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Jer’s surface grinder attachment……

I'm about to purchase the belt grinder plans but I'm torn between the Imperial and metric.
I prefer to work in metric but I have a feeling that all of the steel materials and fasteners are going to be easier to find in Imperial.
Whatdaya think?
 
skippyelwell said:
I'm about to purchase the belt grinder plans but I'm torn between the Imperial and metric.
I prefer to work in metric but I have a feeling that all of the steel materials and fasteners are going to be easier to find in Imperial.
Whatdaya think?
Click to expand...
go with the vandelay grinder

 
Dan Dubeau said:
You're probably better off with the imperial plans if buying stock here. As "metric" as we are, we are not very, when it comes to raw material sizing, and hardware availability.
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nah I converted the metric to adjust for plate thicknesses very easily... everything else is more easily sourced in metric
 
skippyelwell said:
I'm about to purchase the belt grinder plans but I'm torn between the Imperial and metric.
I prefer to work in metric but I have a feeling that all of the steel materials and fasteners are going to be easier to find in Imperial.
Whatdaya think?
Click to expand...
I bought the imperial plans because the stock is easier to source in imperial. I did end up buying a few pieces of metric hardware, namely the lock handles, but that was as easy as tapping different holes.

Here in alberta at least in my experience, imperial hardware is easier to come across and cheaper as well. The locking handles were the exception.

I would buy imperial unless you have a line on metric steel.

I’m almost done mine. I should post more pics in the thread I made on my build….
 
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TorontoBuilder said:
go with the vandelay grinder

Click to expand...
It’s so much more intimidating to me….. I just don’t feel like I’m “there” on making it.

The Jer grinder just feels attainable.

I’m not that good of a machinist. I feel inadequately skilled for the vandelay grinder by a long shot. But mig welding is like hot glue….

To me it’s like watching someone build a piece of beautiful hardwood furniture… like I like the furniture. It’s cool to watch. But I just don’t think I’m enough of a craftsman to successfully pull it off.

Watching Jer build his, I’m like ya, I can get that done.
 
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BaitMaster said:
To me it’s like watching someone build a piece of beautiful hardwood furniture… like I like the furniture. It’s cool to watch. But I just don’t think I’m enough of a craftsman to successfully pull it off.

Watching Jer build his, I’m like ya, I can get that done.
Click to expand...

For me, this is the essence of doing difficult things. Life is all about learning. The magic starts to happen when you know what you know, know generally what you don't know, what you can do, and what you generally cannot do.

Obviously, we cannot know everything about what we don't know, but there is this giant grey zone around this that gives us a sense of comfort, confidence, and purpose. And then the magic happens. We leave IF behind us, and only think about HOW. What we know we cannot do gets left alone or purchased. Life is so grand!
 
Jer's design, and his build methodology are pretty easy to attain for anyone with a welder, drill press and a hacksaw. There are few critical components, and the ones that are, he's able to break them down in a way that makes it almost fool proof to build. I think he takes the long way on a few things, and someone with more experience, or access to machinery would certainly do things a different way, but he's certainly come up with a great way for everyone to build one, regardless of machinery or experience that's for sure. That's why I've been a fan of his design since it came out. I'm not building mine to his "plans", but it was certainly the inspiration behind my build going on right now. IMO the tilting belt/fixed toolrest, is the best design feature from all the other grinders out there, and was the main focus of my own design.
 
Unfortunately welding is a barrier to entry on his design. IMO he really loves his pieced together from plate weldments, but with some creative design changes, one could probably do away with a large portion of the welding, and go with machined from solid or std structural shapes in more than a few places. Even the tilting feature has a weld free option if you really wanted to. One could make all those hinge plates from angle, and simply bolt them to the tubes.

Some other designs follow an all bolt up principal from the ground up though. The Vandalay one above, and a few others are all machined components and bolt up construction as far as I know.
 
It comes down to skills and experience. I got into machining about a year and a bit ago with my lathe and mill. Before that I had zero machining experience.

I’ve been welding and fabbing since high school shop class, so it’s alot more comfortable to me. Measuring with a square, cutting straight, angle grinder skills…. I’m a long way down that road of skill acquisition.

I’ve come a long way in machining already over the past year, and in another few years of practice I will be better yet I’m sure.

But I look at the vandelay design and just get an ominous feeling of biting off more then I can chew.
 
BaitMaster said:
It’s so much more intimidating to me….. I just don’t feel like I’m “there” on making it.

The Jer grinder just feels attainable.
But I just don’t think I’m enough of a craftsman to successfully pull it off.

