Thread: low budget grinder

Here is my new low budget 1X42 grinder. I have been looking at Wayne Goddard’s $50 Knife Shop book, where he talks about home made grinders. I bought the motor at a garage sale and used castor wheels for the pulleys. I turned down a wheel on my wood lathe and installed bearings to make the contact wheel. I put it together and tried it out today, it is not bad for a grinder mostly made of scrap.

Charlie

Here are pics of the left and right side of the blade that I sanded on. It is not perfect but it is a good start.

Charlie

The 42 in grinder/sander is my want list..the whole list.
You did a terrific job of making that STUFF come together into a great tool.

Thanks for sharing this

Grinder looks great man!!! I bought a 1x30" real cheap a while back. Making one looked kinda tough.

that is awesome charlie, what grit is that paper?

vgod

It is a 40 micron belt, it made pretty quick work of the rust.

Charlie

Perfect Charlie.... absolutely brilliant

That's got to be better than hours of rubbing by hand... the finish looks a million bucks too.

Greg Frazer

Got that book....now to find me some spare parts.

Very interesting.
How do you keep the belt from running off the wheel?
Are the wheels shaped, or did you spend a lot of time aligning them?

Nice grinder, Charlie. That Wayne Goddard book is great.

Bruno,

From what I've read, it's fairly simple to keep belts tracking smoothly. If the wheels weren't shaped to begin with, I'd probably turn the motor on with the drive wheel mounted, then use sandpaper to put a slight crown on it as it spins. I shaped my big 8" contact wheel this way. Another option is to just build up the center of the drive wheel with electrical tape or something similar. Apparently this works pretty well and lasts a long time.

Josh