Building a grinder

[NickWheeler]

Hey Guys-

Here come a great deal of questions from a young maker (21)....

I got started on an old 4X36 and made a huge move to the Burr King 960 variable speed about three years ago (yes, I bucked many hay bales and mowed many lawns to buy that thing).

Anyway, the Burr King is great. I never have bought the 10" wheel for hollow grinding, and it has only been recently that I have purchased the knifemaker's attachment (fitted with a D-2 platen) for my new love of flat-ground blades.

I have never had the small wheel attachment, because I heard bad things about it. I have used either a Dremel or an oscilating spindle sander with sleeves from 50x up to 400x.

I am looking to build myself a small wheeler grinder.

I don't have much machining knowledge yet, but am planning on taking some machine shop classes to fit into my engineering studies.

The only tensioners I have found are the little units that TKS carries and I heard they don't track well. Does anybody know where to find a high quality tensioning system, or can anybody give me an idea of how to set up the complete grinder.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

A side note to magnum, about a totally open sander: Unless you grind outside, you will quickly find a most irritating coating of dust in places in your shop that you didn't even knew you had.

 

[magnum .44]

hehe, looks like that already. i heard if you put a water bucket under it you'll reduce the dust. when do you plan on starting this grinder, becuase when i make mine, i'm making my own tensioning device, but i don't know how good it works, and wouldn't want to give anybody bad advice. you may want to just invent your self a tension thingamajiggy. i'm making a sort of backwards version of the one on my bandsaw, actally i invented the whole thing with out ever looking at the bandsaw's. do you have other tools around the shop with tension sets, that tracks well? just remeber don't run the pulleys off the same wheel as the tension setting wheel! i'm also fooling around with the small wheel grinder idea. hope this helped, but when i finish my belt sander i'll be able to really help you guys out. talk to L-6 he is experimenting with a different kind of grinder idea. draw out the basic design you want, and add stuff on from there, i suggest drawing it to full scale. also, remeber don't buy anything until' you're certain it will work. if you need any help, i'm sure i can help you out, just e-mail me.

 

[Dr.Lathe]

I built a very heavy duty "horizontal" small wheel grinder! But, before that I just took a small Sears 1" belt sander, modified it with a small delrin roller and mounted it sideways right to my bench. I cut a V shape out of some Stainless plate and used that for a work rest. It worked fine for all but heavy grinding.
I made the larger one to run longer 2" belts at a much higher speed.
If you would like more info on this, please feel free to Email me,
Neil

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Update in process! New knives, pictures, Sheaths!!
http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Meeting/5520/index.html

 

[NickWheeler]

Thanks for the feedback guys. It is much appreciated. And Magnum, don't worry about giving bad advice...I think it's something like: "The only bad advice is that which is taken blindly."

I really don't know when I'm going to try to build one, for now that Delta spindle sander works really well, I just want to have something a little more versatile.

Again, thank you.

 

[magnum .44]

spindle sanders work nice, but it's nice to have a small wheel grinder too. next time you visit a store that sells bandsaws, check out the blade tensioners, and make one like that for your belt sander.