Slow Speed Grinder!!!

Stuart Ablett

Member
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Location
Tokyo Japan
Oh Yeah Baby!! :D

Got the slow speed 8" Wood Craft grinder today!

grinder_the_machine.jpg
There it sits, 18,150 yen to me ($150)

Wheels mounted up, and start it, MAN ALIVE, did I buy a paint shaker by mistake :eek:

grinder_shaft_zero_run_out.jpg
OK, off comes the wheels, and I'll check the shafts........... yep, zero run out. Without the wheels, the grinder runs nice and smooth :thumb:

The problem is with the cheapo wheels, something that I expected, but not nearly this bad...

grinder_washers_cleaned_up.jpg
OK, I have to clean up the wheels, but first, I want to make sure the other parts are good, the washers are ground, but not very well, so I put them on the scary sharp stone and make them shinny flat.

grinder_face_cleaned_up.jpg
Now on to the wheels, I did my best to make the stone flat on the front surface, but with all the vibration, it was nearly impossible............:huh:

grinder_side_truing_setup.jpg
I got my handy X-Y drill press vice, put it in the bench vice, then clamped the diamond dresser in the vice, and brought up the grinder

grinder_starting_clean_up.jpg
I put some pencil marks on the wheel and had a go....

grinder_halfway_cleaned_up.jpg

grinder_almost_cleaned_up.jpg

grinder_all_cleaned_up.jpg

The results were very good, the amount of vibrations is down, WAY down!!

Now I need to figure out how to dress the inside of the wheel, then make some new jigs for sharpening...... :D

Cheers!
 
Yeah, I was thinking of doing that, but I'm worried that the washers etc. are not exactly true, so who knows if I'll just make it worse....?

Anyway, the result is still WAY better than it was out of the box, that is for sure, and the next time I get an order from the US, I'll be sure to get some better quality wheels, and I might even get that balancer thing from Oneway....?

Oneway Percision Balancing System Review

Anyone have this system?

Looks like I'd have to buy new wheels to use it, as it says they have the flange for various sized shafts (my grinder is 5/8") but the wheel has to have 1" holes.....

I'm going to be teaching myself how to freehand grind too! :rolleyes:

Cheers!
 
When I bought my 80 grit blue wheel from Woodcraft, the first one was very bad, like you describe. I called and they replaced. But during the call the lady told me that out of round/balance/whatever wheels were very common. My replacement wasn't perfect but I kept it.
 
I always like to see your 'pictorials'. Stu. I appreciate your taking the time to take, post and give explanations that go along with the pictures.
Thanks:) .
 
Nice approach Stu, Like how you did that, thanks :thumb:.

.

Oh Yeah Baby!! :D

Got the slow speed 8" Wood Craft grinder today!

View attachment 5018
There it sits, 18,150 yen to me ($150)

Wheels mounted up, and start it, MAN ALIVE, did I buy a paint shaker by mistake :eek:

View attachment 5019
OK, off comes the wheels, and I'll check the shafts........... yep, zero run out. Without the wheels, the grinder runs nice and smooth :thumb:

The problem is with the cheapo wheels, something that I expected, but not nearly this bad...

View attachment 5020
OK, I have to clean up the wheels, but first, I want to make sure the other parts are good, the washers are ground, but not very well, so I put them on the scary sharp stone and make them shinny flat.

View attachment 5021
Now on to the wheels, I did my best to make the stone flat on the front surface, but with all the vibration, it was nearly impossible............:huh:

View attachment 5022
I got my handy X-Y drill press vice, put it in the bench vice, then clamped the diamond dresser in the vice, and brought up the grinder

View attachment 5023
I put some pencil marks on the wheel and had a go....

View attachment 5024

View attachment 5025

View attachment 5026

The results were very good, the amount of vibrations is down, WAY down!!

Now I need to figure out how to dress the inside of the wheel, then make some new jigs for sharpening...... :D

Cheers!
 
I've got the 6" Variable speed. Fair little grinder.
My wheels were out of balance some. I just kept repositioning one of them till she ran smooth.
 
Well, I got the other one done, the 60 grit wheel, it was WAY worse than the 120 grit wheel.

Half way though truing up one side, the whole grinder started bucking like a washing machine way out of balance, it it was not screwed to the bench it would have dance off the top for sure :eek:

I shut it down and checked to see if I had something loose, like the opposite wheel etc.......... nope, could not find anything.

Fired it up again, and it got worse, shook my work bench so hard it spilled my cup of coffee :eek: :eek: :eek: :huh: :huh: :dunno:

OK something is wrong here.................. Ah ha! :D

Found it............. the bolts holding the base of the grinder to the body of the grinder had come loose :doh:

took the grinder off the piece of 3/4" plywood it was bolted too, took the cover off the bottom and found three nuts almost off, just one was somewhat tight......... tightened them down and man, the whole thing ran a lot smoother..............

