New Rikon 8" Slow Speed Grinder

[David Delo]

Been wanting to upgrade my Delta 23-197 grinder for awhile but couldn't justify a Baldor and missed out on the Steel City closeout. Had the Delta 23-199 and liked that unit but it took a dump and replaced it with the 197. Never satisfied with the 197. Took awhile to get up to speed, ran hot all the time and didn't have much of a shaft shoulder for the CBN hub to rest against. In fairness to Delta, I don't think they were ever designed for the heavier weights of the CBN wheel.

Saw the ad in the latest Woodcraft flyer for this new Rikon 8" model and ended up speaking with Rikon directly to get a few questions answered abour the shaft shoulder and shaft length to accept CBN wheels with wider hubs like I have from Ken at WTW. Long story short, every feature I was looking to address, this unit was designed to solve.

Pros:
1 HP starts 2 CBN wheels to full rpm in less that 2 seconds.
I let the motor run for a good 5 minutes and didn't notice any heat build up. The Delta would have been almost too hot to touch.
My CBN wheels uses 3 washers (1-flat on the inside) and 2-spherical washers on the outside of the hub for proper wheel alignment. Couldn't use all 3 on the Delta (not enough shaft length) but the Rikon allows all 3 with full thread engagement for the shaft nut.

Cons:
Kind of a PITA if your planning on using a wolverine jig because the shaft centerline is almost 1" higer than the Delta that was a breeze to setup. Needed to raise the the platforms up 7/8" to get where they needed to be and of course, I didn't have any pieces that were big enough and right thickness so I've got a couple pieces stacked.

The other con is you can't take off the hard rubber feet. The bottom cover is held in place with those feet. I took them off and used shorter screws but there's another screw in the center of the bottom cover that holds the start capacitor in place and that screw sticks out below the level of the 4 corners of the casting.....so the unit won't sit level.

Even with all of that screwing around, I'll give this unit a big thumbs up performance wise. Really like the almost instant full rpm's.

rikon 1.jpg

The old cover nut
rikon 2.jpg

Not much of a shaft shoulder
rikon 3.jpg

Problem solved with this one
rikon 4.jpg

Plenty of room on this shaft
rikon 6.jpg

I'll make a nicer platform arrangement later but good enough to get up and running right now with the scraps I had on hand.
rikon 5.jpg

[Mark Levitski]

Web says only 1/2 hp.

[Dick Strauss]

David,
Thanks for the quick review. I was kind of curious when I saw it advertised recently.

Mark,
The std one is 1/2 hp (Rikon 80-805) but the new one is 1 hp (Rikon 80-808). I saw a recent Woodcraft ad about it being on an introductory sale if others are interested (I have no connection to Woodcraft).

[Reed Gray]

I asked Rikon about their grinders a few years back and their ability to handle the heavy CBN wheels. At that time they only had the 1/2 hp grinder available. They were not sure about that grinder, but did say that they planned on expanding their grinder line up. My Baldor is 3/4 hp. If theirs is a 1 hp, that should be no problems at all. Now, to get a bunch of them out and worked hard to see how well they do.

robo hippy

[David Delo]

Motor plate says 7 amp so I'm not sure how that translates into 1 HP but the performance results are impressive.

https://youtu.be/G5wMwruPKuo

[Thom Sturgill]

I've been looking at those. My Delta has a hard time starting with two CBN wheels and I'm not happy with the way the shoulder fits either.

[Dan Henry]

I have the 1 HPgrinder and it srartes the heavy steel CBN wheels quite fast. I had the saame wheels onthe 1/2 HP and it did not start them well at all. It did take alitle work to get the woverine system install but well worth it.

DAN

[Doug Ladendorf]

Motor plate says 7 amp so I'm not sure how that translates into 1 HP but the performance results are impressive. https://youtu.be/G5wMwruPKuo

HP ratings are always interesting. My older Baldor 1 HP grinder is 9.4 amps (which is more than the new 1 HP model). My Delta 3/4 HP lathe motor is 9.5 amps. Ah well, as long as they perform as we need them to. Sounds like this Rikon is a winner.

Doug

[Reed Gray]

Hmm, went and checked amps on my grinders. The 3/4 hp Baldor is 4.6 amps for 120, and the 3/4 hp old blue no name that Woodcraft used to sell is 6 amps. Makes no sense to me at all since the Baldor is hugely more powerful than the no name....

robo hippy

[John K Jordan]

?... The 3/4 hp Baldor is 4.6 amps for 120, and the 3/4 hp old blue no name that Woodcraft used to sell is 6 amps. Makes no sense to me at all since the Baldor is hugely more powerful than the no name....
robo hippy

Assuming these are measured amps...


Consider efficiency. Does the no-name get warmer under load for an extended time? (may be difficult to determine.) The Baldor motor may be more efficient and waste less on heat. Note that an electrical heating element that draws 6 amps will provide even less rotational power than the no-name grinder! (small joke)


This is written from the perspective of explaining costs of operation, but perhaps you will find the information useful:
http://www.motorsanddrives.com/cowern/motorterms16.html


JKJ

[Reed Gray]

The biggest differences between the two grinders is weight, 90 for the Baldor, and maybe 45 or so for the blue one, and I can barely stall the Baldor, and it takes minimal effort to stall the blue, especially with the CBN wheels. I would think that since the the Baldor is far stronger, it would use more power. Maybe this is like car gasoline. I found out that with Arco/cheap gas, I would get a little over 20 mpg on the highway, but with Shell, I get closer to 25, yet they have the same octane level...

Any one know the shaft diameter of the new Rikon?

robo hippy

[David Delo]

.950 coming out of the motor housing cut down to .625 for the wheel. That difference provide a nice shoulder for the CBN wheel hub to rest upon.

[Reed Gray]

David,
I am a former concrete worker, so for those of us who think within 1/4 inch is good, that's 5/8 inch isn't it???

robo hippy

[David Delo]

David,I am a former concrete worker, so for those of us who think within 1/4 inch is good, that's 5/8 inch isn't it???robo hippy

Yes Robo, 5/8". I spoke with one of the guys at Rikon directly about this unit. He made it clear their goal for this unit was to compete against the newer Jet 1 HP and to address/target the CBN wheel market that has issues similar to mine. (slow start-up, arbor thread length & shaft shoulder thickness). At $169.99 intro price, I thought it was worth trying out and so far it looks like a winner.

[Reed Gray]

David, thanks for explaining that. Sounds like they are going in the right direction.... and the price is pretty good. I don't need any more new toys, but may have to try it out. Makes more sense to have a 5/8 shaft since when you go to the big box store, they don't carry anything with an arbor hole over that size, and my Baldor has 3/4 inch shafts...

robo hippy