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Thanks to rmac for the design!



I needed a new rest for my Grinder for sharpening lawn mower blades. The problem with stock tool rest, other than the obvious pitfalls, is that it wouldn't tip "into" the wheel. In order to grind the 30° angle on the blade you have two options: 1) keep the rest level and fine tune it's height to until you get the 30° angle or 2) tipping the table into the wheel.

Using method 1 is problematic due to the guard that surrounds the grinding wheel. You could remove / modify the guard but I didn't want to go through all of that. And raising and lowing the grinder wheel isn't practical so you'd have to come up with some method of raising and lower the too rest.

Using method 2 isn't without it's own share of problems, gravity is a B!{@() and will try to pull the blade under the wheel. Caution has to be used with this method.

So on to the build…

I built mine from the scrap bucket. I actually built two. The first was to rmac's specs but it ended up being too low once I tipped it into the wheel. So I scaled it up a notch. The 4th picture is a comparison of rmac's design next to mine. I think the rest maybe a too wide. Time will tell but I think a new rest maybe in it's future.

My tool rest is about 8" from the table top. This gives me lots of room to tip the rest into the wheel and miss the guard around the wheel. I'm not going to share pictures of the rest actually in front of the grinder. My garage is a total mess! Put 200 bf of walnut in there with the truck and the ZTR and watch the chaos ensue!

I didn't have all of the correct hardware on hand. The rest is designed to be mounted with 1/4×20 button head machine screws. I didn't have any so I just used a couple of flat head stove bolts. I'll pick up a couple at the local hardware store later today.

Because my pivots aren't permanently attached to the tool rest, I added a 3/8" dowel that keeps the left and right pivots in the same orientation. See pic. 2

Thanks rmac for the design!

Gallery

Comments

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Thanks for the post, this helps as I am soon going to make some homemade tools rests for my grinder.
 

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You're welcome!

-Russ
 

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very slick.. very simple… thnx for sharing
 

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nice I have two from lee valley and I like this one better.
 

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Chunky, I need to build something very similar for a hobby size disc sander, I would love to add a gauge with markings for the angle have you seen one of these anywhere? Also could you help me with how you make the radius slot for the angle? Thanks Pat
 

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@Belg1960: I used the router table. -What I did was to take a length of 3/4" thick plywood. I would look at using a length of ply that is wider than the pivot so that you could use the router table fence to help clamp it down (I wish I had!) I drilled and counter sunk a hole for a 1/4×20 flat head machine screw (stove bolt) about 1/2" from one edge. I used a nylock nut to secure the pivot to the plywood but not so tight that I couldn't easily "spin" the pivot on it.

I then creatively clamped the length of ply to the router table. Then I raised the bit into the pivot, rotate the pivot, lowered the bit, reset the pivot to the start. Then repeated in about 3/16" increments until the bit was all the way through the pivot. BTW, the radius of the bit was 5/16" because that's the size of bit that I have.

You could use a trammel but the part is so small, this causes issues in it's self. You could always cut the radius first in a larger piece and then cut it to size after-the-fact.

To find where to drill for the treaded insert (or T-Nut), I mounted the pivot to the upright and used a 1/4" bit in a cordless drill to just "touch" the vertical upright. Then is over to the DP to drill a proper hole for the threaded insert at the location that I marked w/ the 1/4" bit.

To be clear, I'm calling the pivot the piece that has the radius cut into it that's used to lock the tool rest into position.

For an angle gauge, Hmmm…. I would look at mounting a protractor to the tool rest bottom and some sort of fixed indicator to mark the angle of the dangle. That's just real quick off the top of my head, there is probably a better way. Maybe someone else has done something similar that could chime in??

c
 

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Chunk many thanks I will experiment on some scrap first but I got what you were saying. The protractor idea had occurred to me too but not sure if I can accurately attach it. Again Thanks for taking the time to write this all out, Pat
 

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Thanks for the post Chuck. I´m in need of some homemade tools rests too
 
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