- Joined
- May 17, 2006
- Messages
- 450
Hey all. Here is the home-made grinder that Ken and I just finished last week. It still needs a few minor tweeks and a paint job but I couldn't wait any longer so I've been using it as is. It may not be the prettiest machine in the world but it works really well so I don't mind the "character" that it has. If I were to add up everything that I spent money on, it would come in around $500. Keep in mind though that many of the items used in the build came from either a scrapyard or Ken's scrap pile. The best part of all was that when it was basically finished, it worked right away. There weren't any serious issues keeping it from working. We had to tweek the tracking system a bit to get the spring tensions correct but that was pretty minor. Anyway, here it is:
Here it is in a really early stage of the build
Another early on pic. The main slabs that hold the tooling arm slot are cut from a huge paper shearing blade about 5' long. When we took that huge blade out of the frame it was in, it was hair shaving sharp...amazing that a blade that large was that sharp.
Here is the final product. One thing I would do next time is to use slabs welded into a square to make the tooling arm holder. We used square tubing, which works, but the tooling arm doesn't seat totally perfect since the inside of the tube has a radius in the corners. Even round the bottom right angle of the tooling arm didn't completely fix this.....but it made it better for sure.
Right side shot.
Here you can see our tracking system. It isn't really ours though. We kinda sorta copied Bader's idea on this one.
Here's the platen. I actually switched out some of the bolts so that it is a little more clean. This thing weighs a ton though. 10.5" platen with 2" and 3'' contact wheels on the end.
This is one of my favorite parts. The drive wheel is made out of oak. There is some black electicians tape on it to add to the crown. It has a lathe turned crown on it but it needed just a little more once we got it running.
Here it is again in full view. Pulley setup is 2-3-4-5 on the motor and 2-3-4-5-6 on the drive shaft. The motor is mounted on a round pipe so that it can move side to side so the pulley to pulley size options are changable too. I think with the 5" on the motor and 2" on the drive it is somewhere around 4400 RPM and with 2" on the motor and 6" on the drive I think it somewhere around 570 RPM. Those might not be quite right as I used a on-line calculator thing to approximate them but you get the idea. Really fast and really slow.
Here it is in a really early stage of the build
Another early on pic. The main slabs that hold the tooling arm slot are cut from a huge paper shearing blade about 5' long. When we took that huge blade out of the frame it was in, it was hair shaving sharp...amazing that a blade that large was that sharp.
Here is the final product. One thing I would do next time is to use slabs welded into a square to make the tooling arm holder. We used square tubing, which works, but the tooling arm doesn't seat totally perfect since the inside of the tube has a radius in the corners. Even round the bottom right angle of the tooling arm didn't completely fix this.....but it made it better for sure.
Right side shot.
Here you can see our tracking system. It isn't really ours though. We kinda sorta copied Bader's idea on this one.
Here's the platen. I actually switched out some of the bolts so that it is a little more clean. This thing weighs a ton though. 10.5" platen with 2" and 3'' contact wheels on the end.
This is one of my favorite parts. The drive wheel is made out of oak. There is some black electicians tape on it to add to the crown. It has a lathe turned crown on it but it needed just a little more once we got it running.
Here it is again in full view. Pulley setup is 2-3-4-5 on the motor and 2-3-4-5-6 on the drive shaft. The motor is mounted on a round pipe so that it can move side to side so the pulley to pulley size options are changable too. I think with the 5" on the motor and 2" on the drive it is somewhere around 4400 RPM and with 2" on the motor and 6" on the drive I think it somewhere around 570 RPM. Those might not be quite right as I used a on-line calculator thing to approximate them but you get the idea. Really fast and really slow.
