Daniel Henry

[Daniel Henry]

I'm not much on introductions or resumes`. While not new to wood or lumber, my turning experience is limited to a converted metal lathe and an old Craftsman wood lathe using mostly home made turning tools. Rather than ask many questions in a singly post, I will ask a couple of questions per posting.
1. Does one really need a 1hp slow speed grinder or will a 1/2hp do a satisfactory job?
I'm a bit on the elderly side of life. I existed and sometimes even survived the corporate world "dog n pony" shows. I believe my background makes me qualified to express an opinion regarding the virtual symposium. I must said I was very positively impress with all aspects.

 

[Brian Gustin]

I assume your question is related to sharpening of your tools.. Grinder is kind of a must, or at least some good, hard honing stones (or diamond plates, can even make do with sandpaper!) depending on what you are sharpening - tools like your skews and roughing gouges, scrapers, etc - most can be sharpened by just about anything you have that can cut the steel of your tools. However, if it comes to grinders, you might want an 8 inch with enough power to handle CBN wheels, so a half HP would be bare minimum I think... But, with heavy CBN wheels, your grinder may take a long time to come up to speed (even a 1/3 HP might do in this case, really) but the weight of the wheel should give enough momentum that the CBN wheel will easily sharpen your tools with only light pressure, so really once up to speed, the grinder only needs to be able to maintain RPM. Slow speed grinder is preferred only because the slower speed generates less heat in the steel, and removes metal a bit slower (which, given the high cost of professional turning tools, is a good thing- you only wanna remove just enough steel to get a sharp edge)

 

[Daniel Henry]

Brian, Thanks for the reply. You are correct, I am looking at a slow speed grinder with CBN grinding wheels to sharpen the tools. Most like you wrote, find that a 1/2hp grinder is a bare minimum and a 1hp is highly recommended. And I certainly accept this logic. It causes me to wonder why would Rikon offer a 1/2hp with a five (5) year warranty? In other words is it better to spend the additional $100.00 for a 1hp?

Thanks

 

[Mike Johnson]

You can get by with a cheap grinder with aluminum oxide wheels to grind & sharpen carbon steel turning tools starting out. Once you start investing money into higher end turning tools you will want to upgrade to CBN wheels to minimize the wear and tear while sharpening the high end tools. The average wood turner can use a standard set of turning tools for many years without wearing them out, unless you spend hours each day turning wood and sharpening the tools to get a superior cut on the wood pieces.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Welcome to the AAW forum, Daniel.

I think the answer to your question is that it depends somewhat on the grinder. Unfortunately, these days many of the low cost import power tools don't quite measure up to the claimed horsepower. While a real honest-to-goodness half horsepower grinder should work fine with CBN wheels I would be leery of house brands. The low cost white aluminum oxide wheels will last a long time and work just fine. My only complaint is all of the grit that they scatter all over the shop. A major step up in quality (as well as a big increase in cost) are the ceramic and seeded-gel matrix wheels. They will last many times the life of an aluminum oxide wheel and are far less messy, but still scatter some grit. Being frugal and CBN go together about as well as oil and water, but they are really nice.

 

[Brian Gustin]

It causes me to wonder why would Rikon offer a 1/2hp with a five (5) year warranty? In other words is it better to spend the additional $100.00 for a 1hp?

Thanks

Like Any warranty, it boils down to what is in the fine print. (and the person in front making the call on what is covered or not - I've found sometimes the "rep" or tech makes a judgement call based on their mood, opinion or whatever, even though the manufacturer itself would have gladly paid out on the warranty) So if you're concerned, I'd check the warranty statement to see if it expresses (or even implies) that warranty is void (or not) when using "un approved" or "non-original" wheels on the grinder. (I'd do the same on even a 2 HP grinder!)

However, given that I see a LOT of turners with a Rikon 1/2 HP and CBN wheels (even many on Youtube that turn all day every day) and I would tend to think if there was any sort of problem at all with the Rikon grinder, there'd be *something* out there about it.. Me, I have one myself, but I am too frugal to splurge on CBN wheels just yet.. I'm still using the Aluminum Oxide wheels that came with the grinder.

 

[Bill Boehme]

A warranty only covers manufacturing defects. If you modify the grinder to use CBN wheels then that will be exceeding the inertial load that the start winding was designed to handle. A service contract, on the other hand, generally goes beyond manufacturing defects.

 

[Spike Cornelius]

Greetings and welcome! I use a very cheep 3/4 horse grinder that I have been using for years sharpening plane blades and chisels and shaping home made steel tools, now lathe tools. I did upgrade to CBN for the fine wheel, but still have a white wheel for the coarse side. It is slow to get up to speed and takes a while to slow when off, bit gets the job done.
Best, Spike

 

[Cindy Navarro]

Rikon warranties all of it's tools for 5 years. They have great customer service and I have found their tools to very well made and made to last.

 

[BobCoates]

Not sure what hp my grinder is, but what I do to help it get started is give the CBN wheel a spin as I hit the power button. Seems to work and not as much load for the start windings.