Cheap Bench Grinder, Major Upgrade

[Lewis_RX8]

Like many people i have one of the very mass produced small sized cheap bench grinders which can be found absolutely anywhere from B&Q , Screwfix Ebay you name it.

My main problem with these machines and the same problem as many others is not the power or size its the sheer amount of vibration that is produced by the cheap and quick construction that chucked some stones onto a motor shaft and then haphazardly attached them with bits of stamped plate and nuts. So looking through youtube i found a very helpful tutorial that seemed to make a huge difference to his grinder and now i am getting more and more lathe skills and knowledge i thought it was worth a shot.

Now the only way I differed from the video was i just touched up the surface of the original parts to make them flat rather than make completely fully machined parts from stock which i would have but i don't have the stock to make those so i did as best as i could.

The original video where i got the idea

This was my bench grinder at first https://streamable.com/4ann30#

Made a horrible noise could never stay still needed to be clamped down and then it would still want to bounce away from you

So the first step i made this side as flat as i could at first on my make do surface plate glass and sand paper however i quickly moved then onto the lathe with use of a dial indicator and was much faster and more confident in the flatness of the surface coming off the lathe than my bit of glass

Then it was time to make the other side flat and parallel with bigger stone facing face and that was also done on the lathe , I did not make it too large of a flat face as this is only where a small ridge sits on one side of the stone and the other side the nut is screwed onto this surface

Then i just touched up the face of the nut to make a flatter face , I forgot to take the paper off for this photo , However underneath was just some slighty corroded bumpy pressed steel no machined flat surface to be seen on these

Then some quick washers where made up to go inbetween the stone and , Also see the cut up stella can to be used as a shim later on

Heres the small spacer which i found very trial and error to try and get the machine to run nice

And heres the final result with a spare better condition wheel i found in my drawer - https://streamable.com/upwp0l

Now also brings me to another problem , Does anyone know where you can get 125MM Dia stones i have looked around quite a bit and only ever see them in 150mm sizes and i would be looking for a wheel to grind drill bits HSS blanks and that sort of things if anyone has any ideas

Hope this helps to everyone with these grinders out there definability worthwhile upgrade don't think i could ever go back to that horrible vibration

 

[pedrobedro]

Bolt it down to the bench or put it on a board that you can clamp then grind something with it and it balances itself. I have two 6" cheap grinders and they both run smooth as silk, pity they are not stronger in the motor department though.