Trip to harbor freight (grinding)

Around here, that's what they go for. I would prefer a used baldor to a new HF grinder, though they are reportedly pretty good.

i

It's why WE celebrate the 4th of July.

jk

I roughed out the radius on one of the scrapers I am making last night during break on a silicon carbide wheel at work. I wasn't impressed at all. I'll buy the diamond wheel.

Thanks,

Wes

By wet, is a steady drip okay vs a flood? The baldor and hf copies use a cup that drips on the stone or wheel.

What is the difference between a resin bonded diamond and an electroplated diamond wheel?

Thanks,

Wes

I take it that Chinese imports have not found your country? With the change over to cnc didn't that free up a lot of manual equipment?

Oh, I wasn't complaining about the price of fuel. My little road muffin gets 36mpg. If our EPA regs were not biased against diesels I'd like have a small one similar to what is sold in your country. I drive 70 miles daily for a work commute and have long ago given up driving a truck carrying little for economy.

You are probably right. Likely not a person in the store that would / could actually use some of this stuff. I think I'll apply ingenuity to building something out of the junk box.

It was a bit depressing to see how much crap is sold to Americans w/o a clue from that chain of stores. The flip side is that if China is still sending stuff out like this then we still have a chance to save manufacturing here in the states.

73

Wes KC8SPR

It did. The small local engineering shop is, by and large, gone. Even the BIG engineering shops are gone too. The former sites are now "Shopping Malls" with "Boutique Apartments" - Vickers-Ruwolt had a huge site , half a suburb, machinery that could make propshafts and gears for ships.....its local to me, most of the site is taken up with an IKEA store. Whoopee - putting together an IKEA chair is not the same feeling of satisfaction as building a bridge, or a ship, or a locomotive...

Yes, most of the stuff here is Chinese - the X2 and X3 mills, the 9 by

20 lathe - it will be a long time before I can exceed the capabilities of these machines. The HF toolgrinder you describe - no, not enough demand, so no one imports them. Would love to have one, even with the faults you describe.

The $30 DVD player, the $100 TV set - we are awash with them.....all going to landfill when they die.....any life over 3 years is a bonus, and with a 12 month warranty on them anyway there GREAT value. If you can mentally cope with the throw away attitude.

The paradox here is that the Chinese are making world class gear - lets face it, they have just launched a moon shot, (you cannot make one of them with a mini-mill.), have put a man in space. Supersonic jet fighters, ICBM's, nuclear power plants, advanced semiconductors - they do it all.

BUT - they are perfectly happy to make a dollar building crap for the likes of (insert store name here) who get good margins on it. And maybe the HF grinder you describe is in that category - the price screwed down so much, they couldnt/wouldnt be bothered setting it up properley...who knows? Most of the problems in the lathes and mills seem to be lack of attention to detail, lack of time spent in fitting to tolerance and can be fixed with a bit (or a lot) of work.

If you have the skills to do it, great - at this stage in my learning curve, I don't. In time, perhaps. And yes, thats another thing about these wonderful cheap stores - no way in a fit are they going to find, or pay, someone with enough trade skills to be able to do it properly, defect the faulty ones before they go out the door.. Exception will be the old timers who are redundant from manufacturing and trying to eke out a living till retirement.

And stores don't like employing them either - they tend to have short tolerance of 30yo idiots with MBA's., and their conscience pricks them when told to sell obvious junk....

Not sure there - a whole generation has been conditioned to throw away junk at low prices - and the prevailing orthodoxy in the marketplace seems to embrace this concept. I am a consumer service tech, its my generation (ie, the over 50's) who still have the mindset of getting things repaired. Anyone younger, they bin it, go get a new one....

And whats happened to the skilled workers who used to run manufacturing, here and there in your country. Mowing lawns, low paid low skill jobs to eke out a living after being made redundant. And VERY pissed with whats been done to their country. .Sure, you can go out and buy new precision machinery, set up a factory again. But the generational skills of trade, of attitude, of pride in workmanship that were passed down from Master to Apprentice - I fear that they have been lost. It would be very difficult to build up that skills base again. And I fear that, long term, it will be to our cost. Thank heavens people like Harold etc are computer literate and can pass on some of those skills in this forum.

73 de VK3BFA Andrew.

