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Slow speed Grinder

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I think very few turners use the included plastic or cast sharpening platforms. The the unit is just a means to spin a wheel. The sharpening system wether Oneway or another is then added to hold the tools being sharpened. I think the only question is do you want the shelf’s to spin in 2 secs or can you wait 15-20 seconds for it to get up to speed to sharpen. I which mine would spin in 2 secs but not for an extra 750$.
 
Joined
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Larimore, ND
Not sure if Rikon made changes, but the base is listed as cast iron.

The base was cast iron, I'm referring to the platform where you lay your tools to grind. Cheap, thin plastic the I bet would break with any pressure at all on it. CHEAP!! If it would have had a decent platform, it would have gone home with me as a quick touch-up unit. But.... if I have to start buying grinder parts to use it when it should have a good one from the factory, I'll stick to my Tormek, lord knows I paid way too much for it anyway.
 
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Base was cast iron, I'm referring to the platform where you lay your tools to grind. Cheap, thin plastic the I bet would break with any pressure at all on it. CHEAP!! If it would have had a decent platform, it would have went home with me as a quick touch-up unit. But.... if I have to start buying grinder parts to use it when it should have a good one from the factory, I'll stick to my Tormac, lord knows I paid way too much for it anywayz.

No one uses those platforms. I have the RoboRest and OneWay platform. The Tormek is a fine machine, but it is really slow. I had the Jet knockoff and got rid of it because it took too long to sharpen my turning tools.
 

john lucas

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The platform or tool.rest that comes with most grinders are horrible. After market rests are the way to go. That's part of why I stepped up to the Oneway system. I love my Roborest. I also own a LeeValley rest that's pretty good.
 
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The Rikon I had has a cast iron base. You don't need to be in love with it, it just fits a needed nook. A decent grinder at a decent price. And by the way it was $139 when I bought it but went on sale the next week for $99 and Woodcraft refunded me the $40.
 
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That is good. Extremely for a store to do that.
BTW, Bill, how much snow do you have? I lived in Ohio; from east of Cleveland to east of Erie was a noted snow belt.
 
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John, I live 8 miles south of the Erie and we are in the so called snow belt. So far I'd say we are at the 20" level and it is still snowing. I believe it was 2 or 3 years ago at this time we had 54" on the ground in about 36 hours.
 
Joined
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Ambridge, PA
Bill,
Do you know who has the Delta slow speed grinder + Wolverine + CBN setup on the Erie craigslist? Been up for 3 days and surprised it's not gone by now.
 
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Gahanna, OH
I wanted to upgrade the $33 6" HF (which was fairly balanced and working passibly with a diy Elsworth jig) I had been using to an 8" economy grinder. My first attempt was the HF 8". After 2 tries of grinders with axles out of line, I tried the Wen 8" variable speed. I am very pleased, after dressing the 1" wide white 80 and 36 grey included wheels, it purrs at 1750 to 3600 without bolting down. Works for me at $100.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2019
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Kernersville, NC
I'm on my second Woodcraft 8-inch slow-speed grinder and it is showing signs of trouble. Woodcraft seems to have abandoned their own import grinder in favor of the popular Rikon offerings and I can see why. The WC grinders were of questionable quality. A short life span in experience.

In any case Steve, without pole-vaulting all the way up to a $700ish Baldor, to what grinder(s) are you referring when you suggest something of higher quality than the Rikon?
 
Joined
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Minneapolis, MN
I'm on my second Woodcraft 8-inch slow-speed grinder and it is showing signs of trouble. Woodcraft seems to have abandoned their own import grinder in favor of the popular Rikon offerings and I can see why. The WC grinders were of questionable quality. A short life span in experience.

In any case Steve, without pole-vaulting all the way up to a $700ish Baldor, to what grinder(s) are you referring when you suggest something of higher quality than the Rikon?

Hello Edward. I think this may be the comment I made that you alluded to-
"A $100 consumer grinder can't hold a candle to a $500-1000 industrial grinder designed to run all day long, for decades. Buy once, buy right."

