterday and I saw what I thought was a small beetle making its way to the door. After it stopped I realized that it wasn't a bug and that it might be a piece from my sander. It is about .305" in diameter and about .325" tall. I looked over the parts list and nothing similar jumped out at me.
Does anyone recognize it or know what it is and what it does?

Bill

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Sorry, I forgot about your post. I looked over mine, and I didn't see anything that looks like that. It's not part of the belt tracking or pareallel adjustment, so maybe it's a part from something else. Very little else on that machine comes apart or can be adjusted.

[Van Huskey]

Is it threaded on the inside? It looks like the cap for a schrader valve (car tire or cheap bike tube) but it may be too small.

[Jay Jolliffe]

What it looks like is one of those buttons for marking the mating piece when you use dowels. Looking closer at the pics I don't think that's what it is but it's close....

[keith micinski]

Or the removable end of a small gear puller. I don't think I have anything like that on my 16/32 either. I bet it came from somewhere else and ended up somehow by the 16/32.

[Clarence Miller]

5/16" dowel center inadvertently dropped and kicked across the room?

[Ronald Blue]

Take a close look at everything on your sander. That appears to be a shaft that has cut through. I hope not but check any rotating rollers etc.

[Tony Zaffuto]

In the 10-12 years that I first owned a Ryobi 16-32 (Performax patent) and then a Performax 16-32, and the number of times I had each tore down, I have never come across a part like that. Actually looks like the waste end of a piece of a turned piece of round stock, that somehow found its way over to your sander.

[Bill Rogers]

I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to respond to my question. I now feel confident that the part in question didn't fall out of my Performax sander. I have attached a picture of the bottom of the piece in case anyone was curious about what it looked like. The hole is approximately 1/16" in diameter and about the same depth.

219105

[Neil Brooks]

In my experience, the surest way to find out what it was, and where it came from, is to throw it away ;)

[Kent Chasson]

My old one had odd pieces of metal glued inside the drum for balancing. Washers, etc. Seemed like they used anything that was laying around. See if there's a blob of silicone inside the drum with nothing glued to it.