Do they make bench grinders that don't vibrate so much?

I did it out of necessity. The darn thing vibrated so bad I realoy couldn't use it.
 
I don't like any machine vibrating and this thing was so scary I was afraid of it. I have it mounted on an old 3drawer roll away as a rolling tool center with a benchtop drill press, 6"grinder with a wire wheel and a multi tool belt and disk sander along with my angle grinder etc. When I'd try to run the silly thing the cabinet and tools would shake so bad stuff would start falling off! Now all is quiet, smooth and I'm not afraid it's going explode or something.
 
C-Bag said:
If you google this there are pages and pages of people going through the same thing. I also had old grinders in all the shops I was ever in and never seemed to notice this. But they all had wheels on them that were probably original.

Sorry you seem to have a dud. I thought my new 8" Ryobi was a dud and impossible to get to run right too. Part of it were the pressed badly hubs, so I made new ones on the lathe and got rid of the slight wobble. Helped a little. Went to Norton wheels, but they were just as bad as the ones that came with it. Out of round and out of balance. Was just about to go off the deep end and then found this:
https://www.amazon.com/Oneway-2272-...007RPOE4E/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Yeah, at $80 it's about what I paid for the grinder, but better the devil I know, so I went for it. Ended up doing some mod's like soaking the bearings on the balancing stand to take most of the grease out of them so there was next to no resistance. And one wheel(the fine grit) was so out of balance I added another washer. But voilà! runs smooth as silk and has stayed that way now for almost 2yrs! I'm a happy camper. NFI, but I wish I'd come up with it as its a very nice rig.
Click to expand...
Another happy Oneway grinder balancing customer. Get it. You won't be sorry.
 
If you don't want to buy a Oneway balancer you can make something similar on your own. I did and the before and after difference is astounding. Before balancing the wheels my grinder would shake so bad I thought it would walk out of my shop and go for a run around the block. After balancing the wheels I am still amazed every time I turn the grinder on. Should have done this years ago. I followed the principle presented in this video. Give it a try. Personally I thing the oneway would be a good way to go. But I am a cheap SOB and why buy something you can make, lol.
 
I am also cheap, but after all the time I spent and still couldn't use that grinder I was done. Not only did I make new hubs, I also made a mandrel for putting the wheels on my mill and using a diamond to true those goofy wheels. I got them round and true and they still would rattle your teeth. I saw a vid on how to balance a grinding wheel for surface grinder that had basically the same kind of hubs as the Oneway and that's what got me on to the Oneway. You'll laugh when you see the sheetmetal balancing stand after you've seen like the other guy's in vids with the really nice balancing stands, but it works and gets the job done. If I could have machined that kind of hub like the Oneway I guess it would have been worth a try but I was really close to chucking the damn grinder in the trash. It was worth it to me, YMMV.
 
I found a heavy duty bench grinder I'll be looking at this weekend, if it's worth the much higher price, I'll bring it home and leave the older one with the buffing/wire brush on for that type of work.
I can't bring myself to throw good money at the bad, that old grinder was really designed for light duty work and it's best to leave it alone.
What's lacking with cheaper grinders like mine is(copy & paste from Metabo Grinder description)
  • Dynamically balanced rotors and sealed bearings to minimize vibration and ensure smooth running.
 
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I purchased a Harbor Freight type used grinder. Most of the use it got was taking it out of the box, the wheels still had sharp edges on them. However, I wanted good wheels, bought some, put them on. I was amazed how much torque it took to keep them from slipping when the motor was started. I must have dressed them four or five times before I realized what was happening. Now they are really torqued down, I've dressed them enough that they don't bounce the grinder up and down any more. Next time I put new wheels on, I'll snug them down and verify that they are true to the shaft before I start dressing them. Its the grinding wheels either out of round or wobbling that makes the vibrations, the motor just hums when the wheels are off.
 
Tom, one of the other things to check is rather there is extra space in the hole. If it does, you may need to make a small sleeve, I have seen some older ones that had a paper sleeve, for various size shafts. I have seen on the web where some make them out of plastic. etc. If it is not centered around the shaft it could give an out of balance problem. How much did you have to take off the wheel to get it to balance out by dressing it.
 
The wheels came with a 1" hole (1/2" arbor) and a bunch of plastic nesting sleeves. Next wheels will have home made clamp plates and sleeves. The new wheels wound up about 5/8 wide.
 
I had excessive side to side wobble with my Norton wheel, and the stock grey wheels that came with the grinder. I bought a balancing kit that proved that the wheels were indeed way out of balance, but this didn't cure the side to side motion, even though this gets rid of the cheap side washers. by mounting the assembled hub and wheel between centers on the lathe I proved that the wheel its self was not flat. Now when I say that the first thing that came to mind was that the center hole was simply not square to the face of the wheel, but the balancing hub fit tightly all the way around. It's just not flat. I dressed the sides (1" thick wheel) and now its vibration free. I can balance a coin on the grinder body.
 
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