I've been making knives and doing many other things on my Harbor Freight 1x30 for sometime. It's had the snoot kicked out of it and it shows. I'll give it kudos for durability, it's still running.
Couple months ago I decided to step up my knife making. Many people say get a 2x72 or nothing (or advice to that effect). I couldn't see spending $1-2k+ on a specialized piece of equipment. A Grizzly 2x72 is over $600 and has many shortcomings but I wasn't going to keep the 1x30. All of the commonly available 2x42s have the same 1/3 hp as the Harbor Freight plus they're spinning a belt twice as wide. I didn't seem like much of an upgrade and I still heard the "2x72 or nothing" crowd in my ear. Regardless I saw some of the awesome work guys are doing using a 2x42 (and a 1x30 for that matter) and decided to buy one.
I bought the Palmgren (there are many identical grinders from different makers) for $220 and found it's a huge improvement over the HF 1x30. Aluminum wheels instead of plastic, better bearings, better everything. The motor has the same HP but seems harder to bog down and runs soooo much smoother. I thought I was wasting my money but for the price I'm very happy. I'm sure I'll feel the same when I upgrade to a 2x72 down the road. In the meantime I bought the grinder, a nice Milwaukee band saw, a SWAG table for the band saw, a $150 jig (still learning free hand), a subscription to knifeprint.com (knife designing software) and a vise for my drill press; all for less than the 2x72. I also learned that I wished I had bought the band saw and table years ago.
The point of my post? If you have a 1x30 and are agonizing over such an expensive jump to the next level then consider the 2x42. I don't think you'll be sorry.
The grinder worked fine from the box but I ended up making the common mods on Youtube (cutting of the belt guards, removing one side of the table etc).
Good luck.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006577HI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Couple months ago I decided to step up my knife making. Many people say get a 2x72 or nothing (or advice to that effect). I couldn't see spending $1-2k+ on a specialized piece of equipment. A Grizzly 2x72 is over $600 and has many shortcomings but I wasn't going to keep the 1x30. All of the commonly available 2x42s have the same 1/3 hp as the Harbor Freight plus they're spinning a belt twice as wide. I didn't seem like much of an upgrade and I still heard the "2x72 or nothing" crowd in my ear. Regardless I saw some of the awesome work guys are doing using a 2x42 (and a 1x30 for that matter) and decided to buy one.
I bought the Palmgren (there are many identical grinders from different makers) for $220 and found it's a huge improvement over the HF 1x30. Aluminum wheels instead of plastic, better bearings, better everything. The motor has the same HP but seems harder to bog down and runs soooo much smoother. I thought I was wasting my money but for the price I'm very happy. I'm sure I'll feel the same when I upgrade to a 2x72 down the road. In the meantime I bought the grinder, a nice Milwaukee band saw, a SWAG table for the band saw, a $150 jig (still learning free hand), a subscription to knifeprint.com (knife designing software) and a vise for my drill press; all for less than the 2x72. I also learned that I wished I had bought the band saw and table years ago.
The point of my post? If you have a 1x30 and are agonizing over such an expensive jump to the next level then consider the 2x42. I don't think you'll be sorry.
The grinder worked fine from the box but I ended up making the common mods on Youtube (cutting of the belt guards, removing one side of the table etc).
Good luck.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006577HI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
