Grinder Questions

[Jeffrey J Smith]

I agree with Dave...go to the grinder, flip the switch and the grinder is up to speed before the gouge is in the varigrind, stick out adjusted and the fixture is in the wolverine pocket. I timed my old (at least 10 years) Woodcraft no-name today - 4 seconds to full speed with two steel D-Way cbn wheels. While I’m certainly not a production turner, who needs more than that...

[David M Peters]

I used the 1/2HP Rikon with two of Ken's 4-in-1 CBN wheels and can confirm that it took about 7 seconds to spin up.. not really a big deal.

BUT, I then moved to 2 of the Mega Square wheels on the 1HP Rikon and am happier, not only with the square wheel (same argument as Mr. Jordan) but with how fast it spins up and how smoothly it runs. I got one of Ken's grinder + wheel packages with the wheels preinstalled, never even bothered to check the runout because of how nicely it runs.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Depends on your tools and job I suppose. I have a cheap chain saw sharpener. I have more than one chain. In fact I have four or five and I sharpen them all and go until all but one are dull. I see something similar in some videos about production turners. In the one about the Russian nesting dolls, in the back round next to the work station there is a bucket with about a dozen of those strange skew chisels ready to go. I have three old Craftsman skew chisels. When they are all dull, I sharpen them, use one until it is not as sharp as I would like and then use the next. Whether it takes 4 seconds or 30 seconds for the grinder to get up to speed, it makes little difference. If I were using just one gouge and had no spare in waiting, I suppose it would matter a great deal. I realize having a few backup $80 gouges isn't practical, but for something like a skew, or parting tool, no big deal.