My first grinder was a dual-wheel 1/16hp bench grinder I got at a yard sale for $5 in 1976. It turned on and off with a little switch that was between the wheels – perfectly set up so you could catch the sleeve of your hoodie in the spinning wheels and make a great mess. Luckily it was only 1/16hp.
When I migrated to Grinder 2.0 in 1983 or thereabouts, I used a 1/2hp motor I pulled out of a fan hood – that was an entirely different beast. Grinder 2.0 was a 6″ rubber drum on a mandrel bolted to the bench, with a v-belt pulley to the motor. The drum stuck about 6″ out from the corner of the bench so I could get at it from any angle. That also meant that with an 80-grit sleeve on the drum, I could wrap my whole arm around the thing if I got caught; by then I had learned to think about failure modes before I started using any piece of gear.
knife bench machine
Version 2.0 of grinder 2.0 – a workhorse, but kind of dangerous to use.
I wanted a positive safety, so I put a foot switch on the grinder. That worked great because, if something went wrong, I could just jump away and it would shut itself off. There is a thing some knife-makers call “helicoptering” which happens when you are too lazy to clamp a blade down when you’re drilling a hole through the tang on your drill-press: the blade jumps free and you have a sharp thing making 1200RPM by your face. If your drill-press is on a foot switch, you just duck and run away as fast as you can. If it’s not, you have to approach the thing and turn off the switch, which is conveniently located so that your soft underbelly is right where the blade is spinning.
I’m not speaking from experience, there. It’s just that on the beginning knife forums, people talk about it every so often. I figured out that “helicoptering” might be a failure mode when I was in high school and always – always – duct tape cardboard around the nasty bits of a blade when I am working on the other end. One hallmark of intelligence is that we can learn from observation.
Another really nice thing about a foot switch for a knife-grinder is that sometimes you need to figure out exactly the right angle to hold your work-piece to hit the abrasives just so. For beginners, it’s especially important while they’re learning to freehand grind (without a jig or brace) – you just spin the machine down, put the work-piece where you want it, look at it, move it back and forth, let your hand learn the feel of the grinding pass you want to make, then back off and toe the motor.
Grinder 3.0 is a Northwest Tool Co. 2″x72″ machine powered with a capacitor-start 1/2hp motor. Everything is bolted through everything very thoroughly and the bench weighs about 400lb (right now. when the lathe is bolted on the other side, it’ll be closer to 600lb) so there is no vibration. You toe the switch and wham it’s going. I am in love. I spent a while correcting the lines on a damascus head-knife someone gave me years ago, and it just dissolves steel.
The video is a bit jumpy when the grinder kicks on because, frankly, I’m a bit scared of it.
The foot switch is a $20 cast aluminum-box weatherproof switch. It’s going to be sitting in a cloud of steel powder raining down on it, so weatherproofing will help keep it from shorting out from conductive dust.
Other notes:
- The plate/rest is there because I haven’t completed making my shop apron, yet, and if I lose control of something sharp, I don’t want it to head straight down at my inner thigh, thankyouverymuch.
- Please don’t hate me for the grinder. I got a great deal on it on Ebay; some idjit listed it with a “buy it now” of half of what it was worth, so I immediately snapped it up. I assumed it was used so I was surprised when I got it and opened the box and discovered it had never been assembled at all. The luck of the Marcus strikes again!
That’s where the propane feed is going to run. To keep rain (it’s on the windward side of the building) from running in the hole, I ran it at a 45 degree angle downward, which meant about an 18″ long hole. I started with a 1/8″ bit, then 1/2″, then 3/4″. By the time I was done, about an hour and a half later, I was jello. Hammer drills are great tools but… ugh.
like a tomcat, I mark my turf
Please don’t hate me for the grinder. I got a great deal on it on Ebay; some idjit listed it with a “buy it now” of half of what it was worth, so I immediately snapped it up. I assumed it was used so I was surprised when I got it and opened the box and discovered it had never been assembled at all. The luck of the Marcus strikes again!
This is why I hate living in the middle of nowhere. Well, at least the majority of online sellers believe that my home is located in the middle of nowhere, and they don’t even offer shipping to my address. And when I finally find some seller willing to ship something to my home address, the shipping charges always turn out to be outrageous. Online shopping was so much better back when I was living in Germany.
