New project…

Building a grinder. I have a set of these plans, that I bought Ages ago before I had a welder setup to use easily;

http://www.mickleyknives.com/html/no_weld_grinder.html

Basically this sucker right here;

Its designed to be able to be put together by the average hobbiest with easily scrounged steel and limited tools, so its a no-weld design; It all bolts together.  I’m gonna simplify the work(lots less hole drilling, and a few less bracket pieces), slightly re-design it, and weld it together. 😀

Now, maybe in the lower 48 square tube steel is put a side as scrap more often, and easier to scrounge, but a friend and I both tried to scrounge steel for this for a couple years, and came up dry!  And that stiff is spendy to buy here!

So, I’m doing the same basic design, but since I can weld it all together, I can use round tube, angle iron in places where they needed the 3^rd  and 4^th  walls of the tube just for bolts, and different sizes of square tube, etc…

Most grinders like this run a Big 8” or 10”contact drive wheel for the belt, and a variable speed motor… But as this one is shown, they did as I’m going to, and  run a set of stem pulleys for speeds, allowing a small contact wheel to have the same torque/rpm as the big wheel setup…  SO I don’t have to shell out $200 for a contact wheel, or have to figure a way to make a wheel that big.    IF I can scrounge some 3” or 4” amuminum stock, I can lathe turn all the small wheels I should need, still saving me the cost of Any wheels(those little suckers are still like $50 a pop!)   

I even have a Big 3/4 or 1 HP motor that came off my lathe(had an issue that the warrenty fixed by sending us a new motor, then we later fixed the first motor 😀 ) And I already have the bearing pillow blocks and shafts, and step pulley setup from a home built wood lathe that my Dad buit years ago.

All I need is the luminum stock, and a few more pieces of steel tube, and I’m set. 

Oh, and someone to carry my stick welder back into my basement for me… That thing is Heavy!!