Honestly, by surfing around the internet, I don't think there are any alternatives to the Baldor as a grinder that falls between the price range/quality of the Rikon and similar, and the Baldor. Jet has a model or two of slow speed grinders in the $200-300 range, but again, you are gambling with low quality control manufacturing standards of eastern Asian job-shop machine tool producers. If you have already gone through a couple of these lower cost grinders, it may be time to change course. I realize "buy once, buy right" is easy to say, but a quality machine needs to be considered as a reliable, long-term investment. Take that Baldor price and spread it out over the next 10 years of your woodturning craft. $80'ish/year? $7'ish per month, the cost of a McDonalds lunch? This gets you my 7" grinder, add a few bucks per month if you want the 8" grinder.

I like to pay cash in full and be done with it as much as the next person, but if your discretionary spending won't allow for that, spread out that purchase price over a few months either by buying with your credit card, or set aside some cash each month until you can pay in full. What other routine discretionary spending (such as Starbucks coffee, a weekly restaurant lunch, or one less monthly tee time at the golf course) can you temporarily halt in an effort to buy the better machine?

A quality machine will never again be as cheap as it is right now. My 7" Baldor now costs about twice as much as when I bought it not quite 20 years ago. But you know what? I am dead confident that in another 20 years my Baldor will still be working the exact same way as it did the day I put it into service. And I am just as confident to say that not a single low cost grinder will be doing the same.
 

Roger Wiegand

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Has anyone here had a Rikon actually fail on them? What was the failure mode?

I've been using mine daily for about 5 years now with two cbn wheels on it and it continues to function perfectly; near silent, no vibration, my tools get sharp. No sign currently that it is about to die, which Steve's post suggests I should be expecting any minute now. What should I be looking for?

I certainly try not to spend my days at the grinder, but I suspect I use it pretty typically or more than the average hobby turner because I'm doing some every day.
 
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Roger, and everyone else, I am not saying your Rikon, or Woodcraft no-name, or Jet, etc. grinder is going to fail today or next week. My point is... WE get what we pay for. It's not about a singular machine failure. It's failure rate for a brand. It's "I bought it, it had problems out of the box so I returned it for a different machine of the same brand and this one seems okay". It's "I got 10 years out of the last $100 one before it died so I bought another one just like it."

I go back to my original posting, where turners that worked their way through their rookie seasons and became lifelong turners end up buying everything else of the highest quality they can somehow afford. Multi-thousand dollar lathes. Multi-thousand dollar band saws. Multi-hundred dollar individual turning tools. Tools and machines that will work without issue for years and decades. Until it comes to the grinder, arguably the single most important tool to the long life of your expensive turning tools, when WE compete to buy the lowest cost, lowest common denominator machines we can find. They have low quality motors, low quality bearings, low quality shafts, low quality castings (or worse, stampings). Then WE hand wring over which $150-200+ CBN wheels to put on them. It just defies logic. The lowly bench grinder, the red-headed step child of the turning shop.

I have no skin in this game, I am not in the machine tool industry. Buy what you'd like or can afford, but think about the long-term ramifications of your investment before handing over your cash. I'm a weekend warrior woodturner of over 25 years that holds every dollar I earn as precious. I'm still working for another 10-12 years, I started turning when I was young and poor but I knew the long-term value of stretching my budget to get the best machines that I could afford, not just machines that were affordable. I think of every power tool in my shop as a valuable investment worthy of my careful consideration and diligence, not as an after thought of, "ah, it should be good enough".

And a last thought that will strike a chord with a few of you- support one of the last American-made machine tool manufacturers for your craft. Stop supporting the low quality junk. Delta, Powermatic, and our northern neighbor's General are all dead wood machine manufacturers, nothing more than ghost labels with old names slapped onto low quality boat anchors. That was our fault, the consumer. Jet, Grizzly and Harbor Freight gave us half priced, quarter quality woodworking machines that we bought up in droves, and now our high quality, "lasts a lifetime" hometown machines are gone. Shame on us.

Buy once, buy right.

