Grizzly Slow Speed Grinder

[Rick Malakoff]

Does anyone know anything about this?

http://www.grizzly.com/search?q=(slow+AND+speed+AND+grinder)+OR+(slow+OR+ speed+OR+grinder)

Thanks in advance.
Rick

[John Sanford]

Bad link. The link doesn't have the closing parentheses. With the closing parentheses, it's only takes one to a 198 item search result set.

[Rick Malakoff]

Try this, John.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/T10097A

[Greg Woloshyn]

I used to own one and sold it because I didn't use it much back then but I remember having to very frequently refill the water reservoir, it's not big enough and you loose a lot of water while sharpening.

[Mel Fulks]

I've noticed ,over decades,that there are several bearing different brands,that seem to be identical. I had one for a while .
Extremely slow turning . Only possible use I can think of for them would be shaping dental stuff without fear ,or possibility,
of burning. The Grizzly one shown by Rick is of different design ,and I have not seen it before.

[Rick Malakoff]

Hi Mel,
I think a lot of machinery out of China are the same just with different names and paint colors and the prices are all over the place.
I'm looking for a slow speed with a finer wheel for re-grinding bevels on old and abused plane irons and chisels but I think the 80$ WEN will do the trick.
Rick

[Dan Bundy]

I recently got one. Haven't had a chance to use it much. Not much to the manual but if search on line you can find a Tormek manual. Very helpful. Need a lot of different jigs to do sharpen different items and those are expensive, but they are on the Tormek as well and you haven't spent nearly as much on the basic sharpener with the Grizzly.

[Sebastien La Madeleine]

I have had the exact same machine from a different brand for about 5 years now. I use it extensively to sharpen knives, chisels and irons. The attachments that come with it are rather cheap and I ended up replacing most of them for the Tormek brand ones (which fit no problem). Once you learn to work around the machine's idiosyncrasies, it does a good job for little money.

The top bar is rather hard to have it perfectly parallel with the wheel so setup time is quite involved when I have to do plane iron or longer knives.

The thumbwheel on the knife holder broke off, so I used vise grips until I switched to the Tormek knife holder... (And I'm very careful with my tools)

The wheel I got with the machine is not quite even in hardness so it wears differently on different sides. That means before each sharpening I need to dress it again or it gets out of round. Could just be my sample though.

Get the dressing stone, it's necessary to redress often.

The leather came undone from the wheel, some contact cement took care of that.

You need to fill the water a few times per session but that is not a big deal.

The angle finder that came with the machine is useless, I ended up getting the Tormek...

So in the end I have so many Tormek accessories that I often wondered is getting the Tormek machine with the initial accessories would not have been cheaper...

[Bradley Gray]

I have the Grizzly grinder. I also bought the accessory set with holders for knives, scissors, etc.

It works well for chisels and plane irons- less so for longer edges like drawknives.

I really like the leather wheel - you can see the wire edge come off. I follow with water stones - 3 grits on the backs and fine only on the bevels.

[glenn bradley]

It was in a review along with the Jet back when that was offered. It fared pretty well but, had the short comings you might expect when comparing against machines costing many times as much. My dad has the Jet and we have outfitted it and a couple low speed grinders with Tormek accessories. As long as the wheel turns true and the bar mounts are decent I would think you could rig up something that would work pretty well.

Slow speed wet grinders are not "power sharpening" devices in the way many of us think of them. They are not fast, they are not aggressive and I would never shape a cutter on one. They are essentially honing devices and do a nice job of it. Dad uses it for turning tools. He runs a Worksharp 3K for straight cutters. Both get some stone or strop work after wards.

[Rick Malakoff]

Thank's everyone!

Somewhere I missed the 120RPM spec and it's definitely not going to do the job I wanted it for.
Rick