Shop addition: New Grinder

Today I finished all the drilling, countersinking and tapping that is needed. I also bought a motor (1HP single speed). Now I need the tooling arm(s) and the wheels and the belts.

I'll do some of the assembly today too. I already have the main upright in place (bolted, not welded) and have assembled the idler arm.

Slow but steady progress...
 
Pre-assembly pictures. One of the parts appears to be warped.

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I guess I should have mentioned the most critical part of the build.... The holes through tracking arm need to be square. My vice slipped when drilling mine and I tried shimming, and boring it out, but ended up having to have a new piece made(Thanks Chuck Richards!). Is yours square or is it the picture angle that makes it look skewed?

Looking good Greg! Please don't disappoint me and use this grinder to make "normal" knives...
 
All I can say is that I followed instructions precisely. I believe the holes to be square and true.
 
Greg, don't know if you have already purchased the 1.5" bar stock for the work rest and the platen but you should get solid steel. The thick walled tubing I initially got was warped and I didn't even figure it out for a while. It made tracking a bear. I finally dialed it in but it took a while.

And like I mentioned last night I took it apart for a little improvement and now it is not tracking great again. So get everything set up the way you want it from the start and when you get everything working properly you won't have as much of an urge to modify!
 
I just spent some time wiring up the motor. The switch that came with it is frozen in the ON position, so I'm going to get a different switch, rather than switch out the motor. Amusingly, the instructions for wiring the motor were wrong. When wired for CCW rotation, it spun CW, and vise versa. I now have it spinning CCW, which I presume is the way I want it (as this should throw sparks and debris down into the bucket, as opposed to up into my face).

I have not ordered the 1.5" bar stock yet. Figured I'd wait until I knew more about my options there. I noted that Beaumont offered solid steel and solid aluminum. Haven't checked much beyond that yet.
 
I saw some posts that I can't find right now.

Ed Caffrey did some mods that make sense to me.

He used the rear hole in the tensioning arm and then used a compression spring.
This provides more leverage to the tensioning and may help tracking.
 
Home Depot and Lowes sells springs. Forget the screen door spring. That is nothing but a problem that wastes time being solved. I put on a 69lb spring from Home Depot and it keeps the belt nice and tight and tracks straight as an arrow with zero lateral drift. I see a lot of guys using springs that are not strong enough and struggle with tracking.
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...P_PARENT_ID&storeId=10051&Ntpr=1&ddkey=Search

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12345678910 said:
I saw some posts that I can't find right now.

Ed Caffrey did some mods that make sense to me.

He used the rear hole in the tensioning arm and then used a compression spring.
This provides more leverage to the tensioning and may help tracking.
Click to expand...

I tried a compression spring on mine for a bit, but I couldn't find one that gave me enough travel to facilitate quick and easy belt changes. I am still playing with springs on mine, trying to find that perfect mix for me. My bad arms don't help much though:eek: I have been thinking about extending the tension arm a bit to make it easier on me, and still get good tension
 
This morning I straightened out the bent pieces and they are all now laying flat against one another. I also sanded off some of the "rat's teeth marks" along the surfaces that will contact the tooling arms.

I noticed the assembly instructions said that placement of the eyelet that attaches the spring to the main upright would vary based on the specifications of the spring. I've ordered the 69 pound spring mentioned by AVigil and will pick it up later today. Should I assume that the spring is installed slack at the highest position of the idler arm? That's what I'm assuming for now, anyway.

The wheels I ordered from KMG should arrive today, so I can (I hope) do some assembly on the Multi-Platen.

I'll check into switches for the motor later today too, if time permits. I do have a few honey-do items to accomplish today, so my time is not entirely my own.

Amusingly, while digging through my vast collection of screws and fasteners I found a few half inch screws that will probably do quite well at holding wheels in place. The bolt ends look VERY similar to the KMG contact wheel spindle.

All in all, I feel things are moving along at the expected pace, with not too many surprises on the way.
 
I think you need to edit the title of this thread, bud.

BTW, I'm jealous of the build... it has been too long since I had a new piece of equipment.
 
Okay, my 6" drive wheel and 6" contact wheel arrived today, as well as the contact wheel spindle.

Everything about this grinder is heaver than I thought it would be, and these wheels are no exception.
 
Rick, I changed the title.

I tried to attach the drive wheel to the motor shaft... it's not sliding on easily. Is it supposed to require me to pound it on with a mallet? Somehow, I doubt it.

I also checked into the switch situation. That thing mounted on the motor doesn't appear to be a switch at all... probably more like a breaker. In any case, I decided not to replace it. I'd already purchased a foot switch from HF, so I decided to put that to use on the grinder.

Question... how does one attach the contact wheel to the platen? Obviously, I can't just bolt it on, as this would result in friction between the two. What separates them? Same question applies to the other wheels and their mount points.

- Greg
 
I used shouldered bolts to mount my wheels. The length of the shoulder changes depending on the length of the bolt. For spacers Tracy at USAknifemaker sells machine bushings. They are slightly smaller than washers to only contact the inner raceway of the bearing. That's also where I got my tracking wheels.
 
I used the spacers that Tracy sells. I'm sure you'll find them at Fastenall or maybe even Home Depot.
 
To further add. I spent a bit of time adjusting the spacers from the platen to the wheels and in addition to the machine bushings from Tracy I also got a few lock washers. I used a carpenters square to line up the Platen's wheels with tracking arm and drive wheel.
The shoulder bolts should be long enoughto just pass through the wheel before the threads start and will keep the wheel tracking straight.
Since you bought the Beaumont wheels they should have a sleeve inside the bearings allowing you to tighten the wheels pretty snug to eliminate slop. Hope you got belts coming so you can fire this bad boy up soon!
 
I haven't ordered any belts yet. I still need to order the tooling arm(s) first.

Another stupid question... I went to Beaumont's site again to look at their tooling arms. No indication there of the dimensions. Are they 1.5" x 1.5"?
 
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