Has anyone ever used an expander wheel for knife making? I'm looking at improving my set up of a 1" belt grinder from Lee Valley tools, and have been looking at some other (cheap) options. I'm mostly interested in flat grinds and wonder in a 10" wheel is big enough to get things mostly flat, so I can tune them up with a file. The one I was looking at is profarriersupply.
I think a 10 inch wheel will be too small for getting any average sized blade flat enough. Most guys who are hollow grinding are using 10 inch wheels, and some are even using 12 or 14 inchers. Several people i know are using radius platens, which have a curve that matches the diameter of certain wheels. I have seen some that match the curves of 24 and 36 inch wheels and even these produce a noticeable hollow grind on most blades.
