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Rikon slow speed grinder

William Rogers

William Rogers

Joined
Mar 19, 2016
Messages
1,533
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Location
Haubstadt, Indiana
Woodcraft has the Rikon 1/2 hp grinder on sale for $99. I have a 8" steel 1-1/2" CBN wheel and keep a white wheel on the other side. It's the old Woodcraft no name grinder. I now seem to have deem to have some vibration with this system. Will a 1/2 hp grinder work with a 8" steel CBN wheel or do I need the $120 additional for the 1 hp?
 
You could take the white matrix stone off your grinder to see if that solves your vibration issue. I strongly suspect that the white wheel has gotten out of round and probably also has side to side wobble. You can easily tune up the wheel following the procedure on Don Geiger's website.

It's not too likely that the CBN wheel is out of balance, but you could remove both wheels to see if there is still any vibration. If your grinder motor is still running fine then there isn't anything to be gained by replacing it ... other than a shiny new paint job.
 
Bill gave some good advice. The only thing I don't like about the Woodcraft no-name and the $99.00 1/2hp units is the shaft shoulder is not much larger in diameter than the shaft itself and there isn't much thread length once you put the CBN on, so the cover nut is only about half on. My CBN's are from Ken at WTW + the 1hp Rikon when WC first offered it. That unit was designed with CBN wheels in mind with larger diameter shaft shoulder with plenty of thread length to even accommodate Ken's wobble washer. Maybe your CBN wheel hubs are from a different vendor so your results might be different.
 
I'm running a white aluminum oxide wheel on one side and a 180 grit CBN steel wheel on the other side of my Woodcraft 1/2hp grinder. It seems to run just fine. A little bit slow to come up to speed but by the time you get your tool ready to go it's there so I guess it really doesn't matter. I was concerned the slow speed up might cause some problems with the motor but I've had it on there now for 3 or 4 years and no problems.
 
I consider the 1/2 hp Rikon to be a bit under powered to run the steel CBN wheels. I do have the 1 hp Rikon and it has no problem with 2 steel wheels. About the same amount of power as my 3/4 hp Baldor. Not nearly as quiet and the 'fit and finish' isn't nearly as good, but for the price, it is a good deal. Ken Rizza's wheels are on aluminum and now a plastic hub, and they are lighter than the steel wheels. Thus far, I haven't heard of any issues with them running on the smaller grinder. I did have one of the blue no name grinders from Woodcraft, and it would run the steel wheels, but it was a strain. The 3/4 hp motor on it, compared to the 3/4 hp on my Baldor power wise was about the same as the weight difference, with the Baldor being at least twice the weight....

robo hippy
 
Shop Magic. I finally got a chance to work on this. As pointed out and my suspicions the white wheel was responsible for about 1/2 the vibration. I measured the wheel runout on the inside rim and it was 0.025". My wheel is one of the original with a steel bushing. I removed the wheel ran the grinder ( no wheels ) and no vibration. I measured the shaft on the motor and the bushing on the shaft getting about 0.002". Put the wheel back on and still vibration. I decided to clean all the surfaces the wheel mounting contacted. Didn't really see anything, but went through the motions. Put wheel back on and no vibration. Still had the 0.025 runout on the rim, but no vibration. I never thought cleaning up the surfaces would have made a difference, so I think it was shop magic. I did try putting a washer between the nut and wheel, but couldn't get enough clamp pressure to keep the wheel from spinning on the bushing. I don't use the white wheel much so I'll only put it on when needed. Now what to do with the grinder money!
 
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