Recommendation for a bench grinder

[esantoro]

There are some modifications I need to make to some tools, so it's time to get a bench grinder. Do you think this 3" bench grinder from Harbor Freight would be sufficient to grind off 2mm from a stainless steel needle plate, flatten the rounded end of a hardened steel mallet tool, and take off the teeth of a hardened steel presser foot?

[Windy]

Ed,

When you work cheap tools hard they fail fast.

The bearings will probably give out afore you are

done with the job. If you grind a wee little bit at

a time and do not force the work into the grinding

wheel you may not wear it out.Using a cheap one

on hardened steel will more than likely wear it out.

Just my most humble opinion.

WINDY

[Bree]

There are some modifications I need to make to some tools, so it's time to get a bench grinder. Do you think this 3" bench grinder from Harbor Freight would be sufficient to grind off 2mm from a stainless steel needle plate, flatten the rounded end of a hardened steel mallet tool, and take off the teeth of a hardened steel presser foot?

If that is all you are going to do with the machine... sure. That little HF grinder will do the job. Why not just get a Dremel tool or Dremel clone?? That will work just as well and be useful for a lot of other tasks. It will probably last longer too.

[CodeJockey]

I normally will be the first one to say, in tools, you get what you pay for. That said, I was in a bit of a bind one day, because my very expensive Angle grinder died, and I was half-way through a project that I needed to finish that day on my Jeep. I tried Home Depot, Lowes, and Sears, but they were all very expensive, and I was tight on funds at the time, so I went to Harbor Freight. Sure enough, they had one for under $20.00. I knew the likely hood of it lasting for very long was almost negligible but I figured it'd be worth it just to finish the job I was on (which was very demanding on that tool). Anyway, 2 years later, I am still use my HF angle grinder and it works perfectly. Maybe I just got lucky, but heck, I can't really knock the quality of that little device, and I've abused the heck out of it. Now I treat it as a challenge to see how much abuse I can throw at it before it dies.

Edited December 16, 2008 by CodeJockey

[esantoro]

I have a dremel and it is of very little use on grinding down these hardened steel objects, though I could use it to finish off the grinding and do the polishing. Or, Maybe there is a particular grinding wheel for the dremel that I should be using.

I do like the idea of a variable speed mini-grinder.... easy to store and a wide variety of uses.

I also wonder about cheap items,but I've also paid top dollar for some things that were outperformed by their cheaper counterparts....stereo equipment comes first to mine...Denon CD player with Rosewood panels $600 vs. $99 Hitachi CD player. The Denon two years with $200 to repair a repeatedly faulty CD tray. The Hitachi is still going strong today with no repairs.

The one thing I don't like about the mini grinder is that it comes with only one stone wheel. The other is a fiber wheel. Some of the larger grinders come with a courser stone wheel and a less course stone wheel.

Thanks for the feedback,

Ed

[js2rt]

I got one of those grinders a couple of months ago to touch up the edges of knives or chisels. The stone will do that and the fiber wheel will polish it also. It doesn't have the torque you will need for the amount of material you want to remove. You can notice a significant slowing just sharpening an edge especially at the slower speeds. It does what I got it for. If I had the work you want done, I would get a good 6" grinder and use that. If I knew ahead of time that I was going to be doing a lot of sharpening, I would look for a 1750 rpm grinder instead of the more common 3500 rpm in order to minimize overheating the edges as they are sharpened.

[esantoro]

I got one of those grinders a couple of months ago to touch up the edges of knives or chisels. The stone will do that and the fiber wheel will polish it also. It doesn't have the torque you will need for the amount of material you want to remove. You can notice a significant slowing just sharpening an edge especially at the slower speeds. It does what I got it for. If I had the work you want done, I would get a good 6" grinder and use that. If I knew ahead of time that I was going to be doing a lot of sharpening, I would look for a 1750 rpm grinder instead of the more common 3500 rpm in order to minimize overheating the edges as they are sharpened.

I think i'll get the 6" 1750 rpm.

Thanks for all the advice.

Ed

[Bree]

I think i'll get the 6" 1750 rpm.

Thanks for all the advice.

Ed

You can use the 1,750 grinder to run one of Ivan's burnishers!

[rawhide1]

Ed

I used my belt sander to grind the teeth off of my pressure foot. I don't know if it's hardened steel or not. The foot is a pfaff.

Mike

[esantoro]

I do like the idea of being able to use the the motor for burnishing as well as grinding.

I've found a 25 lbs Delta 6" variable speed of 2000 to 3500 rpm and a 65 lbs 8" variable speed of 1725 to 3500.

I'd much rather go with the 25 lbs 6". Am I correct in thinking that 2000 rpm won't pose much of a problem for burnishing or is the additional 275 rpm too fast?

Thanks,

Ed

[Bree]

I do like the idea of being able to use the the motor for burnishing as well as grinding.

I've found a 25 lbs Delta 6" variable speed of 2000 to 3500 rpm and a 65 lbs 8" variable speed of 1725 to 3500.

I'd much rather go with the 25 lbs 6". Am I correct in thinking that 2000 rpm won't pose much of a problem for burnishing or is the additional 275 rpm too fast?

Thanks,

Ed

Ivan won't be happy about it but I think you can get away with it... quietly with no fanfare!! LOL!