Steve.
 

odie

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Tools and machines that will work without issue for years and decades

I'm still on my 2nd grinder, and it sees constant use for the last 20+ years. So far, so good......no problems at all. I consider it top notch, an old-school Delta that is no longer available. It's an industrial grade grinder, IMHO.
IMG_4151.JPG
If my Delta ever fails me, I will get the 8" Baldor. I may not have owned a Baldor personally, but for the last 20 years of my working life (I'm now retired), I worked in a shop that had about 50 Baldor motors used for polishing, and shaping medical tools. (I worked in the machine shop of that company.) I can safely say the Baldor motors are built to industrial standards and last a long long time. This is not to say that they don't eventually wear out......they do, but it takes a lot of use, and abuse.

-----odie-----
 
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Joined
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I have a diametrically opposed opinion. I will gladly pay $100 every 10 yrs vs $7-800 up front for equal results. Do the math, including compound interest on what wasn't spent. A popular axiom in flat and round ww is “buy once cry once”. Not me. When I overpay to get desired results, l “cry” every time I see or use the tool, and pull the lever on the a** kicking machine. My mindset is value, $’s for result. I drive a Chevy and not a Caddy. The only person I want to impress with tools (a vehicle is a tool) is me with the value I got out of it.

As for the made in America aspect, our politicians created the environment for outsourcing not consumers.
 
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An 8 inch slow speed Baldor is now in the $1000 range. Perhaps it was my Grandma's influence. She lived through the Great Depression, and she never threw stuff away, and never wasted anything. I really find the 'throw away' idea in manufacturing disgusting. My tool repair place is fixing one of my old Dewalt 18 volt cordless drills. He told me to hang onto it. He said the newer 20 volt model electronics and it is cheaper to replace them than it is to repair them. That is shameful. I will have my 1 hp Rikon grinders around for another 20+ years and if they fail, I will let you know. I know my Baldor grinders won't fail. I am hard on my tools, and I will bet that my birth certificate expires before my Baldor grinders expire. My dad is 98 and still goes into work.... If you are a professional worker, you can't have your tools breaking down because that costs you time and money. That is a philosophy that kept our family business going since 1952.

robo hippy
 

Roger Wiegand

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So the only motor I've ever had actually fail in my shop was a Baldor. (Yes I know that anecdotes are not data!) It was maybe two years old, on a 6" jointer. One day the magic smoke escaped and that was it, pronounced not worth fixing at the dealer. I had enough faith that I replaced it with the same motor. The replacement ran until I sold the jointer a couple years ago.

So I kind of thought I was following Steve's advice. I'm completely guilty of most of what he says. The Rikon grinder I bought cost over 10X more than the grinder it replaced, which had served adequately, if not well, for the prior 25 years. The old one is still running and gets used to sharpen the mower blades. With the addition of the CBN wheels the setup was more than 25 times the price of what it replaced. That seemed to me like a pretty substantial upgrade in cost, if nothing else. Ant it works wonderfully compared to my old one. Yes, I wish the motor were smaller in diameter. I bump into it way too often; if the magic smoke escapes from the Rikon I will be looking for that in a replacement, and might well be willing to go the further 5x increment in price to get it.

I don't believe in gratuitously spending money though. I certainly could upgrade from my (old) Powermatic, Delta, and Minimax tools to ones costing 20X more from the likes of Martin, but at some point good enough is good enough. Those $60K table saws, while stunning and undoubtedly worth it in a factory production setting, won't make me a better woodworker or allow me to do things I can't do today. Unfortunately my tools only have to work for another decade or two at most, if I'm lucky before they get given away at the yard sale.
 
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I am in the cheaper category on grinders. My grinder is the old no name that Woodcraft sold. It ran true from the start and has not skipped a beat in 14 years. I really think that Rikon probably made it because it looks just like them. For me I may be turning another 20 and if I had to buy one grinder at 120 vs 1000 it is a no brainer situation. Like everyone else I did upgrade to CBN's about 5 years ago and that was a bit more than the grinder but also was a step up in my turning.
 
