I was thinking of buying or making a new tool rest for my grinder - the one on it is decent enough to be workable, but having a grinder, more and more starts to look like something I could use a grinder for, and I use it more, and the rest that was okay when I fussed for 15 minutes and then didn't touch it again for months is frustrating when I want to do different things with it.
Looking at the LV grinder, I find it's made of anodized aluminum - one of the annoying things with the rests on my grinder is that they're aluminum, and loose grit from the wheels gets embedded in there on occasion, and it's a pain to keep them clean. Not a huge deal with normal tool grinding (although a lot of my chisels have these weird rub mark patterns on the bevel side now, and anything that had text printed on it no longer does) but it's a pain at other times. I have heard steel, rather than aluminum grinding rests recommended for just this reason (I believe by Larry Williams in his sharpening video)
Does the anodizing on the aluminum lend a hard surface to help resist this picking-up-grit issue when using the LV tool rests? Not something that couldn't be worked around, just curious what others experience might be.