need grinder advise

[Carol Reed]

A few weeks ago I bought an 8" Woodcraft slow speed grinder. I had read many good reviews.

Mine was a clunker. It had a dual side to side wobble of nearly a 1/4". By that I mean that both wheels wobbled in a duet.

I returned it. That was an unhappy experience as well. To say that the store (I bought it from a brick and mortar) was ungracious about the return would be a gross understatement. But that is another rant.

I was told that the manufacturer was out of business. They would not be getting anymore grinders in and I was basically on my own.

NOT!

I have my friends here. I am not alone.

So, I need a slow speed 8" grinder.

Let's hear the suggestions and deals.

 

[Jorge Castaneda]

Ryobi

Carol,
I cannot help with the return, but
Why the slow speed?, I have one slow and one high and the high gives me smoother cutting edges. My high is a Ryobi, from the Borg, around $50.00 for a 10" that runs surprisigly smooth for the low price. Then put your money into good wheels.
You are not going to be grinding, just freshening the edges, so no presure at all is needed.
$0.03
adjusting for inflation
Jorge
Correction: make that an 8", sorry.

 

[Jerry Hall]

Sure hope the grinder is still available

I hope this grinder will still be available. I recommend it all the time, but do recommend, as you did Carol, that it be bought at a store for "easy" return because of the occasional report of off center wheels/shafts. Sometimes it was a nice fix to drop the stamped flanges and upgrade to the wonderful Oneway balancing ones, but there is more expense. But this is unlikely to fix a dual 1/4" problem! I wrote corporate an email and recommended they read this thread, and hope for a response.

With these hard times I have noticed that the Woodcraft stores are a little tight, and maybe if an individual store is suffering they forget about their reputation for customer service.

I sure don't know of another well priced grinder with decent wheels, and sure hope this issue gets addressed promptly by Woodcraft.

There is this Delta as one alternative. Looks like it has one al ox wheel and one grey: http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=18270&filter=grinder

 

[MichaelMouse]

Mine was a clunker. It had a dual side to side wobble of nearly a 1/4". By that I mean that both wheels wobbled in a duet.

End play in the shaft eh? No load adjustment in the manual, I take it.

Can't recommend a particular brand, but can say that slow is more forgiving of a shaky hand or a misplaced tool than fast. Of course you'd be going double fast at 8 vs 6" and 3450 vs 1725.

I'm using a mandrel and an old fractional HP motor. If I were buying today I'd buy the big JET slow buffer and use it for grinding and sanding/buffing. Triple threat.

 

[waltben]

I've had one of these grinders for about seven years and still have the original wheels - never had any problems at all with it, although I've heard of others having issues. I was in the Woodcraft in Richmond, VA yesterday and they had several of those grinders in stock. I also found out that there's only four corporate Woodcraft stores left (all the others are franchises). Didn't you buy this one from a Woodcraft store? If you can't return it, don't go buy another grinder, you can replace the wheels if that's the problem - first check the bushings (they used to use nylon ones) to be certain they're centering the wheels. The wheels aren't the highest quality, but they'll work well for a long time IF you can get them to run true. If not and you've got to buy new ones, get a pair of Norton's.

 

[robo hippy]

If you want one that you will never have any problems with, the Baldor 1 hp slow speed one is great. No wobble, and runs so smooth that you can't hear it running. Down side to it is that it costs $600 to $700 depending on where you get it. I do have a slow speed Woodcraft grinder as well, and it works okay, but I can easily bog it down when applying pressure which I do when grinding my scrapers. Can't do that with the Baldor.

robo hippy

 

[allen jay]

grinder

carol
go on the toolzone.com website they have several good grinders. general comes to mind.
slow speed or variable speed saves tools as they do not heat up quite so badly.

 

[John King]

Never Give Up

Carol - Never give up! Don't surrender!

Keep the pressure on Woodcraft to refund your money or get you another grinder. Write letters to the Woodcraft corporate offices with copies to the local store. Post a letter to the editor of your local woodworking and/or woodturning news letter about the poor customer service received at Woodcraft. Send local and corporate Woodcraft copies of the newsletter. Post your experience in every forum that you subscribe to. Clearly identify the Woodcraft store. Do everything you can to make it widely known how poorly Woodcraft has handled your case.

There is no way you should have to be saddled with a grinder that will not perform satisfactorily. - John

 

[Steve Worcester]

The purpose of lower speed of to help alleviate burning tool or taking off tool much material too quickly.

You can use a high speed, but it will require a lighter touch.

 

[Jerry Hall]

Grinder has been discontinued, but will be replaced

I got these two responses from Woodcraft:
_________________________________
From:
Woodcraft Tech <Woodcraft_Tech@woodcraft.com>

Thank you for your inquiry. Yes we are discontinuing the slow speed grinder. However we will have a replacement within 15 to 30 days. The replacement will be close to the current price of the grinder.
If you have any other questions or comments please call 1-800-535-4486 or e-mail at tech@woodcraft.com

Thanks,
Sam Murner
Technical Representative
___________________________________________
Hi Jerry,
We watch the forums but we’re not active contributors.
I appreciate your concern but there really is no story here. We have stock in our
warehouse and in our stores but we may run out in our warehouse before our
next shipment arrives. We’re not happy about that possibility and we’re working
hard to try to avoid it.

