Equipping a Hand Crank Grinding Station

[Chris Jackson]

So...just purchased ($30) a fantastic looking "CoolKutter" hand crank grinder made in good 'ole Milwaukee Wisconsin...See the E-Bay photos below, it should be here in a few days. Now, it's time to outfit a nice hand crank grinding station for my plane blades and chisels and I'd love to see some photos and/or get some ideas from folks who have done this in the past.

My gut reaction is to purchase a new Norton wheel, a wheel dresser, and maybe one of the nice Veritas Tool Rests and mount the whole thing to a large chunck of 3/4 Birch Ply that I can stow away when not in use and fasten to the bench when I need it...but I'd love to see what other foks have done before I go spending a bundle at LV again.

Thanks,
Chris

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[Jim Koepke]

One thing that can be real handy with one of these is a small boy of about 6-8 years of age.

:p

jtk

[Harlan Barnhart]

I just use the grey wheel that came with mine. I suspect the white wheels might be a little slow for hand grinding but I have never used one. You will need an adjustable tool rest of some sort but I wouldn't get to carried away. Mine is is a little "L" of heavy gauge sheet metal about "1" wide with slot on one leg to fit that thumb screw you have on the side. I've learned to make it work quite well. I grip the blade and the tool rest between the thumb and first finger of my off hand. By squeezing them together I can assure the blade stays in firmly planted and maintains the correct angle. It took a little practice to advance the tool evenly from side to side but once you get the hand of it, it's no problem. I hold the tool at a slight angle (sideways) to the wheel so only one corner cuts at a time. Grind from the sides to the middle. If you grind out, its really easy to blue the tip.

[Norman Hitt]

MANY years ago, I saw a grinder setup where the owner had removed the handcrank and added a pulley and modified an old bicycle frame so he could set on the seat and pedal it which powered the grinding wheel that was mounted in front of him. It was pretty neat and he could use both hands to hold and control whatever he was grinding. It was in a Farm/Ranch shop building that had no electricity.

[Chris Jackson]

Anyone got photos of how their grinder is equipped? Found this great thread some others may like...

http://jszcbf.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/grinding-by-hand-the-old-fashioned-way/

[Dave Beauchesne]

Chris:


'' My gut reaction is to purchase a new Norton wheel, a wheel dresser, and maybe one of the nice Veritas Tool Rests and mount the whole thing to a large chunck of 3/4 Birch Ply that I can stow away when not in use and fasten to the bench when I need it...but I'd love to see what other foks have done before I go spending a bundle at LV again.''

This is basically what I did - bought a ' Craftsman ' hand grinder on the ' bay ', made a brass insert to fit the arbor of the hand grinder, and an eighty grit white Norton stone. I had a Veritas tool rest that I swapped over from my power grinder. I was short on technique 'til I took a building a Krenov style plane, and they use this style grinder to hollow grind hand tools. The white stone cuts just fine on O1 and A2; I have a D2 plane blade that thumbs it's nose at the setup though. Dress a bit of a crown on the stone, black marker the entire bevel so you are sure where you are hitting, and away you go.

I plan to build a dedicated sharpening cabinet, but must finish my Ruobo topped bench first!! If only my sore back would co-operate - - - -

Best of luck;

Dave Beauchesne

[Jeff Zens]

Chris;

Thank you for your kind words concerning my blog. Some readers might recall that James Krenov used a similar setup and a hand grinder for many years. It is every bit as effective as the electric variety, but a lot quieter. I would be happy to send a Sketchup model of my setup to anyone interested. Photos of the components are on the blog, as is my email address.

Good luck!

[Chris Jackson]

Got about zero photos of other folks setup on this thread however, it seems it did create some interest. That said, I ordered a new white oxide wheel, and tool rest for this grinder so, I'll be starting a fresh thread next week when I begin the restoration of the grinder and construction of my grinding station...stay tuned.

Cheers!
Chris

[george wilson]

Electric grinders are noisy????? Not mine.

[Ted Martens]

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Here's mine - nothing new, it's pretty much a copy of Krenov's.

The tool rest works very well once the angle is set. Setting it is another story, the whole wedge deal is not real user-friendly. But hey, it was free from the scrap bin, and it's a major improvement over the pathetic L-bracket that it came with. It is capable of pretty fine adjustments - I found that a couple pencil lines on the wedge for common settings helped a lot.

I first used it clamped between the bench dogs, but I kept cracking my knuckles on the edge of the bench. Being a slow learner, it took me a couple times to figure out to clamp on the front of the shoulder vise. Better now - no more band-aids.

[Mark Baldwin III]

I just ordered a 60 grit wheel and some thrust bushings for my grinder. I too am entering the realm of hand grinding. I don't know anything about any other hand grinders, but mine has helical gears, and I decided to add the thrust bushings to help reduce the amount of lateral friction. They should be here tomorrow and I can get everything put back together.

[Zach Dillinger]

I happily surface hundreds of board feet by hand every year. I rip all my stock by hand. I don't own a router, a planer, a joiner or a table saw. But I'll be damned if I'm giving up my electric grinder.

[george wilson]

Me neither,Zach. When I was a kid on lighthouses,they usually had wooden planes and a hand bench grinder. I hated them then,and still do. Using one of them is not the same as using hand tools like planes,saws and chisels.

Don't mean this to sound hateful. I just don't care for trying to grind a chisel with 1 hand and cranking with the other.

[David Weaver]

Both of mine are quiet. That includes a $39 ryobi and a baldor grinder. Noise level is similar, and less than the loudness of crisp shaving sound from a wooden jointer.

I wouldn't want to use a hand cranked grinder, either, especially not on a fat iron or HSS - there's a lot of precision in your hands and your eyes if you let yourself use all of it at one time.

Now, if you're using it as a novelty just to do absolutely everything without ever plugging anything in, that's entirely different, carry on.

If not, grinders are like bandsaws.

[Caspar Hauser]

When I was young, every so often a knife grinder would arrive at the bottom of my street, he'd put up his bicycle on a stand, turn the seat around, mysteriously manipulate chains or belts to the rear axle, and pedal his stone into life. He could then use both hands to quickly and skillfully sharpen the kitchen knives, domestic axes (choppers) and all and sundry other edged implements brought to him by the magically assembled and fearsomely armed queue of women chatting bawdily away waiting for their turn.

As has already been mentioned by Norman, pedals and two hands seem key to me.

If you find electric grinders noisy or just take pleasure in the idea and 'connectivity' of a manually powered wheel then foot power would be my choice. It ought not be too difficult to adapt an old bicyle or singer sewing machine treadle to suit, making a treadle for that matter sounds like a fun thing to do.

Whatever you decide upon I hope you keep us informed about your use of the manual wheel, the good the bad and the ugly.

Thanks

CH

[Thomas Howard]

I too just got a hand grinder for Patrick Leach at WIA, a No. 9 Senior Pike. To my chagrin, I found that, once I removed the old stone, the shaft is loose in the grinder and it doesn't look like there is a nut adjuster at the other end of the shaft. Has anyone fixed this problem or will I have to replace a bushing or mill a new shaft? Thanks.

[Thomas Howard]

Looking forward to your "fresh thread" on restoring your grinder. I'm doing the same thing with a No. 9 Pike.

[Paul Crowe]

http://www.woodworkforums.com/f127/hand-cranked-grinder-setups-toolrests-131637/

And yes you earn a dollar every time someone wheels out the "you need a small child to help operate it joke" as you can see its a world wide phenomenon.