Folks,
I thank all that contributed to the thread I started a few couple of weeks ago, "Need some help for our club". With the additional help of Don Geiger and John K. Jordan, I now have a very good working prototype. It's based quite a bit on King Heiple's design. Exceptions have to do with sizing. I've got this sized at 9-1/2"x19". This is so a club can go to a big box home supply and have them simple cut strips of 9-1/2" plywood and yield about 12-1/2 bases with little waste. Then using 1-1/2 lumber the rest can mostly built. My goal was to keep it simple so a club could make kits for new turners that don't or can't afford a Wolverine style system. Basically it turns into just using a chop saw to cut the pieces down then screwing it together. Although this one was built for free from shop scraps, it can be done by a club at a cost of $10 to $15 each. This includes a platform jig to do scrapers and bits at 60 degree's fixed, a jig for skews and one that can do roughing, spindle and bowl gouges. I still lack that handles to go on the bolts that lock down the arms and gouge jig, but their coming.
I'm thinking in a workshop setting, it should take about 2 hours to assemble. Then I intend to have new members tune up their grinders doing the Don Geiger method to true the wheels. If anyone is interested, I intend to write an instruction PDF for other clubs with pictures.


Grinder Finished.jpg