Paging Alex Reid........... check yours when it shows up.

Got the 60 grit wheel done, and the whole thing runs a LOT smoother, but.............. not nearly as smooth as the one I used at our last turners group workshop......... :( That was a VERY nice Baldor unit, with good quality wheels.......

I guess I'm going to be getting new wheels and the Oneway balancing kit.

I also want to make a vacuum attachment for keeping the grinding dust down. I'm thinking a hose to each side, through the wheel side cover, then to a 5 gallon pail, half full of water, the intake hose pipe will go under water, the outlet pipe will be well above water. This should keep the dust and grit in the water, and stop any errant sparks from going into my vacuum cleaner............ sound like a plan?

Cheers!
 
Sounds like a good plan on the grinding dust :thumb:

YeeHaw on the bucking grinder :eek: :rofl:
 
Sounds like a party in the Dungeon. I got mine last night. I pulled it out of the box and noticed something was clunking around inside the casing. When I spun the wheels by hand again it clunked. I plugged it in, flipped the switch and it wouldn't spin. Obviously it done broke. I called the guy this morning and he will replace it with a new one. Also asked him to check it before he sends it. :wave:

On another note I aslo got another box last night. This one full of sawdust. :rolleyes: The packing variety though. :thumb: In between were a bunch of blanks cut and prepared for turning by none other than... Thanks Stu. Hope to get around to turning them before they dry. :D
 
Oh one more thing. I read a good tip for truing up the face of a grinding stone recently. With a single point diamond dresser use a drill stop-collar on it and roll/slide the dresser across your grinding stand, keeping the dresser at a fixed distance from the stone. Sorry my explanation may not be great, I'll post a pic later.
 
Gee Alex, that sucks about the grinder, I guess I got lucky!

Glad you liked your box of chainsaw dust :D

You did open it in the workshop, right.....;)

Bruce, that is on my list of things to buy, but I need to buy new wheels too, and the Oneway ones are $57 each......

The balancer and two new wheels will be the same price as the grinder :dunno:

Oh well, it will be nice to have a smooth operating machine to sharpen on.

Cheers!
 
...I also want to make a vacuum attachment for keeping the grinding dust down. I'm thinking a hose to each side, through the wheel side cover, then to a 5 gallon pail, half full of water, the intake hose pipe will go under water, the outlet pipe will be well above water. This should keep the dust and grit in the water, and stop any errant sparks from going into my vacuum cleaner............ sound like a plan?

Cheers!
:bonkers: Sorry, I just had a flashback to high school and our quest for the ultimate waterpipe. :headbang:

I got the same grinder when I got started turning, and the wheels were a bit out of balance, but nothing like you described. After truing the faces up it ran pretty smooth. Sorry to see you and Alex are having problems.
 
Well the plot thickens..... :rolleyes:

I took the wheels off my grinder and ran it, it runs smooth, but..................

.........it takes about 5 seconds to come to a complete stop.

Now I find that kind of odd, so I took the wheels off the Delta high speed grinder and the other el cheapo grinder I have, that I bought a long time ago.

Both of them take a lot longer to come to a complete stop...........:huh:

OK, time to take it apart and see what is what.....

Now the bearings I put in Kermit, the drill press, where bought here, made here and are very good quality, I cannot say that for the bearings in the grinder..... cheap, lots of play, and not smooth running at all.

OK, check online here, I can have two top drawer replacement bearing for about $5, yep, that is what I'm going to do.

The other thing that is WAY out of balance on the grinder are the large washer like things, I think they call them "Flanges" you can see them rotating out of round easily, and on the shafts, there is a lot of play, I'd say at least a 1/16th.

I figure that with the new bearings, and the Oneway wheels and balancing stuff, I'll have a VERY smooth running slow speed grinder.

Grinder $150, Balancing Jig $60, Wheels $120, and bearings $5......... $335 or there abouts.

The top quality Baldor grinder is about $600 here, and then I'd still have to buy the better wheels and Oneway balancer, so it would be $600 + $120 + $60 = $780 I think I'm still way ahead with the cheaper Woodcraft grinder............. time will tell.

Cheers!
 
Got access to a metal lathe?
Maybe take them flanges and true them buggers up
 
Stu...Mine had a lot of vibration when I bought it. Major contributor was one of the nuts that hold the wheels on the arbor. The hole in the nut wasn't square to the face of the nut. Thus...only a small portion of the face of the nut was applying pressure to the wheel and washers. Luckily for me, the bad nut was the righthanded threaded one. I was able to pickup a replacement at a local Ace hardware store. Good luck! Since getting rid of the vibration, mine works like a champ!
 
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