What's Paul up to?

[Dabbler]

You can rig a Blanchard grinder using a good angle grinder, cup wheel and cold rolled steel. You should be able to take light cuts and manage +/- a couple of thou...

 

[PaulL]

Blanchard grinder

That's a word I don't know. A quick search looks promising - I was thinking about what it would take to jig up a single point cutter, but this seems much more reasonable.

 

[Janger]

So I just bought this:
View attachment 36955
About 2200lbs of Acorn (aside - Acorn cast my big 30" 1898 bandsaw as well).
It's cut down to 41"x41", which suits me fine - putting a 5'x5' table in my shop would be challenging.
It is, however, rough - too much time outside, lots of weld splatter, etc. I had thought to find a shop to surface it, and apparently only one shop in town has anything that will handle the mass and bed size. United Engineering quoted me $1400 to do it. I assume that's their "f*** off" price. At that price I'll buy a big angle grinder and flap disk and do something "ok" myself.
Any better suggestions? I don't need machinist precision - it's going in my smithy for a bit of welding support and a bunch of jigging.
Paul

I like the table. Is that an iron worker in the background? And a Fronius welder? Tell us more about those!

 

[6.5 Fan]

You have kids, perfect keep'em busy project. Some 60 grit paper on hand sand blocks. Toughen them up for fall and back to school.

 

[PaulL]

I like the table. Is that an iron worker in the background? And a Fronius welder? Tell us more about those!

I wish! No, the photo is by the seller who has the most beautiful hobby shop I've ever seen. The table is sitting in a friend's works yard until I get some barge space to bring it over.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Nice score on the acorn. Always wanted one, but have nowhere to put it except outside behind the shop.

For flattening you could look into live edge slab flattening jig with a router to spur some creativity. Perhaps an angle grinder mounted that way with a flap disc. Won't be near as flat as with a blanchard, but you could make it very useable.

You could also borrow the technique from scraping, where you blue up the surface and take a print from a straightedge and spot grind the high spots. No reason that wont work, it would just take longer. At it's core it's simply measuring, marking, and removing material, just applied a different way than scraping. "Bluing" could be a light dusting of spray paint, and marking could be sliding a section of acceptably straight small ibeam/flat bar across the plate to take off the high spots of paint. Then just spot grind the shiney spots with a flap wheel, until you have a surface that is acceptable for you.

 

[jcdammeyer]

I'm with what @Dan Dubeau suggested. Use the same approach that you'd use with a router and a couple of rails clamped to the sides along with a carriage. But instead of a router some sort of grinder. It will be slow and tedious until the really high points are gone but then as you go over the table and the grinder is touching more of the table you will see more results.

A power feed on both axis would also make this much easier. There's no real load so a stepper motor to planetary reduction to chain drive. Z axis is the one that moves the carriage. X axis is the one that moves the grinder across. Manually set the height for each pass. I'd use my ELS for that.
Or just connect a PC with a parallel port and MACH3 along with a G-Code program to mill a large flat surface.

Grab a coke and sit and watch it.

 

[CWret]

You can rig a Blanchard grinder using a good angle grinder, cup wheel and cold rolled steel. You should be able to take light cuts and manage +/- a couple of thou...

Do you have more info - or a picture- of this angle grinder modification?
Tks

 

[Susquatch]

Do you have more info - or a picture- of this angle grinder modification?
Tks

As I understand it, it's sort of grinding in the side of the wheel instead of its circumference or edge.

This is NOT a Blanchard Grinder but I think it's the basic idea that you are looking for when you ask about adapting an angle grinder.

 

[CWret]

Thanks Susq - that looks like an easy mod and would be handy.
I have a couple of spare grinders so there is another project - take a number, join the line on the right

 

[CWret]

Grinder: Think I’ll add skates to the shroud that are height adjustable. It’ll be a good accessory to go with the 6x12” magnetic chuck i recently add to the bottom bench storage shelf

 

[CWret]

Took a closer look at your pic Susq - i see the shroud is height adjustable. I intend to add skates that are 6 or 8” long (made from 1x1” angle) and 3 sided.

 

[Susquatch]

I see the shroud is height adjustable.

Yes, I'd guess that this is a requirement. It's that or go shroudless. I don't think many of us have significant interest in that.

I'd bet that the real deal is lower rpm too so I'd be wanting variable speed too.

If you are gunna try to make one keep us all informed!

 

[CWret]

I have a variable speed Metabo - but it’s my most often used grinder. It’s great. Any new grinder i buy will absolutely be variable speed. I’ll look into getting a new shroud for it that i can modify.

 

[PaulL]

In the smithy this morning while thinking about Blanchard grinding setups.
Pretty chuffed at hitting my dimension on this corner. The overall length is 12 1/2", leaving 1/2" for the tenon on the other end for an overall 12" frame length. I haven't done one of these in probably 15 years, and even then just a couple bad ones.
Time for lunch.

 

[PaulL]

It's here. It has a certain gravitas.

 

[DavidR8]

Did Terry deliver that?

 

[PaulL]

Did Terry deliver that?

No, I had Adam at South Island Lift pick it up and drop it. Sadly he's moving up-island, so it will be harder to move it to its next spot.
In any case, I think the surfacing is going to happen *right there*. I can catch the slurry in some tarp to keep from being too messy, I think.

 

[DavidR8]

No, I had Adam at South Island Lift pick it up and drop it. Sadly he's moving up-island, so it will be harder to move it to its next spot.
In any case, I think the surfacing is going to happen *right there*. I can catch the slurry in some tarp to keep from being too messy, I think.

Right, I recognize Adam's truck. Too bad he's moving

 

[jcdammeyer]

It's here. It has a certain gravitas.

Exciting!