Bench Grinder

Any recommendations for a half decent bench grinder at a reasonable price.

The £30 ebay cheapie I have is rubbish and probably dangerous. Its out of balance and I,m sure its not the wheels, the rests are made of Baco foil. The real worry though is it gets hot after 10 minutes of running even when doing no work.

I mainly use it for tool grinding and once it gets hot it starts to slow down even with quite light work. Its labelled as 150 watts which I doubt so would prefer at least 250 watts.

I now dont like using it, fearing its either going to have a major failure or burst into flames.

I use a record power 6" grinder mainly for sharpening my turning tools and have found it very good. They also do a 8" version.

This ONE

All wheels should be dressed to eliminate out of balance vibrations.

150 watt is a bit small. I have a 375 watt Ryobi combination grinder with 150mm wheel and belt. Enough power for the wheel for sharpening tools but not enough for the belt. Would like to upgrade to something bigger. At least 500w for wheel and 1kW or bigger for belt grinder.

I recently viewed a serious DIY belt grinder on Youtube made from left over materials in the workshop. An a well equiped workshop.

Paul.

**LINK**

I have 2 ELU grinders, can recommend them.

Wickes sell an own brand which I have turned into a t n c grinder with HH's rest....grinder was £40 iirc..

Ron,

My grinder is a Clarke 5" 150W model. The first one that I bought got very hot fairly quickly so I returned it under warranty. The replacement also became very hot. That was 30 years ago, and it still gets hot. As a result, if doing a lot of grinding, I keep touching the casing and when it gets almost too hot to hold is when I switch off and allow it to cool down.

The reason why it gets hot is because these models do not have a fan in them to blow air through the motor.

I do agree though that 150W is on the low side, but with care, I find it adequate. One advantage is that it is difficult to overgrind since the motor simply stalls.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

For what it’s worth I rarely use my bench grinder any more, I sharpen virtually all my tools on a belt sander.

Old motors ran cool because the insulation available for the winding wire wouldn't stand high temperatures. Modern winding wire can stand higher temperatures so motors are designed taking advantage of that fact. Thus they are smaller and cheaper for a given power.

My old 1/4 hp grinder has a big, heavy motor and never gets more than slightly warm. The small cheapo grinder that I use with cup wheels and HH rest does get hot but has lasted for over 12 years so far.

Russell

Guessing here that any machine with less than a 100% duty cycle should be marked as such, these days?

recent thread on grinders.

The one that thread started with is still available at £40. We are getting one for the men's shed as nobody has given us one yet.

All grinders come with thin tin rests so no point in complaining about it. Again several threads have covered the simple block of wood rest so no need to make an over elaborate precision sharpening system to start with.

I've had one of those for a couple of years, and although I don't use it heavily it is a decent tool: runs smoothly and quietly, effortly removes material, and takes ages to run down. What more do can you ask for just £40?

Thanks for the suggestions guys, having spent quite some time looking at no end of grinders I have gone with the Axminster Tools Craft one pictured below.

£65 including delivery which suited my pocket, 150mm, 250 watt, if the picture is anything to go by it looks well made, so hopefully it will be and give good long service.

Thanks again.

Ron

Amen to that but for many purposes you will want to replace the standard bent metal rests.

Clarke do a heavy duty range of grinders which are good. I have a 6" 250w which I have abused for years, its still going strong. Doesn't get too hot either.

This One

Edited By Hollowpoint on 24/02/2019 20:33:17

I've got a cheapie 150W that I got from B&Q maybe 15 years ago, replacing a similar one I'd also had for about 15 years. It does the job for me, I use it several times in any week, and some of my tools have some detail to their shapes. I dress it regularly with a cheap diamond. When the wheels get too worn, I'll dump it and buy another.

I have Wolf 6" bench grinder bought around 45 years ago still going strong. Also have my Grandfathers grinder, cannot remember the name but it still runs silently and when switched off stays spinning for ages. Cant beat the old stuff.

Colin

Creusen won’t qualify for the reasonable price but I still fancy one, almost any grinder that is at the affordable end of the market is going to need better wheels, driving flanges and tool rests so they are not as cheap as they appear but can be the basis of a useful machine if the motor has decent power.

Mike

B&Q have the 150 watt cheapie one (available from practically everyone with their own label) for £20 under their European sounding Mac Allister brand.

Mike , I have a Creusen 7200 , purchased MANY years ago from Axminster . I originally wanted the better model , but after a fruitful discussion with the lady at Axminster , I settled in this one , and I have to say , she was exactly right in her comments , bless her . Plus , she saved me a significant amount of cash . The machine is mounted on Creusen's own angle stand , has obviously well out-lasted it's long guarantee , and still uses its original and we'll-used vibration free wheels , as well as still taking around 2 mins to come to a stop . It still starts and runs like a dream and barely slows under load .

Here , I must confess a bias . I generally believe you get what you pay for , and I have no regrets whatsoever with this purchase and consider it well worth every penny .

So Mike , if you can afford one , go for it . The quality remains long after the price has been forgotten .

Trevor, Axminster seem to have ceased selling Creusens some time ago. Does anyone know the reason for this?