Good Deal for Grizzly?

K

KB knives

Joined
Jul 24, 2001
Messages
5
Well I've been up for hours looking for the best deal on a grinder, or if I should just make one. I have a motor but its only 1/2 HP and I want a bit better than that from what I read here. So I looked at the grizzly G1015 and for about 350 delivered it sounds great to me. I can tweak it in a bit and do some add-ons. Is there a better way to go, or is this worth it? I look forward to hearing from you.:D
 
Hi
Welcome to the forums!
The grinder questions, and the Grizzly questions, get asked here pretty regular.
If you look on the top there is a search feature: Just type Grizzly in there and select the shoptalk forum and it will keep you busy reading for a while :)
Then run the same search on both of the Shop Talk archives for even more info.
I have a Grizzly and love it for the money.
Again, Welcome!

Dave Evans
Tenino, WA
 
Personally, I'll never buy another belt grinder. They're not that difficult to build and a store bought one is just way too expensive for what you get. There are some real good ideas out there for different designs. If you use the search mode you can find lots of info on building your own belt grinder. You're still going to spend $200-300 on it by the time you buy cintact wheels and a good motor but you'll have a full size belt grinder for 1/3 the cost of a store bought.
 
I have a grizzly and it will grind with the high dollar grinders
out there,it is the person using the machine,as long as your tracking
is good I see no reason to pay 1500 dollars for a grinder.take a look
at allen blade all he uses is a grizzly and he sells alot of knives
and he also has videos were he grinds a blade on the griz.
;)
 
You can build a FINE grinder yourself that is for sure. I have to agree with Michael on that but I must disagree with the statement:

"I have a grizzly and it will grind with the high dollar grinders
out there..."

Granted, skill is the LARGE factor but quality of the equipment does make a difference. Just ask anyone that has been grinding on a fixed speed grinder and then goes with a variable speed setup. Don't get me wrong, the Grizzly is good machine and I can't take anything away from it but it will not "hang" with the better machines out there. You get what you pay for.

C Wilkins
 
Mr wilkins
The only down fall I see in a griz is a varaible speed
I modified mine and have a motor behind the buffing arm and I made big pullyes the are threaded an go were the buff end is I run a belt
to the big pullies powered by another motor and I have as much speed control as I would with a high dollar one.some maker just can't afford
1500 dollars for a grinder,take a look at wayne goddhard about the high dollar grinders and he will laugh,i have his book and
he uses grinder made from micarta and uses cart wheels for a contact wheel and a skate board wheel for a drive wheel.Show me a man with the drive and I will show you a man that will out do 100 that don't have it.it may sound smug but it is true.
 
Zodiac, could you kindly post some pic's of your knives that you made on you're wonderful grizz, machine.
it seems about 10 to 1 on complaints to compliments here on the grizzly.you do get what you pay for. :D
 
I have a Craftsman 6" bench grinder, a Craftsman 4x36" belt grinder with a 6" disk, and my Grizzly. Everything I've made to date has been made on these and some files. Nowhere near as impressive as some of the pros out there, but I think they're not too bad. If I could change anything on it? Easier wheel changeout, higher HP and variable speed. Great machine for beginners like me, though.
 
Hi,
RHINOKNIVES, what kinda of problems did you have with the Grizzly you used?
Regards, Greg
 
Rhino Kinves
I am just starting out I now yo had a coote now you own a
BMG from ROB.I know what I can do I am working on some blades know they will be my first,and you may be in for a surprise,I do not boost
about my knives,that would make me a know it all,and one thing I am not is a no it all.Seems to me when some makers have been in it a while,they forget were they come from,when they have the high dollar grinder,we all start some were.The Griz may not have all the great ad on and a V/S, but if it is tracking good I seen no reason it should be put down,Like I said in my last post mine is not a standered griz.
I will post pictures when they are done and you can be the Judge
I will not brag on myself my work will speak for it's self.
;) ;) ;) ;)
 
I may have made a mistake on the grinder Rhino uses,correct me if I am wrong,I seen a post a while back,I think it may have been rihno knives
that said I have a hardcore grinder and I am having motor trouble so I will grind on my old coote until the hardcore gets fixed.
I may be mistaken.A high dollar grinder bracking down,
don't want to step on toes but I call them as I see them.
Z
 
when i started knifemaking 4 1/2 years ago i did'nt even own a car, due to being out of work from back pain and a few other things, i started with files and paper, when to a hand drill with a flex disc,... ... ... then finaly a coote 2x72 and about a year ago i purchased a hardcore and and contiue to put most of my money from the biz back into the biz i have been fulltime for 2 years. read the archives and you will see post after post of people that are moaning about how they are sorry they bought a grizzly. my point :) is that for under $500 i had a v/s coote, 1 1/2 hp and didnt have to spend hours getting something to work! that i just bought.my sugestion to the gent that started this inquire is sell a few knifes so you can get something with a little better track record. and yes some people are inclined to bulid. (mr goodard) and i have done my share of adapting tools. the thing is with my high dollar machine, i can spend my time making knives, not taking shopping karts from street people and cutting them up for parts.
 
