MAP Arm?

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

I'm looking for opinions on the MAP arm, they have been out a while now and I'd like to know what everybody thinks. They look like a great idea to me but I've never seen one in person.

Do they stay true? Any wobble or play?

Can you use one as a scandi jig? It looks like you could but I'd like opinions.

Do you like the way it installs or modifies the KMG, it seems like it could change things up a bit because it is built on to the KMG.

 

[Ed Caffrey]

I've had one for a couple of years......it's heavy duty, and well built. Attaching the receiver to my KMG was easy. It did force me to relocate the tooling arm hold-down to the other side. When I bolted the receiver onto my grinder, I did it as the instructions call for (lined up horizontally with the tooling arm receiver).....and found it got in the way, so I relocated the receiver to the underside of the mounting plate.....which made it less obtrusive.

Sadly, I found that I don't use it nearly as much as I thought I would. I'm one of those who, once I get to grinding, don't like to stop and "fiddle" with things. While the MAP arm is nice, you can consume a BUNCH of time setting it up to do a single operation.....and after a while I realized that I could do just as good a job on most things by "free handing" instead of spending all my time getting the MAP arm set up.

If a person had a dedicated grinder/operation that the MAP arm was set up for, I can see that it would be invaluable......but taking 15-20 mins to get it setup for a 2 minute use just isn't efficient in my viewpoint.

 

[lonepine]

Sorry for the ignorance, what is a MAP arm? (Muscular as Possible???)

- Paul Meske, Wisconsin

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

Thanks Ed, it seems like it must be a quality piece of equipment. I'm mostly interested in using it to square up my profiles and as a jig for scandi grinds, I'll probably want to work in batches based on your suggestions.

Lonepine, it is a KMG accesory, a tool rest. I had to look up what MAP stood for, lol... this is from the web site.

MAP (Multi Articulated Positioning) Arm for KMG Belt Grinder

Here's a link to a photo and a description.
http://www.adammichaelknives.com/purchase.php