Thanks
Kent Harpool
Product Manager


________________________________

 

[Carol Reed]

Thanks, folks.

A few clarifications.

I did get my money back. That was not the problem. Well, it was sort of. I had paid in cash and expected cash back. Late on a Saturday they were concerned about now having enough cash in the drawer. The real problem was the attitude, as though I should accept what I got without complaint. It left a very sour taste.

If the wheels had wobbled differently I would have suspected the wheels. But I tried other wheels and still had them doing the two step together.

The corporate office cannot be responsible for the customer service attitude of a franchise operation. I understand that. They can only be responsible for product and they are trying to do something about that.

So I will wait and see what the new one looks like and how much it is. I got an alert about free shipping but that likely will be defunct by the time the new grinder comes out. My luck!

I will likely not re-visit that particular store. The manager's attitude will trickle down to the salesmen as well. I have decided he does not deserve any of my money.

I have the equipment to true up the washers and even make better wheel bushings. I am unlikely to spend even more money on the balancing system.

If I have to rebuild a new machine to make it work decently, then I want to start at a much lower entry cost!

Rant off. Thanks for your forbearance.

 

[Mark Warden]

Hi Carol I have the Delta and am very happy with it.Bought mine at lowes stock wheels are good enough to get a nice edge on my chisels and it runs very smooth.I got it for the variable speed but I find it easier to sharpen at high speeds lighter touch less burning.

 

[Jim Carroll]

Carol lets go back to the start.

Are you able to take the wheels of and then put back on and getting them to run true.

Sometimes when replacing wheels they do not run true straight up. They may need to be rotated to a better position, loosen the lock nut a little bit, enough for you to turn the wheel about an 1/8th of a turn without turning the main shaft then lock up and see if this improves the waver, if not keep persisting till you get it to say a 1mm waver or better. Give them a spin by hand as this will show if improving, you do not need to turn the machine on and of.

Do the same for the other end.

If this does not fix the problem then take back for a full refund.

Another help for this is the oneway flanges as they have a balancing system to help fix this problem.

 

[Odie]

Carol......

I'll bet it's the wheels, and not the grinder itself.....and, here's my reasoning for saying that:

If it were the grinder, the only thing that would make the wheels wobble is a bent shaft.....or for some reason is not turning on a true axis. If that were the case, then the vibration would be horrendous.

A wheel that wobbles will probably not have much vibration, but the outside circumference will wobble from side to side.

I have one wheel on my grinder right now that wobbled. What I did was spin the wheel and put a pencil to the side of the wheel. Once you've established where the outermost point of the wobble is, you can make up some paper shims and place them between the wheel and the metal stabilizers. You can true up a wheel to darn near perfection with this method. 😀

I am currently using a Delta single speed, slow speed grinder. It's a little more heavy duty than the two-speed model.....and a little more expensive as well. I've been very satisfied with it. I'm enclosing a photo of it, plus another photo of it running while a nickle is balanced on the housing.....very smooth. Smoothness is important to getting the best edge possible. Also, the photo with the nickel was taken with the wheel that required shims installed!

Prior to getting this slow speed Delta a couple years ago, I used a 3450rpm 6" grinder for about 25yrs. As said, the higher speed is "doable", but requires a more refined touch to get the edge you want without excess heat. It's not quite as bad as a 3450rpm 8" grinder, because the 6" wheel surface speed isn't quite as high.......

If money were no object, I think I'd go for the Baldor. We have some Baldor motors where I work, and they are superbly balanced and well made.

good luck with your grinder search.

ooc

 

[David Somers]

Carol,

Would you be willing to share the location of that woodcraft store so others can be alert if they deal with them?

I deal with two stores alot, Honolulu and Seattle. Both have been excellent, but as has already been said, these are franchises and not fully controlled by the main company. Not all stores are equal.

For what it is worth.....my woodcraft wobbled a bunch as well, though I didnt measure the amount. I did what others described here and used a pencil to find the farthest point in the wobble and then shimmed it into line. Runs quiet and tight now. Would prefer that it have come out of the box running true.....but at that price.....hard to be too picky when the fix was so simple. Baldors are lovely machines by the way......provided you can afford them.

Hope the new one comes out of the box in great working order.

Dave

 

[Carol Reed]

I am hearing that those who have already dealt with them are aware of the "attitude."

This forum attracts experienced turners who are very sharing with one another. This particular store seems to have determined to try to survive on newbies. Thus new customers would be unlikely to see anything posted here.

The word is out. The situation will take care of itself. Bad customer service has a way of weaning out the riff raff. They don't need my help to go out of business. They also don't need any more of my money. That is the message I got.