my DIY hollow grinding platen for 2x42 belt grinder

[zhyla]

I made a straight razor earlier this week and used the tiny wheel at the top of my 2x42 belt grinder to hollow grind it. It turned out unsurprisingly ugly. I also worried it would wear the wheel out if I did that a lot. I don't plan on doing a lot of hollow grinds but will probably make a couple more razors. Also I want to make a couple knives down the road that have a slight hollow on one side (urasuki).

Here's what I came up with. It's just a piece of maple scrap with some sheet metal bent around it. The sheet metal will probably wear fast but it's easy enough to replace. It currently isn't held in place by anything except the tension of the sheet metal; I will probably add some screws thru the back or something like that to lock it onto the platen.

The radius is quite large but it will do. It's about as small as it can be without modifying the housing of the grinder. The newer 2-wheel 2x42 models look less limiting in this regard.

I imagine you could do something similar with a 1x30 but it would require some modification of the machine since I don't think it has much travel for the belt tensioner. Anyway, I just thought I'd pass this along for the other hobbyists here who don't have more flexible equipment.

 

[Brock Cutlery]

Nice. I had been thinking about this kind of thing for a while. Good to see someone implement it. I was thinking the removable backing plate from a hand belt sander might be a good metal to use over the wood.
You can find various sizes on ebay. Let us know how the first blade comes out. Wonder how the heat will affect the wood.
You could make a wheel platen of any size if it will fit your grinder.

Very cool sir.