laurance
We all have to start some were like you said,i agree with you
about high dollar grinders there probably is alot of difference
between them i have never ground on a high dollar.I had a coote and
a griz I had to sell my coote to get some cement work done.I had it set up nice,I was going to do my profiling and odd stuf with the griz
and I was saving up for a V/S motor to put on the coote.
I emailed you some time back and I sent I you some of my rough work on grinding I am Nathan House.You saw my grind lines and said
they were some of the best grinds for a newbie you have seen
I liked the style you made with the deep finger groves
you had the coote then and you were making great knives with it
I would like to see some of your work done with the hardcore.
I have no ax to grind I am saying is in the wright hands the griz can grind if set up wright.I am a poor backwoods boy I .will us the griz
until I can afford a better one.No hard feelings,we all share the same
love,weather will ground it on a griz a BMG or a hardcore.
we are on here to help each other out what ever it may be
reguards Nathan
 
Thank you boys for making up. You both are right to a certain extent. I don't have a high dollar grinder. I have four grinders, two small cheap grinders and two I made myself. They do fine for me but my work does suffer as far as speed and what must be done by hand. I have used the Griz and it's better than what I use. It's also not very well made for the money and they don't have a very good reputation for customer service.

I vote he make his first one. At least he will know what makes it tick!
 
I have used a grizzly for 5 years now.I have done all the modifications Allen Blade showed me.I made my abs journeyman smith knives on it.Someone else posted that it doesn`t take a 2ooo dollar grinder to make good blades.I have recently purchased a square wheel and am still learning to use it. Thanks Robert Washburn ABS journeyman Smith
 
I just got a Grizzly G1015 belt sander, and it seems like a pretty nice machine for only $275 + shipping, however there are some problems with this machine. I called Grizzly customer service up, and most of these problems seems to have been remedied. Their customer service department is very quick, friendly, and easy to deal with.
The first of the issues I had with this machine was the fact that the shoe bracket (the part that holds the platen) was supposed to be a piece of cast iron that was 90-degrees so it would hold the platen to the belt. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite 90-degrees, and the platen would be against the left side of the belt, but not quite on the right side as well. I called Grizzly up, and they are sending me a new shoe bracket and platen in order to correct this problem.
The second was the fact that the tracking sucks. If you push down on the belt, sometimes it will scoot over a little bit. Pretty annoying. This problem's severity is lessened if you increase the tension on the belt, but it still is there. Also, I put a two layer strip of electrical tape on the middle of the tracking wheel. Work's a lot better now, but still has a little bit of scooting over if you put pressure on one side of the belt and not the other.
Third, the graphite that they put over the platen is terrible. After grinding one knife on it, the graphite was sagging in the area of the platen I was using. You can imagine how my flat grind wasn't quite flat and I more or less wasted $8 worth of ATS-34 stainless steel when I tried doing a tapered tang. I used DAP contact cement to stick a 1/4 x 2 x 7" piece of glass on the platen. I should have gotten a piece of glass 9" long, but the 7" piece still works fine.

Anyone sell small wheel attachment for this machine?
 
Ah, grizzly. mixed feeling here from me. 1, it needs VS, 2, needs a small wheel attachment, 3, need to get that morot out of the way!

I got mine last summer, had good and bad results with it. Bad, took 2 months to get the thing, motor had some noise, got the run around and a month later the noise stopped on its own. :rolleyes:

Good, plenty of power for hogging and grinding, but tracking needs to be played with, as does the platen.

Improvements:
Throw that graphite garbage out :) Then flip belts inside out and use a flat piece of metal to reface the platen till its dead flat, run the belt off the edges to radius the platen. True up the contact wheel with file and radius corners. Square up the tool rest to the contact wheel. Lets see what else? oh yeah, almost forgot. Kick and swear at it to show it who is boss, then repeat every once in a while :) Find a way to get VS and get that motor housing out of the way when hollow grinding. find a small wheel attachment, drum mandrels just suck.

Ah yes, CS of grizzly, bout a 6 of 10 in my book. Ok, but not the best, took forever to get back about problems, etc.

I have used the grizz for bout a year now. its not too bad for flat grinding and hogging, but it definetly needs VS thru pulleys and a motor relocation, and a small wheel attachment somehow.
 
Eric,

Take a close look at the idler assembly. It has several adjustments. You will need to get it in proper alignment in order for your taking to be true. With proper adjustment, it will track as well as any other machine that I have used.

Brett
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top