Finally setup my new toy...

  Well, last Christmas season I had gotten a new Grizzly belt grinder/buffer.  For those not familiar with them, they are essentially a large vertical belt grinder/sander with a buffing wheel off to the side.  It is used by a lot of people for making knives but it reality it is just a good, all around grinder.  Well, because of some bad stuff and being busy, I never set it up.



  To give an idea of size, the belt is a 72" loop.

  Today I finally got around to putting it together.  Other than some poorly written directions combined with bad illustrations, I soon had it up and running.  The first thing I tried it out on was my gear from last week.

  For the gear, I need to smooth the outside down before I can gut the gear's teeth.  I will also need to true the gear up to be a perfect circle (at least on the outside) when rotating around the arbor.  Up until now, I was planning on doing it with a lot of filing and some work on the old bench grinder.

  I cannot say enough how surprised I was by the efficiency of the Grizzly.  It really smoothed the outside down fast.  It is not trued up to a circle yet, I was just removing some of the bumps.  But this will really be a labor saver.

  For those few that have been following my blog for more than a few months, you know that it is very important to me that I make this clock using mostly traditional techniques.  In the middle ages, the work of the Grizzly would have been done my a traditional grinding wheel.  Although I have one being held by a friend for me, I will still need to make an assembly to hold the wheel and allow me to power it using a foot pedal.  That is a way's off.

  I hope that before the clock is complete, I get a chance to finish one of the gears using the traditional grinding wheel.  But until then, the Grizzly sure is fun...  :)