I remember when 'jap crap' was the common slur for things made by the Japanese. They got there chit together and now if I see Japan on the box, I figure it is likely good stuff just based on reputation. I also don't feel bad about buying it since their people have decent standard of living so I'm not bottom feeding.

The best Chinese stuff is either military or produced by firms are controlled by American, Japanese or European corporations.

I suspect the Chinese goverment will crack down on crappy producers to protect their economy. Of course the Red Chinese way of enforcing edicts are a bit extream. Anyone remember their FDA chief? I bet they charged the family for the bullet.

Wes

Find one that is real noisy and get it for nothing.... put about 30 bucks worth of bearings in it and you have essentally a new grinder, or it will at least run like new one.

I got a real nice pedistal grinder for nothing which was very noisy and the thru bolts were stripped holding the motor halves together. Some threaded rod and new bearings did wonders for it. The biggest problem after that was to remember to turn the thing off since it was so quiet.

John

The Japanese stuff went through the same cycle in the fifties. People all talked about the stuff like the Chinese stuff is talked about today. The thing is though that a lot of the stuff is good, some of the stuff is very good, and did I say inexpensive. You just have to check the stuff out very carefuly before you buy it.

John

I'm about 130 miles from any chance of a decent auction. One of the few downsides of living out in the sticks. I do agree on noisy bearings. Replacing bearings in electric motor is generally trivial.

Sadly most grinders I've used were not that quiet but I know what you mean, I've used a few properly maintained ones.

Wes

I have a Baldor grinder (regular bench kind), and it is that quiet. It keeps running for minutes after I turn it off. Very amazing.

i

Flood is recommended. It not only cools, it also keeps the surface clear of contamination. If the drip isn't fast enough to keep the edge cool, thermal shock is a consideration. They're always wheels, never stones. Stones are used by hand, or in hones. That is, unless you have an old whet stone.

Resinoid bonded wheels have a layer that is either 1/16" or 1/8" thick that is filled with diamond bits of the prescribed grit size. Plated wheels are just that------a thin layer of diamond that is held in place by plating----if I'm not mistaken, nickel. They work fine, but have a short life as compared to the thicker resinoid wheels. Most importantly, the resinoid bonded wheels are much kinder to the carbide. It's virtually impossible to chip carbide with such a wheel, unlike a metallic bonded wheel, not to be confused with a plated wheel. There are such wheels made for what is considered off-hand grinding of carbide. They're made the same way resinoid wheels are in that they have diamond through the matrix, again, 1/16" or 1/8" thick. My limited exposure to such a wheel left a great deal to be desired. Said another way, there's no way in hell I'd buy one. I'd choose a resinoid bonded wheel, hands down, even if I was offered a metallic bonded wheel for free, but had to pay for the resinoid bonded wheels. The difference in performance is stunning.

By the way, I've been using diamond wheels for more than 50 years now. A wheel that used to cost about $600, when a dollar was still worth no less than 50 cents, is now priced @ roughly $125, thanks to modern technology. Wheels have come down well in price, in spite of the loss of buying power of the dollar. Diamond wheels are a real bargain today.

Harold

Good choice. Mark knows of what he speaks!

I've always been underwhelmed by the performance of silicon carbide for grinding tungsten carbide. If you look at the edge created, it's always chipped, never smooth. How in hell is that supposed to work properly?

Harold

SC is only supposed to be..in most applications..the rougher, with diamond being the finisher.

Gunner

"[L]iberals are afraid to state what they truly believe in, for to do so would result in even less votes than they currently receive. Their methodology is to lie about their real agenda in the hopes of regaining power, at which point they will do whatever they damn well please. The problem is they have concealed and obfuscated for so long that, as a group, they themselves are no longer sure of their goals. They are a collection of wild-eyed splinter groups, all holding a grab-bag of dreams and wishes. Some want a Socialist, secular-humanist state, others the repeal of the Second Amendment. Some want same sex/different species marriage, others want voting rights for trees, fish, coal and bugs. Some want cradle to grave care and complete subservience to the government nanny state, others want a culture that walks in lockstep and speaks only with intonations of political correctness. I view the American liberals in much the same way I view the competing factions of Islamic fundamentalists. The latter hate each other to the core, and only join forces to attack the US or Israel. The former hate themselves to the core, and only join forces to attack George Bush and conservatives." --Ron Marr

I am amazed to say that the same is true of the 8" JET grinder which I got from a local builder's hardware store. It had been in the window so long (with the box) that the box was badly faded. I decided to give it a try, since they were anxious to get rid of it, and when I got it home I was amazed by how quiet it is -- and how quickly it spins up to full speed.