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The problem is the Rikon is a decent grinder. It is no Baldor, but a very good value. I am just a retired hobbiest, so $$ are important. I try to buy the best, but sometimes need to choose. I ended up getting the 1/2 hp Rikon. I still have my no name Woodcraft 3/4 hp grinder going on 15+ years old. The no name has a white wheel on one side and older 180 CBN on the other. The newer Rikon has two CBNs, 80 and 180. Other than start time the Rikon is very smooth. The no name has a white wheel and not quite as smooth as the Rikon, but very useable. Since my use is no where near an industrial use, and the performance of the Rikon is very good, it really doesn’t pay for me to buy a expensive grinder.
 
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The low speed in Europe run at 1440rpm on the 50 cycle net, as for the magic here in NA in a slow speed motor, it has 4 poles and the high speed has 2 poles, making a slow speed more expensive just for that reason alone.
 

Dennis J Gooding

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My 1st job out of college was a test engineer for Unit Rig on their Lectra Haul mining trucks. It was like driving a house around. I only have a small 1/2hp 8” Wen grinder, so yeah, not sure of the correlation either.
upload_2021-1-23_18-43-36.jpeg
 
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Leo, it looks like we have negative correlation going here.

Dennis this is where the shortest guy drives the biggest car/truck, me being not so tall I use the bigger grinder ??

As for that truck in the picture, my brother made the templates for it while he worked at GM Diesel in London Ontario, they where called Euclid then, but the US government made GM sell of the Euclid line as it was deemed that GM had too much power in these type of trucks/machines market, as they had bought that compagnie, they had to sell it, but they were allowed to keep the self developed truck, that is the one, my brother took our Dad to look at the truck, I remember that he said, "Standing on his toes his nose was right at the centre of the wheel hub" :)
 
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Angelo

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I am in the need for a slow speed grinder. So there are the 1/2 hp Rikon and the 1 hp Rikon. I have searched this forum, but haven’t found what I am looking for. There is also the Delta vs grinder. The 1/2 hp Rikon can be had for $100, and the 1 hp is about $240 including shipping. The delta is in-between. I watched Ken Rizza’s test on the Rikon. The 1 hp was up to speed in less than two seconds where the 1/2 hp took eight seconds. Have no idea about the delta. I will be using steel CBN wheels. I am not a production turner.

My question is once the 1/2h hp is up to speed (waiting the startup eight seconds) is there a noticeable difference between these grinders? When sharpening is there a tendency to stall the 1/2 hp Rikon? I know very little about the Delta. Should I even be considering this grinder?

Thanks
 

odie

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I will tuck my tongue firmly in my cheek and ask: Is there a correlation between the HP's of a woodturner's lathe and grinder and the size of his pickup truck?

Don't know about size, but my truck definitely has a correlation to my personality, my shop, and my life's philosophy! Everything is old, and well used.....but, it all suits me just fine! I am a great admirer of our ancestors, their philosophies, and their journey that brought us to this place in time. :)

-----odie-----
IMG_5687.JPG IMG_5688.JPG
 
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That's the beauty of CBN wheels. You need very little pressure to sharpen with them so you're not going to be slowing down the wheel. Makes no difference in HP if you wait until they power up. Plus your tools are going to last a whole lot longer. I shape tools on stone wheels on a 1 HP grinder
 
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Don't know about size, but my truck definitely has a correlation to my personality, my shop, and my life's philosophy! Everything is old, and well used.....but, it all suits me just fine! I am a great admirer of our ancestors, their philosophies, and their journey that brought us to this place in time. :)

-----odie-----
View attachment 36953 View attachment 36954

I love that truck Odie, nice, simple machines like a good quality wood lathe.

My brother (RIP) in The Netherlands was into restoring real old Automobiles as he had time for it and found them in parts of Europe, got a picture of one of them with two of his sons and a friend (on the right).

This one came out of a barn in France, and found by a friend who was a live stock seller/buyer.

My brother's old timer.jpg
 
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My girlfriend just got one of the new Tesla cars. Then I see that Tesla is coming out with a truck. They use an exoskeleton of thick metal for the outside of the truck so it doesn't need a frame.... 500 mile potential range and towing capability. One model looks like a 'Back to the Future' car, and the other looks more like a standard pickup.... Oh, the tool-aholic side of me is drooling.... May have to wait a bit to sell the 10 year old cargo van...

robo hippy
 
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