need ideas on a grinder

[bedwards]

I bought a neat grinder at a flea market. Its a Sani-Grinder made for shaping, grinding and polishing orthotic appliances. 1/4 hp 3450 or 1725 rpm and runs in only one direction. Its American made and seems to be built well and runs smoother than my Chinese grinder. I wanted to make a tool grinder out of it but I'm not sure I can. It has a 3" drum sander on one side that is attached with what looks like a #1MT and a squirrel fan on the other side attached on a 1/2 round shaft with a set screw and no flat.
Any ideas on how I could make this into a tool grinder? Should I leave it and use it as is or try to sell it outright as they apparently are very expensive new. I will post a few pics also.

thanks in advance for any input
bedwards

 

[davidh]

interesting that it comes with its own dust removal system. i think what you have is just a nice old motor to power whatever you may want to build. . . looks like it could easily become a nice buffer. . .

 

[wolframore]

That's a nice find! I'm trying to put a nice tool grinder together myself. Maybe you can use it to run a pully on a grinder... I wish Harbor Freight was still selling their tool grinder but it's long gone... Has anyone else noticed that they've really pared down the cool tools they used to have?

 

[7HC]

........... I wish Harbor Freight was still selling their tool grinder but it's long gone... Has anyone else noticed that they've really pared down the cool tools they used to have?

Yes, they used to carry two very good tool grinders at excellent prices, unfortunately no longer.

Both of these can be found elsewhere, but at much higher prices, especially for the small (green) Universal Tool Grinder.






M

 

[wolframore]

Wow that green machine is just like something I'm going to waste months building... wish they still sold them. How do we get HF to stock those things again... in fact I want to see a lot of their discontinued items coming back!!!!

 

[bollie7]

I don't see why you couldn't convert it to a tool grinder. The main thing that might stop you that I can see, is the spindle of the motor. Looks like you would have to machine up some adaptors to mount the wheels.
For the tool rests it wouldn't be that hard but there would be a bit of fabrication and machine work required. One way that I can think of would be to have a steel plate bolted under the grinder that protrudes out each end. You could then fab up brackets from that to attach your tool rest to. As part of the bracket you could have another bracket at each end that clamped around the boss on each end of the grinder end case and then bolted to the plate. This would help tie it all together. You could also mount wheel guards to these.
All very doable IMHO. Just depends on how much work you want to put into it.
regards
bollie7

 

[bedwards]

The adapters to the spindle are what concern me. I feel I can make them but don't want to make something unsafe. I would probably be hard to come up with an adapter that would tap on to the MT#1.

bedwards

 

[7HC]

Wow that green machine is just like something I'm going to waste months building... wish they still sold them. How do we get HF to stock those things again... in fact I want to see a lot of their discontinued items coming back!!!!

Just to be annoying, here are a couple of machines from 2008/2010 that have been discontinued:





and these could all have been bought with the 25% off coupons that were available then (only 20% these days).


M

 

[wolframore]

Wow those are some cool ads. Wish I was into this back then. Maybe we need to petition HF to bring those cool tools back!

 

[architard]

Yeah I had recently been looking for the tool grinder on the HF website and couldn't find it. There is a great video series on YouTube where someone took the trouble to really tune up the grinder to function like a much more expensive one. I think he was able to balance a nickel on the motor after he was done. He mentions something I've heard quite often about HF tools of this quality, as long as you realize you are buying what is essentially a "kit" that you need to take apart and tune up, then you can get yourself a great tool for next to nothing.

Anyway, there might be some good information in that video series on ways to adapt that motor to become a tool grinder.