Lidl Bench Grinder

Lidl is currently selling 6" bench grinders for £21. These have a 200W 2980rpm induction (I think) motor, which is a bit weak for 6" grinding wheels, but I bought one with a view to re-purposing it. I removed the motor end caps and extracted the spindle and cut off both ends. I then turned the right hand end to 12mm and cut an M8 thread to take an angle grinding adapter.

The result is shown in the photos and allows accessories such as sanding discs or the thin cut off wheels to be mounted. These latter are useful for roughing out HSS lathe tools to be used for parting or screwcutting.

I extended the tool rest by drilling a couple of 3/16 holes in the original and clamping a piece of 2" x 1 1/2" x 1/16" plate to it. I then filled the holes using a stick welder, sticking the extension plate to the original rest.

I think the motor is a gem for the money - very quiet and smooth running and enough power to drive angle grinder tooling.

Hi Glyn, seems like a good plan, but angle grinder discs run at 11000 RPM plus, so your discs will likely wear away more than they will cut, as running them too slow will turn them into dust, even putting too much pressure on them in an angle grinder, which slows them down just a little bit wears them out quite quickly. I'm assuming you'll be using the 4-1/2" or 5" discs, but even 9" discs run at 6000 rpm plus.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 04/05/2022 23:11:52