Regarding the “luck of Marcus”: I assume you are aware that your observations are biased. People are inherently bad with keeping statistics. We forget some data points, but remember others. I bet you must have experienced some disappointments while shopping for stuff online. In order to call yourself lucky, you must ignore and forget the bad data points and remember the good ones.
My eBay shopping options are severely limited by what sellers are willing to ship to my location, so I do most of my shopping in local second-hand shops. I have found some absolutely amazing deals in those, for example, I once found a 100% cashmere jacket for $3 (it was never worn and my size!). I don’t call myself “lucky” though. It’s a fact that when you buy used goods, there are some amazing deals out there. If you search for those, you are bound to occasionally find some.
Cool. Your grinder motor 2.0 looks like mine. However mine is mounted inside a metal cabinet, with a fan and filter behind it to suck up the dust (hopefully). My grinder wheels and so on are different of course, different purpose. Smaller, for one thing…
That’s pretty clever to use a foot pedal. With mine, the switch is located to the side and the outside of the cabinet, so you are not in harm’s way when you turn it off and on. Still, a foot pedal would be great, as you can keep your hands on the work instead of having to put it down.
Oh, helicoptering. Is THAT what you call it. I switched from using a drill press to using punches a while back, but yes, that used to happen to me but the things were not all that sharp. Now, the drill press was on a foot control. The harder you step on it, the faster the drill goes. I do like that feature.
It’s really fun to see your shop getting set up. The type of metal work I do is **completely** different, but still, some things are the same. I have shop envy… your set-up is really nice and looks very efficient.
@Ieva Skrebele, #1: you know, I think the “luck of Marcus” has more to do with his economic status more than anything. When he sees those good deals, he can afford them! :-) For instance he has said he is trying to think of an excuse to buy a metal lathe. For me, I’d have to find out how much they cost, and then start saving money… probably would take, oh, 5 years or so, then I’d be able to get it. :-D It’s taken me quite a while to outfit myself with the tools I have. Find a tool, save the money, several years later I can get it!
Marcus, just buy the freaking lathe already. Just think of it as gratifying to _me_. I can’t wait to see what you make with it!
kestrel@#3:
I think the “luck of Marcus” has more to do with his economic status more than anything. When he sees those good deals, he can afford them! :-)
Yes, that’s got a lot to do with it. And I’m not going to kid myself that I deserve any of it, which is why I think of it as luck. I was born a privileged gender, and a privileged color, of parents that had the resources to help me out a great deal. I have tremendous luck. It worries be because I feel like when the luck of Marcus runs out, the wheels are going to come off with a big bang.
Ieva Skrebele@#1:
I bet you must have experienced some disappointments while shopping for stuff online.
Oddly, no – not in general.
Part of it is that I have the money, so I can get good stuff; that’s part of the problem with online deal-hunting: people search around “mini lathe… oooh, here’s one that’s only $200! that’s way less expensive than that vintage Unimat over there…” Then they discover that there’s a really good reason why the vintage Unimat was so much more expensive. I think a lot of it is knowing what you’re looking for and doing your research.
I’ve also found that online sellers are pretty cool/fairly decent and I don’t think I have ever been ripped off. I have had a few things arrive in shattered condition and gotten them replaced or refunded successfully.
The only online selling problems I’ve had (which frustrates me) is when someone lists a vintage book, I buy it, and then they message me that they can’t find it. That happens more often than I’d like. Now, there are some sellers who appear to be doing that as a way of harvesting e-mail addresses. But, so far, no blatant ripoffs.
Perhaps it is because I hunt for weird items, a lot. Scammers tend to go for things like iPads.
Oh, yeah, I did get an iPad for a sick friend (iPads are wonderful in hospital beds) “refurbished” and it arrived with the serial number ground off with a dremel tool or something. I contacted the seller, who professed shock and surprise, and returned it for a complete refund. I think that was my worst experience.
Regarding helicoptering: Sure, you can lock down the part, but something is gonna spin.
Johnny Vector@#6:
Regarding helicoptering: Sure, you can lock down the part, but something is gonna spin.
You’re not kidding.
