2 Wheel Belt Grinder?

H

huntingsgr8

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May 25, 2015
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I'm looking into building a belt grinder, and I want it to be as simple as possible, so I've decided to go with a two wheel design, but before I go and put a bunch of work into one I figured I'd get some opinions from more educated men than myself. Is there a disadvantage to a 2 wheel belt grinder? Are 3 wheel belt grinders better for making knives? Why doesn't there seem to be a large presence of 2 wheel belt grinders?
 
I've seen some nice homemade large wheel belt grinders using a 2-wheel setup. I think there are even a couple commercial units. I have my surface grinder setup as a 2-wheel belt system, works great. The disadvantage I see is that most makers want as much versatility out of their grinder as possible. A 2-wheel setup is not quite as practical if you need to grind with a 1/2" small wheel.

Bob
 
there are a lot of limitations with a two wheel. a three wheel is not that much harder to build.
 
If you're just planning on using the grinder with a flat platen, and maybe limited use of part of your contact/drive wheel, then a 2 wheel will likely do the job.

However, a 3 wheel is really not any more difficult, and lends itself to being much more versatile and easy to use in the long run. Besides that, there's already plenty of plans out there for a 3 to 4 wheel grinder. No use to re-invent the wheel... (pun intended)
 
I was leaning towards a two wheeled design out of the need for something simple, but if I can find some plans that don't include a speed adjustment panel, or multi-positioning arms I'll make it regardless of how many wheels are required. Some designs are made to be so versatile that they're excessively so for my needs, and quite complex. I have access to a lathe and milling machine among other things so I should have no trouble turning one out.
 
huntingsgr8 said:
Forgive the nubish question, but what is tracking?
Click to expand...

it's simply the wheel that pivot or rotates to control the belt from side to side. usually only one wheel will do that and it's called the tracking wheel

Heres a good link to look through there are allot of grinder builds and lots of good ideas: http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/belt-grinder Just click on the ones that look interesting then that will take you to a thread about the grinder

I personally have a two wheel and a three wheel, I use the two wheel on for blade work(flat convex and hollow grinding) and rough shaping handles then I have a 1 HP three wheel for handle work I really like them both but I wouldn't say one was easier to build than the other.

DR....
 
Check out BurrKing, Hardcore, and Coote, they all make two wheel set ups. I'm sure there are others. You may get some ideas from these.

Hoss
 
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If you make a 2 wheel grinder, be sure to build in a flat platen. That way you can use the machine to flatten handle materials, taper tangs and flat grind blades-as well as hollow grind.
The Coote and Grizzly designs are pretty good.
 
More rollers = more control over tension and tracking (side-to-side movement of the belt). Shorter distance between rollers also equals more control. That's true whether we're talking about belt grinders or giant web-fed printing/converting presses. And as mentioned, 3 and 4 wheel grinders offer a lot more versatility for changing out platens, large or very small contact wheels and so on.

Build or buy the best you can afford. You will likely end up wanting a second grinder later for various reasons, but for now let's pretend you only need one :D
 
Dude... Unless you are very experienced in the machining world or something I would HIGHLY recommend to steer clear of building your own. I built my own 3-4 wheel design from the no weld grinder plans and put about $1300-1400 into it when it was all said and done. Then I spent, minimum, probably 120 hours on it between building it and tweaking it ever since it was built because something just wasn't quite right with the tracking. That's the thing... Everything has to be PERFECT for it to track properly. If I had to do it over again, I would just worked a little extra and saved up and purchased one already built by someone who knew what they were doing. Hope this helps!
 
Josh, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience building a grinder. I've built 2 of the KMG clones and both worked good and were fairly cheap to build. The first was a 3 pulley setup using motor I had on hand. The last is detailed here for a <$500 build. The grinder has been in use for about a year now and still working good. The grinder also flips over for a horizontal grinder.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1234634-New-Grinder-for-me

Ken H>
 
Ken H> said:
Josh, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience building a grinder. I've built 2 of the KMG clones and both worked good and were fairly cheap to build. The first was a 3 pulley setup using motor I had on hand. The last is detailed here for a <$500 build. The grinder has been in use for about a year now and still working good. The grinder also flips over for a horizontal grinder.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1234634-New-Grinder-for-me

Ken H>
Click to expand...

That looks very professionally done Ken!! But I read you had access do a milling machine and lathe... I had neither and actually built it out of square tubing (which is what the NWG plans call for) and drilled the holes w/ a hand drill, so everything did NOT line up like it should. I am sure you had no trouble and it tracks great though!
 
razor-edge-knives said:
Dude... Unless you are very experienced in the machining world or something I would HIGHLY recommend to steer clear of building your own. I built my own 3-4 wheel design from the no weld grinder plans and put about $1300-1400 into it when it was all said and done. Then I spent, minimum, probably 120 hours on it between building it and tweaking it ever since it was built because something just wasn't quite right with the tracking. That's the thing... Everything has to be PERFECT for it to track properly. If I had to do it over again, I would just worked a little extra and saved up and purchased one already built by someone who knew what they were doing. Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

I'm in agreement here...I run an aerospace CNC machine shop (I have full access to the equipment) and I didn't want to tackle it. I don't want to be in the fabrication business, I'd rather spend my limited available time improving my knife making, there is too much to learn here already. I've noticed that there is a real appreciation for DIY equipment fabrication here, some of us have the skills and experience, and some of us value our time differently. :-). Some of us are retired with available time and some of us have small children that need our time

I bought the NWG plans and decided against it. I wanted to hit the ground running making knives, not be consumed with the fabrication.

I think if you are going to build one yourself, you might as well build 2 or 3 at the same time. The material cost is marginal and you can add the motors and piece parts on later as required.
 
For a DIY grinder build I would do a GIB 2.0 kit from Polar Bear Forge or a LB-1000 from Wilmont. Honestly by the time you build a kit a budget grinder isn't much more.

Google No-weld grinder, KMG clone, EERF grinder for DIY ideas.

I am 100% of the belief that with a grinder if you by a $2k-4k unit it's money well spent. Then you can just make knives.
 
Josh: Thank you for the nice words. A drill press is the main tool that's required. I used the lathe for making the drive and tracking wheel, these could be purchased which would add to the cost. As mentioned (I think) in the thread I used skateboard wheels for the platen, and they would work nicely for the tracking wheel. A lathe is required for machining the 56C motor mount - I do think mounting motor on feet as a standard motor would work just fine. I've read other folks who did it that way with success. Mounting the motor on feet, I think it would be fairly easy to build a $500 (maybe $600) grinder with only a drill press..... AND some decent fabrication skills which I would think most knifemakers would have.

hsc: I fully understand your viewpoint. There are some of us who really enjoy the DIY approach. If only 10 hrs/wk is available for a hobby, you're right - better spend that time knifemaking. Building a grinder does take several mhrs to do a good job. AND - you're right on the basic material cost - I ordered the aluminum (all was cut to length by vendor) required to build the frame/platen for less than $150 and that includes at least 2 tooling arms.

Ken H>

Ken H>
 
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