horizontal disc grinder

[John Frankl]

I recently acquired a Leeson 1/2 HP motor and a Speedmaster controller. The setup is essentially new and running great (UNLIKE the other one that all of you have been helping me with!)

My question concerns the best way to mount the motor in a vertical position so that I can use it for a horizontal disc grinder?

Thanks,

John

[Geno]

What kind of mount does the motor have?
What do you want to mount it to?
How far does the disc need to stick out?
Plug in these variables and we can help more, OK?

[John Frankl]

The motor mount is standard. I would like as much access to the disc as possible. I will mainly use it for flattening handle and guard material.

John

[DC KNIVES]

John, a question? While there are some uses for a horizontal disc sander, why not just make a verticle disc sander? I made a dual unit for doing the same thing your wanting to do, plus the fact that the dust is not coming directly back at you.Dave

Here's a pic of what I built.

[John Frankl]

Dave,

I have a nice vertical unit. VS and reversible. I will still use this primarily. But it is sometimes difficult to flatten small pieces, especially non-ferrous/non/magnetic ones with both gravity and rotation working against you. With a horizontal I figure gravity will take care of keeping things in good contact.

John

[Sweany]

Uh, just build one like Dave's and turn it on the side

[Terry Primos]

John,
Mine came from Uncle Al (Al Lawrence) at Riverside Machine. It's a Leeson, and also has the variable speed / reversible poop you mentioned.

Here's a shot of the mounting bracket. This is off Al's Website. If there's not enough in the picture to give you the idea, I'll take a shot of mine mounted to the workbench.

[John Frankl]

I would love a couple of detailed photos.

Also, how important do you find the reversibility to be? And when do you primarily use it?

Finally, isn't Uncle Al's a 1.25 horse motor? Do you feel you need/use all that power?

Thanks,

John

[Terry Primos]

John, you made me go look at Al's site. It's listed as a 1 1/4 HP variable speed (no reverse).

That's not what I got. It looks like he must have taken the one that is usually a vertical job and converted it to the horizonatal rig for me. What I picked up was a horizontal Leeson with a 1/2 HP DC motor, variable speed, and reversible.

I checked the invoice and he charged me the lesser price. The 1/2 HP has been plenty for me. I use it to flatten scales, faces of guards, ricasso's, etc.

It's been raining for days around here (still raining right now), and I have to wade ankle deep in water and mud to get to the shop. I'll try to get some shots later.

For now, here's a quick drawing of how I (think) the thing is setup. I haven't paid that much attention to it. It's something like this:



The grinder attaches to one end of the bracket, and the bracket attaches to the edge of the workbench. This may not be exactly how it's setup, but it's close.

The VS controller on this one is not directly attached to the grinder or the bracket. It is wired to the grinder and can be mounted either on the wall or the workbench.

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[ He comes back and say's ... ]

Oh yeah, you asked me about the reverse. I haven't really used that feature. I guess it might come in handy. The main thing is being able to slow the grinder down,

[John Frankl]

Sorry about the foul weather. Up here we have no rain--it all freezes!

I was hoping you'd say that (about the 1/2 HP and not using reverse). I have the vertical one from TruGrit, but I want a horizontal as well. (I found a brand new controller and motor (both Leeson) on Ebay for REALLY cheap.) I'm sure you can imagine all the fun I have trying to flatten thin pieces of non-ferrous guard stock, etc. on a vertical one.

Thanks again,

John

[Geno]

Put a hinge on your vertical one and lock it down in place.
The best of both worlds.

[rickyjo]

In response to an earlier question about the advantage/disadvantage of having a reversible disc sander :

I have a partitime business where I sharpen scissors, and the most money is in sharpening beauty shears. The best shears have convex edges, rather than the bevelled edges usually found on most scissors. I sharpen these convex edges on a 6" diam. horizontal reversible electric disc sander, also called a flat hone machine. I hold the scissors with the edge away from the direction of rotation of the abrasive disc(s), and roll the blade to get a convex edge. By having a reversible machine, I can sharpen both right and left-handed shears.

More to the point, though, I also sharpen knives on this machine. Because the direction of rotation of the abrasive disc is reversible, I can sharpen both edges of a knife. I just do one edge, sharpening away from the edge, as in buffing, then I reverse the direction of rotation to sharpen the edge on the other side of the blade. If I couldn't reverse direction, I couldn't safely sharpen knives on my machine.

It takes some skill to do this well, especially on scissors that cost from 200.00 to 600.00 or 700.00. But having a reversible horizontal disc sander is definitely a good thing.

By the way, Lee Valley has a similar, larger horizontal disc sharpener, which I use all the time for woodworking tools, although it isn't reversible. It's still a great tool, though.

I thought this might be of some interest.