Back around 1987 my buddy Fred and I were re-working my 1976 Chevy Nova and I was underneath it drilling a hole in the frame to mount some extra-heavy anti-sway bars. I was using Fred’s amazingly overpowered Makita drill, and, when the bit caught, I did kind of like what Gromit did, except under the car – kind of a thwappity-whap sound and flipped on my back. Fred was standing near my feet and went “what was THAT!?” I had a big bruise on my cheek from where the handle whacked me. Oh, boy, another learning experience!
Marcus:
Yipes! In future do please leave that to the plasticine animated characters!
kestrel, #3: I think the “luck of Marcus” has more to do with his economic status more than anything.
I keep noticing ways in which people with less money have to spend more. Someone with less income or a worse credit rating would have a more expensive mortgage; on the same loan size, they would pay more. If their house was smaller or on the other side of the tracks, the same loan size would be a larger fraction of the value of the house, so their interest rate would be even higher (the good deals have LTV limits). I bought a fairly expensive vacuum cleaner that has lasted me 12 years so far; had I had only half the budget, I doubt it would have lasted two years. I can apply for a credit card with 0% interest on purchases for 31 months (I kid you not!), and would probably get a $10k credit limit on it — so I could borrow a good chunk of money for free, for two and a half years. Someone who needs to resort to a payday loan would end up repaying double or triple in a month or two, and there’s a whole spectrum in between (get a loan for 5% APR, borrow on credit cards for anywhere between 10% and 50% or so, go overdraft on your current account and pay £25 plus £5 per day, and so on). With many things, I can buy the larger package and save some money. And I can sometimes milk more out of discounts: when the supermarket had dishwasher tablets at 60% off, I bought two years’ worth of them and stored them in the loft. That’s free dishwasher tablets for a year!
It all adds up. It’s a perverse system.
I’ve also found that online sellers are pretty cool/fairly decent and I don’t think I have ever been ripped off.
I still remember that occasion when you bought blue maple seeds only to be informed by the commentariat that blue maple trees do not exist.
I think a lot of it is knowing what you’re looking for and doing your research.
Definitely true. I have seen countless eBay listings, which were obviously fake, because the seller could not possibly have the thing they claimed to be selling (I usually spotted these kinds of listings when looking for rare Nepenthes plants).
Personally, I haven’t had many bad experiences with online sellers, but I’m careful about what I buy and from whom. My most annoying experience was when I bought some plants, and they turned out to be smaller than specified. Moreover, there were spider mites all over the plants.
Random thought: Is steel dust easier to clean with a shop vac or with a magnet?
Random thought 2: Your Sharpie scribble writing lacks a little something. Have you considered maybe making a stencil? Maybe showing an angry badger?
cvoinescu @#9
The richer you get, the further the potential savings go. For example, if you are really rich, you won’t take a mortgage to buy a house, you’ll just but the house with the cash you already have. No interest rates at all. Moreover, if you can provide the money immediately (without the few week delay that results when waiting for the bank to approve your loan), the seller might give you a better price (at least that’s how it happens in my country).
On the other end of the spectrum, if you are poor, you’ll probably be renting for your whole life.
By the way, when the housing bubble collapsed in 2008, my family had some spare cash savings. So we just bought our current home with the cash we had. No mortgage, no interest. And, simply because we had cash, we could buy at the moment when real estate prices dropped really low. So the 2008 crisis was actually good for my family.
This reminds me Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. There the author described countless ways how poor people unjustly suffered as a direct result of their economic situation. For example, when Orwell urgently needed money, he sold or pawned his possessions and got really bad prices for his stuff. Whoever bough stuff from him got some really sweet deals.
Owlmirror@#11:
Is steel dust easier to clean with a shop vac or with a magnet?
Shop vac. I know people who’ve used magnets but you have to put a baggie over the magnet so you can get the dust off the magnet (pull the baggie back over itself) – also, when you do that you’re left with all the stainless steel dust!
Your Sharpie scribble writing lacks a little something.
You are kind; it lacks a lot of something.
I keep meaning to get one of those diamond-tip marking pens so I can deface/mark all my gear. But I wanted something really obvious so anyone would think “no point grabbing that.”
I have a very nice northwestern style badger logo done by a friend. Hm, it’d be easy to turn into a stencil. (I love Ieva’s badger, but I shudder at the idea of turning that into a stencil)
Or, hm, I could probably just get someone to print me stickers. There must be an online sticker printer that takes JPEGs.
Filed for future action.
Sandi Sturgeon is making me a badger-head logo punch. So in theory I could just stamp it into anything with a hammer. But I want to spare the punch for hot metal only.
I experienced helicoptering, but without injury. I also was whacked on the throat by a power drill when making a big hole in brick wall and the diamond crown bit and blocked. That was an unpleasant experience.
I won’t, but I will envy you a little. Should I ever decide to bite the bullet and splurge on belt grinder, I already have my eyes on this. But currently I cannot afford (or more like, I am unwilling) to spend the price of a serviceable used car on a hobby. Also I would be hard pressed to find space for it in my shop. Some day I might make a blog post or a video of my current belt grinder, for the contrast and lulz.
I am currently in the process of making a machete that I intend to use as a garden tool. And I have learned so far that I will need to significantly rebuild and improve my belt grinder. Not that it does not work as expected – it does. But I need also a detachable set of wheels for hollow grinds and for that I need to rebuild my current hard&slackbelt setup so that it can be quickly removed and reattached. But it will have to wait until I am done with current project, I do not want to switch directions mid work.
Foot pedal is a good idea. I already tried to convince an electrician to fix my belt gridner with variable frequency drive (he did not respond yet neither yay nor nay). If that goes well I will think about that too. Seems like a good “dead man switch” too. Currently I have my main safety switch on left side, at breast height, so I can quickly reach it and with light tam switch the machine off.
I am not sure whether I would be able to do something with hydraulic press (pink or not) but after I have my belt grinder finished to like 90% my satisfaction I may try and buy cheap 1 ton wood splitter and rebuild it into a press, kinda like this. And probably a compressor so i can inflate my workshop to fit in there everything I want.
I love Ieva’s badger, but I shudder at the idea of turning that into a stencil
Why? Because of too many details in the image?
Or, hm, I could probably just get someone to print me stickers.
But stickers can be easily peeled off. If your goal is to mark your stuff so that it’s not worth stealing for resale, you need something permanent.
There must be an online sticker printer that takes JPEGs.
If you need a different file format other than JPEG (like any of the vector formats), I can make that.
Baggie is a bad solution, which I used for awhile before figuring out something better. I am using a magnet in a big yoghurt cup. The cup is thin enough for the magnet to reach the dust and lift it up. Then I move the cup over my destination of choice, reach for the magnet inside and lift it a few cm. The dust falls off where I want it. Rinse and repeat, easy peasy.
Charly @#14
But currently I cannot afford (or more like, I am unwilling) to spend the price of a serviceable used car on a hobby.
Amusingly, my hobbies and travels and vacations are the only things that I’m not hesitant to spend money on. I’m reluctant to spend much money on all those pesky necessities (food, transportation, housing, clothes); there I’ll usually look for cheaper options. But my hobbies are the one thing I really enjoy in life, so that’s where I’m perfectly willing to spend any sum of money. For example, my acrylic paint costs about $10 for a single 60ml tube. And I own about $4000 worth of camera gear despite the fact that photography is mostly a hobby for me (I have done a bit of paid work as a photographer, but the emphasis is on “a bit”).
On the subject of luck in purchasing well priced tools, I’ve had a few memorable moments, I don’t overly analyze them just enjoy my luck. My best was for a car hoist that I needed in a workshop I was renting a couple of decades ago, I walked the 1/2 hour to work, bought a Trading Post at the service station next door, opened the workshop, sat down and found the advert for a used $1K hoist, rang up at 3 minutes to 8 and got the seller just as he walked in his door. +/- ten seconds and I would have missed out on the hoist as his phone didn’t stop ringing all morning.
Is that your phone number on the side of that thing? I lost my left ring finger while working on a winch. Guards in place at all times is a good thing.
StonedRanger@#19:
Is that your phone number on the side of that thing?
Yep, cell phone. Give me a shout any time. Except it’s best to text first because I usually don’t answer unknown #s because of robocalls.
I lost my left ring finger while working on a winch.
Daaaaamn! Yes, I want to avoid experiences like that and learn from others’ mistakes.