Making knives on a bugdet part 2!!!!

Man, they ain't nothing wrong with a grizzly grinder! I had to start out on the cheap with files and a little hobby torch to do heat treating with. I been at it for three years now and have gotten some nice equipment, but you can't beat the grizzly for the money, it is a turnkey solution, ready to go right out of the box, all you have to do is put it together. And it has a built in buffer. I use the hell out of my grizzly and it has held up very well. Never had a tracking problem with it, or anything like that. The way it is set up with the upright arm I got the platen in the middle, an area for slack belt grinding below that, and the contact wheel below that. So I can do hollow, flat or convex grinds on the griz without changing a single thing. That is a very nice feature in my opinion. When I bought my griz I also got the Alan Blade grinding videos where he uses a griz for doing everything. I think he sorta dropped off the face of the earth or something and the videos are no longer available, but they were good videos if you can ever find copies of them. If I had it to do over again I would buy the grizzly again, not even hesitate, for the money it is the damn deal!!!

Chuck
 
I started out with a Craftsman 2x42" grinder, and over about a year or so it was heavily modified. The cheap motor was the first to go after it burnt up, then after I tried to grind the end of my thumb off between the front belt/wheel-shroud, that was cut off. The platen also required stiffing. Not to mention the belts wore out quikly.

After I got my Coote it took a little while to get used to it but I am very well pleased and would have been money ahead to get it to start with.

I considered the Grizly, but I had a 1 horse motor already and liked the idea of step pullies to chang spees. Also the Coote has a slightly stiffer frame. Also although I'm not a big fan of hollow grinding I can hollow grind on the Coote without bumping into the motor.

I recently bought a small wheel for the Coote, around 50$US, for gaurdwork. It's the new wheel with external ball bearing instead of needle bearings like the old small wheel. Not shure if Grizly makes a small wheel or not. Changing to the small wheel takes a few minits, but is a lot faster to grind the inside curve of the gaurd than my old way.

If I had it to do over again, I'd probly just save my money for a KMG. I plan on getting one eventauly, and useing the Coote for small wheel and slack grinding.

Whatever grinder you get, if you ever do up grade you will still have a place for it.

BTW, not trying to nock Grizly, it was very close, but the Coote suited my purpass a little better.

Good luck
 
HI this is the DaQo'tah

I have but one real problem with my Grizzly..

I have sanding belts from 3 different places, and for some reason, some of the belts are like 'way longer' than the rest.

Im not sure what company I got the longer belts from, I kinda mixed them up on the wall that I hang them on before I started to use any of them.

But, ANYWAY, as some are like 2x73? or 2x74? not the 2x72 inches that I wanted, this means the to use some belts Im always haveing to reset that one up-and-down arm. And that makes me have to start all over getting the belts to track right.

When 'next time' I get belts I will record before hand the place I get the belts from, so to keep track of where the good matching ones come from, but for now (The belts are new and I have to use em up) I have really had to slow down the work just to get a new grit belt going.

any advice?
 
Man that is a tough one there. Maybe yours is harder to adjust than mine, I've never had any trouble getting mine to track after adjustments. Maybe I am just an idiot savante or something:D I just usually adjust the height, making sure that the top wheel is in line with the contact wheel(I usually put a belt on there to check the vertical alignment), then I tighten it down and normally a turn one way or the other of the tracking adjustment knob has it dead on the money. If it is too big a hassle for you, just get new belts and chalk up the extra long belts as a lesson learned. A while back I got some belts that were slightly shorter than normal, they almost go on but just not quite. The adjustment they needed to fit was like a 1/8" so I just chalked them up as a lesson and cut them and used them like a shop roll for hand sanding. Cause adjusting that arm that small an increment was a huge pain in the butt. I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear, but maybe it helped some.

Chuck
 
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