Woodcraft Bench Grinder

Well, mine is 1/4 HP and 1725, a combination I find suitable for general woodworking and turning.

Speed is more important than HP, that's for sure. Tough if not impossible to bog down in normal usage, but easy to carelessly burn carbon steel on a

3450.

Wow. The bigger is better, more horsepower mentality is being used for bench grinders now. Wow. I can just see Craftsman coming out with a 4 HORSEPOWER MAXIMUM grinder soon. Of course it will still have just 4 amps but...

I've ground steel on a variety of cheap grinders. I don't recall ever stalling or slowing any of them down. But then I do not jam a 20 pound piece of steel into the wheel and try to slow them down either. I usually grind somewhat cautiously with some kind of control because its very easy to remove metal quickly with a grinder.

For turning tools I ALWAYS use a very light touch. I paid as much for some of my tools as I did for the grinder. I don't want to grind away metal faster than required. And a light touch keeps the heat down so the edge does not blue and you can hold the tool close to the tip when swinging it against the wheel.

The only things to consider for bench grinders are 1. Quality of the motor/bearings, 2. Speed, 3. How quickly it gets up to speed, 4. Grit and friability of the wheels (but you can replace the wheels easily). The platform that comes on the grinder is immaterial since most people either build their own or replace it with a purchased platform.

I personally own the Woodcraft Taiwanese made 8" slow speed grinder. I think the current version is Chinese made. I like my grinder. I like the speed. I see no reason to have the two speed grinder since I would never ever use the high speed on my turning tools. The slow speed only grinder gives you 60 and 120 grit white wheels. The 60 is L hardness and the 120 is K hardness. Dean brand. Both too hard and both load up too easily and require frequent diamond dressing. The 60 grit is used about 99% of the time. The 120 is just too fine to be useful. The two speed grinder gives you a 120 grit white wheel and a

60 grit gray wheel. The white wheel is too fine to be useful for turning tools. The 60 is too hard to be useful for turning tools. So you more or less have to replace both of the wheels on the Woodcraft two speed grinder.

I do have a 6 inch high speed grinder. Delta Thin Line. With the gray wheels. I use if for rough grinding of steel when I don't really care about the piece. Sometimes I put the wire wheels on this grinder for different types of grinding. I think having two dedicated grinders is better than the two speed model.

Stuart, When the dust settles the basic Woodcraft grinder is still the best buy for the buck. Everyone who has one says so. Suggest you follow suit.

Jim Pugh Elyria, OH

Stuart Johns>