Low budget grinder V2 clone....thanks Charlie

Guys, I had been looking around at belt grinders to try my hand at a custom blade or two. I had a very small budget and was dissapointed to see the cost of setting up or purchasing a belt grinder. Then I found Charlie's (Spazola) thread showing his low budget grinder V2. So after many hours pouring over Charlie' pics, and even more hours in the workshop, here is the almost finished product.

I got the motor off an old pool pump that I was given (0.5hp and 3000rpm). The contact wheel is timber and has a alloy hub with two bearings pressed into it. I used a strip of rubber from an old truck tube for the contact wheel, yet to see if it needs more than one layer. The rest is fairly similar to Charlie's with some minor changes made to suit the things I had laying about.

The belt runs nice and true, I have 5 drive wheels of different sizes that yield speed between 2650 sfpm and 675 sfpm.

I have a blade guide made, I just have to make some mods to my work bench to fit that and to clamp the base plate down.

Anyway, a huge thanks to Charlie and his ingenuity and thanks to my mate Al Wolski for turning my contact wheel up for me.

Looking forward to getting a blade made. Have some 6mm RWL34 ready for shaping.

Cheers,
Stu

The grinder looks good to me,:rock:

Charlie

Mighty creative :)
I hope the timber will hold up to the vibrations :)

That is so cool! You will enjoy using your grinder and the razors you make will give you a sense of satisfaction for many years.
I do have to warn you that this is just the beginning of a very bad AD called HTAD, handmade tool acquisition disorder, and it is far more compulsive than the other AD's.

But....... it is really fun! :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by spazola

The grinder looks good to me,:rock:

Charlie

---

Thanks Charlie, your idea mate. Really happy with how it works so far.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fragalot

Mighty creative :)
I hope the timber will hold up to the vibrations :)

---

Thanks but I can't take credit for any creativity, just copied a good idea. It doesn't vibrate to much, should do even less when I bolt it down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by randydance062449

That is so cool! You will enjoy using your grinder and the razors you make will give you a sense of satisfaction for many years.
I do have to warn you that this is just the beginning of a very bad AD called HTAD, handmade tool acquisition disorder, and it is far more compulsive than the other AD's.

But....... it is really fun! :D

---

Yeah, really looking forward to making my first blade. Very satisfying to make the grinder from scratch I must say.

I HAVE to make one of these. I'm calling my dad tomorrow to see if he has an old motor sitting around and I have to find someone with a lathe to turn my wheels.

Question though......how are the hubs and bearings set up? What did you use for your shaft? How is the rubber held to the contact wheel?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by medicevans

I HAVE to make one of these. I'm calling my dad tomorrow to see if he has an old motor sitting around and I have to find someone with a lathe to turn my wheels.

Question though......how are the hubs and bearings set up? What did you use for your shaft? How is the rubber held to the contact wheel?

---

The drive hubs just slide onto the motor shaft, which has a threaded end. The contact wheel has an alloy hub epoxyed into the centre of it and there are two high-speed bearings pressed into the alloy hub. There is a small seat in the centre of the alloy hub for the bearings to seat on. The shaft is a socket head cap screw. This screws it into the large block. There is a thread coupler epoxyed into the block, the trick is to make sure it is in square. If you like I can take it to bits and take some pics.

The truck tyre rubber is glued to the contact wheel with contact cement. I added an additional two layers today, was a bit rugged with only one layer and was better with two.

Hope this helps.

Stu

For the wheels smaller than approx 5" you can use a hole saw mounted in a drill press. I used MDF board.

Hope thjs helps, :D

MDF I have, plywood I have. I would have to source a table saw or router to do the wheels, and buy the bearings, but other than that.......hmmmmmm......

What sizes of contact wheels are best for knife and razor making? What sizes of drive wheels did you make?

