New Surface Grinder Belt Conversion

[Pittknife]

I've been waiting for a longtime to get a surface grinder and convert it to use belts. The stars aligned and I was able to get one. It used to take me 4+ hours to flatten the handles and blade for a flipper and it wasn't as flat as I like. I just did my first flipper and it took less than 20mins to flatten everything +-.0005" . I'm extremely happy and was more than worth the wait.

Also, finish building a new workbench for a new mill. I'm not really sure what happened to my garage but I know my wife is pissed that only one car will fit in it now. I can't believe it's been 9 months since I started making knives, if you would have told me I would have all this equipment including a big surface grinder in my garage I would of thought you were crazy.... Big thanks to all the bladeforum guys and the conversion posts that helped guide me.

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[Ekim1428]

Hey Mike its Mike from Ekim Knives. Your conversion is calling out to me every where I look. I really need to stop dragging my feet on getting it done but my confidence with milling out that collar isn't very high. I suck as a machinist lol. Not to mention I hear they get top dollar for a custom wheel. Any tips you can share when tackling a project like this?

 

[P.Brewster]

Nice work!

 

[Pittknife]

Hey Mike its Mike from Ekim Knives. Your conversion is calling out to me every where I look. I really need to stop dragging my feet on getting it done but my confidence with milling out that collar isn't very high. I suck as a machinist lol. Not to mention I hear they get top dollar for a custom wheel. Any tips you can share when tackling a project like this?

Hey Mike,

I know exactly how you feel. One of the reasons why I held off this long was I was worried about being able to convert it. I've seen your work and knives (learned a lot from your videos as well), I don't think you'll have a problem making this.

You don't have to mill out the adapter ring like mine, you can use any type of clamping depending on your spindle. The contact wheel I got from ebay (70 duro, rubber) and the other pieces are just tubes, scrap pieces, idler wheel from kmg. You can buy a couple springs with different lengths etc and cut them to suit your tension. Biggest thing is the tracking, make sure your clamp can be moved to be aligned with the wheel. You don't want to be trying to track it so far because of misalignment....

Email or dm me anytime bro... Also, bladeforums has so many good conversation guides.

 

[Drew Riley]

I used to be able to fit cars in my garage too...

Now I have to move benches and tools out of the way just to shoehorn ONE car in. Nice job on the conversion, and that bench looks great too!

 

[Drew Riley]

Hey Mike its Mike from Ekim Knives. Your conversion is calling out to me every where I look. I really need to stop dragging my feet on getting it done but my confidence with milling out that collar isn't very high. I suck as a machinist lol. Not to mention I hear they get top dollar for a custom wheel. Any tips you can share when tackling a project like this?

If your SG has a wheel shroud, you may be able to take it apart and use the backing plate for a clamping collar/attachment point. That's what I was able to do on mine, although now that I have a lathe I might have done things a little differently. Heck, seeing how nice this one looks, I may still redo mine one of these days.