One tool that Kevin uses most often is a bench grinder. Some days he uses it as much as 3 hours a day off and on. If Kevin is creating a spike sculpture, he might use it 2 – 3 hours a day just cleaning railroad spikes.
The first machine he shows is a fairly new Dewalt 8″ bench grinder. The cool thing is that it has all the guards on it. He shows the guards and the tool rests. He shows the stone, the wire wheel, and its nice, big, heavy motor, which is great if you are want to grind something really hard.
Next Kevin points out the small receptacle beneath the grinder. What is it for? You fill it up with water and use it to cool off whatever you’re grinding. Kevin doesn’t use it because he never grinds anything that small, but it’s a nice feature if you’re sharpening a drill bit or something similar.
This grinder still needs a good place in Kevin’s studio, but he has an old grinder he uses pretty much everyday. It’s an old Bluepoint, which means it came off a Snap-on truck. You can see where there used to be guards so you’re not getting sparks thrown all over the place.
There’s a stone on one side and a wire wheel on the other. You can also see the change Kevin made on the side with the wire wheel. There was enough of the shaft sticking out for him to add an adapter for a 3-1/2″ flap disk from a handheld grinder. Now he can grind things with a much softer grit. The flap disk is about an 80 grit, whereas the stone is probably, oh, a 2 grit!
What does Kevin use a bench grinder for? The stone is for really moving metal if he wants to grind something off and get clean metal to weld, rather than burning up a flap disk. The wire wheel is for cleaning threads on a bolt or maybe getting a little paint off – pretty much for removing everything but the metal. The flap disk gives you a finer look and without the big grrr marks that you have to take out again later.
Next Kevin shows a different kind of a bench grinder. It’s an 8″ slow speed bench grinder. His brother was using it for sharpening his woodworking tools. There’s a diamond stone on one side that Kevin uses to sharpen his tungsten for his TIG welders and a regular grinding wheel on the other side for finish grinding carbide woodworking tools that Kevin doesn’t use.
Kevin thanks his viewers for watching, and asks them to click on any ad they find interesting to help pay for these free how to videos.
Well, you might want to stick around for another moment to see him fumble his figgerin’ ….