A range of contact wheels would be good but I only have the 8" at this stage, which I understand is a good starting point. The drive wheel sizes will depend on the speed of your motor and the surface speeds you want on your belt. If you divide your required sfpm by your motor rpm. This will give you required feet travelled in one revolution. Divide this number by 2π (2 x pi). This will give you the required radius of the drive wheel to yield your required sfpm. Be aware your answer will be in feet, just do the conversion and there you have it. Just repeat the calculation for any speeds you want.

Stu

Um, well, I guess my next question is what sfpm speeds do I want?

I'm seriously impressed. I can think of a bunch of knifemakers who have done homebuilt grinders. They model their designs on a settled industrial type and assemble them from metal scrap from the boneyard with the intention of using ready made grinding wheels from a standard wheel manufacturer.

Here you go making everything from the ground up out of stuff the other guys would never think of using. The only thing that would make this better would be a steam powered motor with a piston powered flywheel to keep up the turning momentum. Straight razors are retro enough, why not the tools too? :)

Variable speed is the ideal. With a single speed grinder you can do just fine (sfpm), but there will rapidly come a time when even that will be too fast for some delicate material that doesn't mix well with heat.

Here is a quick addition ....

Here is a link to a hole saw for easily cutting out various sized wheels....

DeWalt D180064 4 inch 102 mm Bi Metal Hole Saw

It mounts in a drill press or drill.

You can use 1/2" MDF and simply glue 4 of them together with epoxy for a 2" wide wheel. The hole saws come in various sizes. About the biggest I have seen is a 5". I have made a number of wheels with these.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by medicevans

Um, well, I guess my next question is what sfpm speeds do I want?

---

I'm hoping some of the guys who have been making their own blades for a while will chime in with this question. But here is what I have; 2650, 1325, 1050, 830, 675 sfpm. Most these speeds correspond to the diameters of my hole saw set, all but the 2650 sfpm, which a mate turned up for me.
Have seen the different speeds running, I thinks that you need at least a 2500+ sfpm speed for your rough grind. I haven't done any post heat treat grinding yet but the 850 and 675 sfpm speeds look like they would be suitable, still unsure on the 850 though.

Hope this helps. Take this info with a grain of salt as I have only just started at this grinding stuff :)

Stu

I like around 400 feet/min when going slow and around 3000 feet/min when going fast. I do not have a variable speed but I have a lot of pulleys. I do 99% of my grinding at about those two speeds.

Charlie

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

I'm seriously impressed. I can think of a bunch of knifemakers who have done homebuilt grinders. They model their designs on a settled industrial type and assemble them from metal scrap from the boneyard with the intention of using ready made grinding wheels from a standard wheel manufacturer.

Here you go making everything from the ground up out of stuff the other guys would never think of using.

---

Again, I can't take credit for the idea on this one, this was Charlie's idea and I modified to suit what I had.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/forge...er-v2-0-a.html

Here is the product of the grinder so far. I needed to use files to get into some of the tight spots but the bulk of this was done with a 40 grit belt. I will change out the belts and smooth the edge some more before grinding the blade. I have a bit of work to do to finish my tool rest, then on to the tricky bit.

Stu

I've almost finished the blade guide. Here are a couple of pics.


Please excuse my messy workshop. I need a big cleanup on the weekend.

Shops are supposed to be perfectly tidy once a year...that's it.

Messy? Ya gotta be kidding me! Compared to mine yours looks neat as a pin! :D

Nice job.

Here is my progress to date. The grinder works, the 8" wheel provides enough of a hollow to hone, I think.

Always looks easy when you watch Charlie's youtube vids, not as easy as it looks.

I have finished on the grinder now, the rest I will do by hand I think. Took it to a 400 grit on the grinder. I still have a bit of work to do at the transition of the blade to the tang, smoothing all the sharp bits and the jimps.

I have a small set of files, does anyone have any tips on how to space and file jimps so they dont look like a dogs breakfast? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for looking.

Stu

Checkering file for jimps. Someone with experience will chime in shortly, but I believe a checkering file will do it.

Checkering file or some set up like this http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...p-cutting.html is how I do it.

Charlie