Enjoy, DoN.

Don't buy into that bullshit. You can move more carbide per unit time with a fine diamond wheel than you can with a coarse silicon carbide wheel-----so where's the advantage? Taking the discussion further, it's entirely likely that a $125 diamond wheel will last longer than a dozen $20 silicon carbide wheels, so you can't even argue economics. The only possible advantage I can see is that you can club off some carbide by a poor method without spending as much money up front, but you pay the price, it's just a matter of when. In most cases it's by reduced performance and tool life.

As I said, I've been using diamond wheels for over 50 years now, and that includes a short stint (5 months) in a shop that used silicon carbide wheels exclusively. I have more than my share of experience grinding carbide by both methods. I don't recommend green silicon carbide wheels for anything, or anyone, unless the person in question has absolutely no prospects of buying a diamond wheel. The degraded condition of tools ground with those green wheels is such that it's hard to get them to perform to satisfaction.

I guess you can consider the opportunity to breath silicon one of the advantages. I think I'd rather not.

Harold

I'm not surprised. Depending on how old Jet products are, they can be of excellent quality. I purchased three small (1/4" capacity chucks) Jet drill presses back in the late 60's for a production job I was running for a customer. The quality of the machines equaled that of many industrially rated machines, and were very satisfactory. I sold two after completing the job, and still have one. At that time, Japan was building the equipment. No further comment should be needed.

Harold

hummmmm.....I cant remove as much carbide with a fine diamond wheel as I can with a green wheel. I guess I must be doing something very wrong.

Ive two actual Baldor cutter grinders, the KO Lee tool and cutter grinder, the 618 B&S clone surface grinder, the 6x8 Covell surface grinder.

Oh..and the two diamond lappers.

I tend to belt sand or green wheel to shape, and finish with the (3) diamond wheels that I own, or lap with the lappers.

What am I doing wrong?

Gunner

"[L]iberals are afraid to state what they truly believe in, for to do so would result in even less votes than they currently receive. Their methodology is to lie about their real agenda in the hopes of regaining power, at which point they will do whatever they damn well please. The problem is they have concealed and obfuscated for so long that, as a group, they themselves are no longer sure of their goals. They are a collection of wild-eyed splinter groups, all holding a grab-bag of dreams and wishes. Some want a Socialist, secular-humanist state, others the repeal of the Second Amendment. Some want same sex/different species marriage, others want voting rights for trees, fish, coal and bugs. Some want cradle to grave care and complete subservience to the government nanny state, others want a culture that walks in lockstep and speaks only with intonations of political correctness. I view the American liberals in much the same way I view the competing factions of Islamic fundamentalists. The latter hate each other to the core, and only join forces to attack the US or Israel. The former hate themselves to the core, and only join forces to attack George Bush and conservatives." --Ron Marr

Wrong?

Is there such a thing? If what you're doing works for you, you're not destroying your wheels, and you're satisfied with the results, go for it.

When I use a diamond wheel, it's with flood coolant, and I'm not afraid to bear down on it. There's a point where the wheel cuts quite well, and that keeps the wheel in proper trim along with moving the carbide. It's smart to start off lightly, so you establish a flat surface on the carbide. That's so it doesn't abrade the diamond wheel, which is a concern with resinoid bonded wheels. Mind you, I'm talking about removing a chipped edge, where you push back the carbide until you're down to good material. When I sharpen a tool, I use a different procedure, which includes lighter pressure.

One thing that you should do religiously is remove any steel that is below or behind the carbide to be ground. If you allow the least bit to remain, it dulls the diamond and makes grinding dreadfully slow. You should also know about dressing the surface of a diamond wheel. When you've babied it too long, it gets loaded with crud and actually comes close to not functioning. A very fine dressing stick should be applied to the wheel, which will clean it up nicely.

By the way, I use a 220 grit diamond wheel. It does a good job of moving carbide, and leaves a very nice surface.

Harold