A little feedback on guide to grinders?

Salem Straub

Salem Straub

Joined
Oct 20, 2008
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I have been working on some more website stuff, here is a page I just wrote at my site all about belt grinders. Sort of a beginner's guide if you will. If any of you guys feel like it, would you check it out real quick and give me some feedback about whether I have made any glaring omissions, provided misinformation, or am wrong in any of my opinions of these grinders? (Or whether the page layout sucks?) I would welcome any thoughts you all would care to share about it.
Thanks, Salem Straub

http://www.prometheanknives.com/shop-techniques-3/grinders
 
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Hey Salem,

Cool web page. I haven't read through it yet. I just looked a the pictures. :D I believe the two grinders together at the bottom are Norm Coote's (without motors). Are you going to put anything about Tracy Mickley's no weld grinder (NWG) on it? There's also that Suremak one in Canada (http://www.suremak.com/grinder.html).

Have you seen the grinder section on this site, http://gbrannon.bizhat.com/old.htm? You have to scroll down to the tools section toward the bottom to see it. Anyway, maybe some ideas there.

All the best, Phil
 
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Good point, Phil, I hadn't thought of that one. I probably will include it. Maybe I will do a general page about grinder construction with links for parts and plans. Thanks. Damn, you're right, I did have the Cootes mislabelled. Fixin' that now...
All fixed.
 
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Cost will come up a lot, it might help a beginner to have ballpark price differences. Same goes for accessories, they look good until you have to fork out for them. It's also helpful to have an idea how quick and easy it is to reconfigure a machine, some take seconds and some need multiple tools. Maybe add in links to the manufacturers and some of the popular suppliers.

Just thoughts, Craig
 
Thanks for the input, CDent. I thought about adding links, rough prices, and such, and may still do so, but I'm counting on readers to be Google proficient and somewhat motivated. They would certainly have to be to find my site in the first place! I may add some more comparison of the relative ease of changing belts and accesories on all of the machines in the future, it would be good to know but I'm kind of burnt after doing that page today. Maybe I will add that I have links to most of these manufacturers on my "links" page.
 
Your site is definitely coming along. It certainly adds value to share info like this. It lends credibility to you as a knife maker too. In general, I'd like to see more photos of you and your work throughout your site, especially pages like your bio page. The page on Prometheus was a good read. Looking good!
 
Thanks for the positive comments Phil, I'm currently producing almost nothing except for working with Ken, I have no shop right now as I am moving to the mainland in probably less than a month. Much of my older work was never photographed, as I had no camera for a long time, and now that I have one, I have little to shoot. As soon as I get back to my Washington shop, though, it's on! I'll post pics of my forges, anvils, shop in general, and all of the new work I put out. I can't wait! And thanks for taking the time to really read the text, I know it can be kind of dry in places.
 
Thanks ElectricZombie, that's what I'm hoping people can use that page for. I like your name, by the way!
 
Salem this is a really valuable thing to do. All the questions that come through here can now be directed at this page, and then we'll just deal with the particulars. ;) I'll second the notion for adding typical price ranges for the machines, though that's something that will certainly require regular maintenance. I recommend it though to round out your service.

Here are a couple of suggestions, even knowing you're getting burned out from coding the page. I'd put some white space and a header before each machine's section. Your photos and paragraph breaks do a good job but it'd look more like a summary list with additional formatting. How about a short section on knife-specific attachments like Rob's Rotary Platen and big tool rest? Then there's his horizontal grinder.

Finally, I didn't see the ultimate grinder, the Bader Space Saver! Or anything about 132" machines. That's probably fair since few makers likely know about them, but would be a good addition in your copious leisure time. I'd love to have a "big" machine, dream about it all the time. Others might too, given a little push.

See what happens? You start something good and people want to (see you) build on it. :D This is great; thanks for making such a major effort to summarize what's possibly the central aspect of every knifemaker's shop. Your grinder page is going to be the first "go read" direction for every newbie who comes through here asking about grinders. Good deal!
 
Very nice site - easy to navigate, and well written.

I would suggest that you change one word on the "My Style" page.
Change packing the bevels, to forging in the bevels, or refining the bevels.

Stacy
 
Thank you Stacy, Dave, B. Finnigan, for your feedback and advice. I will check out that grinder for sure, Mr. Finnigan, especially since it's U.S. made.
Stacy, you are right about the forging nomenclature there- "packing" bevels is still a concept stuck somewhere in my head, a word remaining there from earlier days and less knowledge. Still slips out now and then.
Dave- great suggestions, I really value all of your remarks and will certainly use some of them. As for the others, it remains to be seen whether I have the patience to shuffle around and reformat the pics/text on that page to where they are perfect. It can be VERY frustrating lining things up, that is not the strong point of that website builder. (Or this one.)
 
Salem,
Great site :thumbup: . Very professional and easy to navigate. As for the grinder section, I think due to the KMG and Coote grinders both being very popular and comming without motors it would be FANTASTIC educational stuff if you included an explaination of the differences in 220v -vs- 110v , Single Phase -vs- Three Phase , and Variable Speed -vs- Constant Speed. I feel that this info was more difficult for me to find and understand in the process of educating myself on, Which Grinder Should I Get ?

Just my opinion -Josh :D

By the way, Your doing some sweet work !
 
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