Recommendations

[Migmac]

Time to take the plunge. Need a bench top pillar drill and a bench grinder with a sanding belt, also needs to take polishing wheels. Maybe they all can take polishing wheels. All for hobby use. Looked at Lumberjack tools they seem ok, machinemart a better option - easy spares, discount code?

 

[hotponyshoes]

You can fit a polishing wheel to pretty much any grinder but for best results a lower speed grinder with a lot of torque works better.
Especially for initial cutting with course graded of polish.
For the final polish a cheaper grinder at a higher speed works fine as you can just use light pressure against it.

 

[grim_d]

Ive always found high speed and good pressure to work best? Get a bit of heat into it...need oodles of torque though.

I've only used little mops on a die grinder though.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Get the tapered screw adaptor thing and you can fit it onto any motor.
I have one bolted to the bench with a foot switch.
That's got the sisal mop on then the cloth&felt mops are just on a cheapish grinder that runs about twice the speed. The lack of torque on it almost helps out as I can slow it right down when loading it up with compound.

 

[frank horton]

ur asking toooooo much for the general bench grinders available.......the better stuff cost a fortune........
anything smaller than 3/4 to 1hp will disapoint......
ull always be waiting for it to pick up speed again.....

mine is made from scrap, cost would be less than a new decent b/grinder....3phase n 3hp......plus any ol b/grinder will do if not polishing.....
still gotta fit the belt guard and the folding tread plate...even a bit more ballast......

 

[slim_boy_fat]

anything smaller than 3/4 to 1hp will disapoint......

This ^^ , it's easy to 'stall' the likes of a MM one. Get one with as much torque as you can afford, or build one based on a seperate motor.

As for the pillar drill, I had a Record from HIS in Inverness because it'd just fit in the space I had earmarked, this one which I see MM also do. I only went with HIS because they're closest to hand if I needed to go and shout at someone due to a fault.... All this was pre-covid of course. https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/record-power-dp25b-bench-drill-with-22-column/

Don't overlook a good condition old one like Fobco, Meddings etc either - I bought Cheb's Meddings [3-phase motor converted to 240V] and sold the Record online to a chap from Inverness, who drove up to collect it and paid full asking price of £170 - so it cost me not a lot for nearly 4 years use . It was VERY good condition though, not at all abused as I look after all my kit.

Good luck with the search.

 

[Migmac]

Maybe I should of said more in my opening post. I’m only polishing knife blades, so nothing that’s to full on. Drill is again for knife blades and associated stuff, need the holes straighter than I can do by hand n eye.

 

[hotponyshoes]

Knife blades can be hard on a polisher.
You have a large flat area (compared to the wheel size) and you want to get in quick and cut hard before you heat the blade up to much and ruin the heat treat.
If it's just sharpening them then a standard grinder will be ok but if you are forging the whole thing and then expecting to polish sanding marks out you will need a decent amount of power.

If the only thing you want a drill for is the handle rivets you could just get a thick metal bar with a square hole drilled in it and use that as a guide for a hand drill.

 

[hotponyshoes]

If its only for knives it's good to have a polisher that rotates the other way to normal so if you loose grip it gets chucked away from you rather than towards you. There are plenty of diy options (including kits) for belt sanders, probably some polisher options as well

 

[Migmac]

Knife blades can be hard on a polisher.
You have a large flat area (compared to the wheel size) and you want to get in quick and cut hard before you heat the blade up to much and ruin the heat treat.
If it's just sharpening them then a standard grinder will be ok but if you are forging the whole thing and then expecting to polish sanding marks out you will need a decent amount of power.

If the only thing you want a drill for is the handle rivets you could just get a thick metal bar with a square hole drilled in it and use that as a guide for a hand drill.

At the moment I do it all with emery and wet n dry. I like marks on the blades, gives it character. I want them with a bit more shine than I can do by hand.

As for a drill, I want more toys

 

[hotponyshoes]

Wanting more toys is a perfectly valid reason!