Watching Jer build his, I’m like ya, I can get that done.
Click to expand...
Me too, beautiful design but I'm not there yet, welding is no problem, been doing that since I was kid.
I bought the Imperial version because of the way metal is sold in the GTA but I may go metric for the fasteners.
It is the surface grinding attachment that has me intrigued, if it can do what he shows in the vid then it might prove to be much more versatile than an actual surface grinder to me and a lot smaller.
The accuracy of a surface grinder is not something I have a lot of use for, the surface finish and look are.
 
BaitMaster said:
It comes down to skills and experience. I got into machining about a year and a bit ago with my lathe and mill. Before that I had zero machining experience.

I’ve been welding and fabbing since high school shop class, so it’s alot more comfortable to me. Measuring with a square, cutting straight, angle grinder skills…. I’m a long way down that road of skill acquisition.

I’ve come a long way in machining already over the past year, and in another few years of practice I will be better yet I’m sure.

But I look at the vandelay design and just get an ominous feeling of biting off more then I can chew.
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To each their own, but a lot of the reasons I choose projects is to force myself outside of my comfort zone and learn new things and develop new skills (sometimes justify new tools too). I was a machinist/toolmaker and mechanical designer at my day job. That kind of stuff comes easy for me now, because I was immersed in it for 20 years, and standard screwed/bolted and doweled construction was 2nd nature. Welding and fabrication was 98% self (internet and books) taught at home in my own shop over the last 10 or so because I really enjoyed learning and getting better at it. I still learn new things all the time, and my new job has me doing it WAY more. So I'm kind of coming at it from the opposite direction as you, but I understand where you're coming from. Little by little, you can leverage your existing skillset, to build a new one, but it can be intimidating. There was a time I didn't know jack about machining either. I came from a woodworking background, with furniture builders in the family, so I learned that way. Machining metal was completely foreign to me and very intimidating, and my first exposure to it (other than a hand drill, file and hacksaw) was in college machine shop. Welding didn't come until my mid 20's after bugging some guys I worked with to show me how to tig weld. It wasn't until my 30's that I actually had the money to buy my own equipment and really start learning.

It's funny, but I've all but abandoned woodworking, having not done any in so long, probably 20 years, but it still remains my first love. Hopefully someday when I get caught up on all the metal projects I have (lol) time to put my wood shop back together. All my machines sit out in the barn, semi covered/exposed, rusting, crying.
 
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I do agree with “challenging” yourself and pushing your own limits to improve.

But in my experience it’s about finding a “sweet spot” between challenge and attainability.

If you take on too big of a project, or too complex, you’ll never actually accomplish it and get discouraged.

If you take on a project with a few aspects of challenge, then actually finish it, you end up better off.

Some people coming at it from the other end with plenty of machining experience and skills, and don’t weld, the vandelay grinder is perfect.

That’s just not me. I have a lot to work on and learn in machining and I am by and large an absolute rookie. There are things that people might be like “ you should be able to do that” and maybe I should…. But I can’t yet.

I’m just a redneck electrician messing around in his garage until 11pm at night…..
 
For me every project usually has a distinct fork in the road moment, of "take this way, it'll be more fun, more challenging, and you're learn something new", or "just get it done and over with with what you have right now". Perfection is always the enemy of completion. It's one of the reasons I gravitate to weldments over bolt up construction for a lot of things is simply because it's more efficient 90% of the time. It's also one of the reasons why I have so many unfinished projects laying around.....In my home shop it's always a balance. I don't have to generate a profit, I don't have to justify my time, or methods to anyone. I usually just work on what I want, whenever I want/have time for it, and however I want to do it at the time. But will admit I do find it enjoyable once in a while to take the long road purely for the personal satisfaction and challenge sometimes. But on the other hand, I have no qualms about hacking something together quick and dirty simply to get a job done and move on. I pick and choose my battles as best I can....

The other day when I made my hot wire cutter I welded on nuts instead of tapping holes in places simply because I had a bunch of shit piled up on my workbench infront of the toolbox with all my taps, and I really didn't want to move it all, nor did I have a space to move it all to lol. It was the path of least resistance at that moment in time :D. If I were to go out right now, and remake that part, I'd probably drill and tap it, because I've since cleaned up that bench. Good enough to open the drawers anyway....

As for taking on too big of a project, I certainly understand that one too. There are many stalled projects around here, simply due to the fact that my enthusiastic naivety got me in over my head to start with, and once I hit a wall I couldn't get past either from lack of experience/skills/knowledge, equipment or tools I simply let it sit, until a time when I could acquire those things to finish it. Some I've got through, some still sit for another day....Some realistically will probably never get done.....
 
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