Here are a few shots of the KMG style grinder I built. It still needs a few more little things done but works well so far. I have only quickly rough ground a couple of small blades to make sure it works. And I already like it. Any suggestions, comments or questions are welcome. I am trying to move my equipment out of my shed and into this room in the basement so excuse all the weight stuff and junk in the photos. [/URL]http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss100/lunar4772/2x72%20grinder/IMG_0013.jpg[/IMG]
Very nice. One day i would like to convert mine so that it will rotate horizontal. What kind of motor is that.
Hi Icho Horizontal is easy if the motor is not in the way. Its a 1 3/4 horse DC treadmill motor. It seems to have lots of power and is easy to control speed on with the variable transformer in the picture. I can slow it down and it still maintains the power pretty well. You can get them up to about 3 horse I think. And it was free so I tried it. I have another that I want to use for a disc sander down the road or whenever my Mastercraft one finally dies.
I thought it looked like a treadmill motor. I have some experience with treadmill motors. You can read all about it in temporary belt grinder thread I started a while back. It spit chunks before I had a chance to grind a blade on it but it wasn't because it wss a treadmill motor. It had a ticking sound from the beginning when it was still in the treadmill. If I started with a good treadmill my grinder would still likely be running with it.
A few guys on the machinists sites are running mills and stuff on them and they seem to be for the most part happy with them. But time will tell I guess. I am going to make a air filter for the end of the motor toward the belt and stop some of the dust going in. That seems to be the intake end to cool the motor. What we are doing is a lot dustier than machining. That might help the longevity or at least can't hurt.
I didn't even get a chance to put a filter on mine before it spit chunks. I wish the motor was good to begin with. Other than the ticking noise it ran awesome. I even trimmed the control panel, made a bracket for it and mounted it. It was great. It had lots of power, ran smooth and the variable speed worked great. I'm sure you will be happily making many blades with yours.
Thanks for the welcome Rob. I can't take credit for the design. Its from plans on the www put together with what I had on hand or could scrounge from my buddies junk yard. And a lot of trial and oops.
I see that I never posted the pic of it horizontal. Need to make rests for it on its side and I am looking at a TW 90 type rest arrangement for that if I can.
Brad I had a look at the EFFR. I had never seen it before. Its a very nice compact design. Looks solid as a rock too. Are you going to have a shop cut the metal for you or try cutting it yourself? Just a thought but if you had the base plate made longer on the motor side so it extended past the length of the motor you could hinge it and and have it tilt horizontal as well and the motor would not be in the way. It could always be done in the future if you wanted to go that way. Just a thought. I would sure like to see your progress as it goes along if you don't mind.
I down loaded the dxf files and gave them to a water jet company (Very easy). They did not do a great job but it was cheap, I had to drill and tap the holes. Right now I need a motor and drive wheel and it should be ready to go. Once I have it up and running I will post some pictures. Terry gave me a bunch of advice on the build (he is on here somewhere)
Well ran in to a few problems moving the shop inside. But I did get some work done on the small wheel attachment and work rests. Here are some picshttp://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss100/lunar4772/2x72%20grinder/Work%20Rest/IMG_0020.jpg[/IMG][/URL]http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss100/lunar4772/2x72%20grinder/Work%20Rest/IMG_0013.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
It's a good looking piece of equipment but I would rethink the grinding in the basement business. Metal dust is bad enough but some of these hardwoods we work with are muy mucho bad for you to breathe. There's just no good way to keep the dust out of circulation.
Thanks B.U.M. I have been using it a little and I have been thinking about that as well. I may have to move the grinding back out to the shed ( which is now since I finally built an oven, supposed to be the heat treat department. lol ). Maybe just use the basement for filework and hand finishing stuff. I might be back to buying firewood and waiting for the shed to get warm again. You sound like you're speaking from experience have you tried any venting/vacuum options that failed That you could tell me about.
Yeah, just food for thought. And with the increased chance of fire in a shop it would be better to have the shed torched rather than the house. God forbid, but you have to plan for the worst case.
