Show Me Your Surface Grinder Vacuum Systems

[Janderso]

I recently picked up a Brown and Sharpe, 618 Micromaster surface grinder. There is no grit collection system.
I would like to fabricate something to reduce the grit, it's a small shop and has a close proximity to my lathe, which I plan on covering when grinding.
Thank you for your ideas.

 

[benmychree]

Why not just go with the coolant system, your wheelhead guard is made to use one; its all pretty simple, as shown in your operating instructions. B&S also made a combination system, with coolant and suction unit combined, which the guard on mine is equipped for; it has both coolant pipe and suction port.

 

[Janderso]

You mean the adjustable guard on the left side of the wheelhead?
Since I have never owned or operated one of these I just assumed I would need additional shrouding to reduce grit.
I plan on using a cooling system.
The coolant combines with the grit and is captured and returned to the tank via the guard?
I'll break out the manual, in the back they show the accessories.

 

[Cadillac]

I ended up setting up my grinder for both a vacuum system and a coolant system. I was able to use parts salvaged from a old grinder
At work then I couple up some parts for the nozzles. Reservoir and pump went in the cabinet finally got around to making some removable SS splash shields have yet to use while grinding for the fear of the mess to clean up and I don’t want the coolant to go to waste with the little grinding I do.

My first set up I went and bought a 2gallon Stanley wet dry vac from menards. The vac has a metal canister and I use specifically for swarf and grinding. Found it to be annoyingly loud when trying to concentrate while grinding so it’s the shop vac now and I built my own. Had a friend cut all the pieces on a plasma table so he cut me a nice design for the air outlet. The box has a water tray which is the smaller part of the box. When the air comes in the inlet tube it is about a 1/4” from the water level so all sparks get put out. Then it climbs through baffles so all heavy material falls to tray also. Air goes through a squirrel cage fan and out through air filters. My goal with this system was to make it as quiet as possible and suck as much as possible. It’s as quiet as the grinder running so you basically hear a motor running. I used a 3600rpm motor made my own bearing Assy for the fan spindle and put a larger pulley on the fan to speed it up alittle I’m guessing it spins around 5k. My pick up on the grinder is mounted to the spindle head. It is a metal spray can that I cut up and put some leather for a deflector. I also have a dust head that came with the grinder that mounts to the table. Don’t like it because it’s mounted to the table so the hose and shield weight is cantilevered off the table. Mounting to the head gets your pickup as close to the wheel as you can which works a lot better imo.

I haven’t used a whole bunch but it works really good I’m happy with it. It was a nice little project and taught me a lot about air flows and vacuum.

 

[benmychree]

You mean the adjustable guard on the left side of the wheelhead?
Since I have never owned or operated one of these I just assumed I would need additional shrouding to reduce grit.
I plan on using a cooling system.
The coolant combines with the grit and is captured and returned to the tank via the guard?
I'll break out the manual, in the back they show the accessories.

On mine, the guard has a tapped hole on the left end, presumably for a vertically adjustable guard (this is typical of wet surface grinders, it is adhusted to just above the work height, the 12 X 36 Thompson grinder that I had at my shop had this and it catches a lot of crud that would be ordinarily be sprayed all over to the Left) that catches a lot of swarf and grit, when using coolant; my guard was used with a system that applied coolant at the right side of the wheel, and had also a suction blower on the coolant tank; it sucked most of the coolant up along with the swarf and reincorporated it with the liquid coolant, while the swarf was allowed to settle out in the coolant. In mine, there is no blower, just a coolant tank where the coolant runs into one of three compartments with partitions in the main tank, the coolant once running through the tank, is picked up near the top of the last of the three partitions by the centrifugal coolant pump, for re use on the grinding wheel; the setup I have is original equipment; I will make a sketch of the tank and bring it to the meeting.

 

[benmychree]

B&S supplied several different coolant systems on the Micromaster. Here is the guard and coolant tank on mine.

 

[Holescreek]

Thread from 2013:https://www.hobby-machinist.com/thr...on-my-mini-surface-grinder.18946/#post-158251

 

[projectnut]

Here's a picture of a dust collector I made for my Sanford MG surface grinder. I started with a 2" lb style conduit elbow.

2 in. Powder Coated Die Cast Aluminum LB Style Conduit Body | Garvin Industries

2 in LB style conduit bodies are attached to 2 in threaded rigid or IMC conduits when a change of direction is required. Their removable cover makes general maintenance and wire pulling and feed through easy and convenient. Commonly used for electrical se

www.garvinindustries.com

I made a plug for the horizontal connector and milled an oval in the cover. It can slide up and down on the slotted mount attached to the head It's attached to a dedicated shop vacuum when using the grinder via the black tube.

 

[projectnut]

 

[Choiliefan]

My old B&S was fitted with a Vac-U-Guard attached to a Torit dust collector.

Here's an internet pic of a Harig with Vac-U-Guard: