Surface Grinder Attachment

Randy Lucius

Randy Lucius

Well-Known Member
I have a surface grinder but I'm not happy with the finish I'm getting. Really don't want to hassle with converting it to 2X72 belts either. Thinking of selling it and getting an attachment from Origin Blade Maker. Anyone using one of his?
 
I wouldn’t ever buy from Origin again. Crappy products and horrible customer service they shouldn’t even be in name in the knife making industry in my opinion. A lot of the belt conversions I’ve seen aren’t terribly difficult. I have not done much on the surface grinder but it seems like it may be able to be remedied the way it is as well. What kind of issues are you having?
 
Daniel Macina said:
I wouldn’t ever buy from Origin again. Crappy products and horrible customer service they shouldn’t even be in name in the knife making industry in my opinion. A lot of the belt conversions I’ve seen aren’t terribly difficult. I have not done much on the surface grinder but it seems like it may be able to be remedied the way it is as well. What kind of issues are you having?
Click to expand...
The finish is not as smooth as I would like. In fact it’s horrible. I dress the wheel with a diamond dresser before doing any work then spend another 30 minutes hand sanding on each blade to get a decent finish. I only sand the flats to 220 before heat treat so it’s not like I’m trying to do a mirror finish. I understand about poor quality vendors. There’s one that has a great reputation among knife makers that I will never purchase from again. Worst customer service of any company I have ever dealt with.
 
I've got one and it seems to work ok for what I do with it. But I mainly use it to prep pieces for forge welding, rough grinding post forging to give me decent flats for freehand grinding or to get billets within a few thou of what folks ask for. So not sure my input will be helpful.
 
Randy Lucius said:
The finish is not as smooth as I would like. In fact it’s horrible. I dress the wheel with a diamond dresser before doing any work then spend another 30 minutes hand sanding on each blade to get a decent finish. I only sand the flats to 220 before heat treat so it’s not like I’m trying to do a mirror finish. I understand about poor quality vendors. There’s one that has a great reputation among knife makers that I will never purchase from again. Worst customer service of any company I have ever dealt with.
Click to expand...
Mind sharing some pics of your machine and the finish you're getting? I was having similar issues on my old stone sg, my harig 618 is much better but it's just slow. Just ordered the reeder sga, quite excited.

Anyway, maybe we can help you get a better finish with what you have...
 
Thanks for the offer of help but I’m pretty much done with this machine. I’ve dressed the stone before each run, changed feed speeds, changed depth of cut, tried a different stone. Everything I could think of. Still not happy with it so I’m moving on. Here’s some pics. The surface on the last pic is not always that bad but it’s typical.
EF96903A-3903-49BC-97F9-A9A7B3290B4F.jpeg0
5285205B-61ED-4E0D-A1EC-E7A21D2859B3.jpeg
4FCD70AD-C32F-4A92-B544-56AFED1A018E.jpeg
 
Last edited:
I'm REALLY impressed with the Reeder SGA. While I've not used one watching the videos shows many really good details. Stacy (on a different forum) has one and did a detailed review on it. I used a stone surface grinder 50 yrs ago where I worked and from my memories it's not the best for most knife work. From my memory the stone SG is best for really precision work in the tenth of a thou range. But it's slow, I don't remember ever taking .005" at a pass. A buddy had a surface grinder he changed to belts and it worked really good. Several folks have changed to belts with good results.

By nature of a belt I think 1/2 a thou (.0005") is a good result. I don't normally get that good with my SGA, normally my results are in the .001" to .002" (.003"?) range. A lot depends now how the SGA is used. Here's a thread where good discussion on SGA accuracy and I show my best results in post #9 https://knifedogs.com/threads/surface-grinder-attachment.51250/#post-406329 (not sure why the link opens at bottom of thread)

I use my SGA for Damascus billets a good bit. From the forge they pretty rough and have some scale on them. Put on a 36 grit ceramic belt, crank up to 4,000 SFPM and it does good work on the billet getting it smooth 'n clean.
 
Randy Lucius said:
Thanks for the offer of help but I’m pretty much done with this machine. I’ve dressed the stone before each run, changed feed speeds, changed depth of cut, tried a different stone. Everything I could think of. Still not happy with it so I’m moving on. Here’s some pics. The surface on the last pic is not always that bad but it’s typical.
View attachment 783950
View attachment 78396
View attachment 78397
Click to expand...
That looks to be a very clean Boyer-Shultz 6-12? Here's something to consider....Most guys do not know much about surface grinding (unless they've worked in a tool making, gage making, die-making, or mold making shop). There is a lot of knowledge AND technique involved and it is definitely trickier than learning a belt grinder...

The precision that surface grinding brings to the table is usually overkill for knife making (with the exception of some folders). the knowledge needed to dial in wheel selection is steep and the cost of wheels in general makes "discovery" too painful....

That all being said...a simple belt conversion on that machine would be worth the trouble. Most wheel guards on SGs are cast and over built...attaching an out-rigger should be doable.

To do good surface grinding you have to dress the wheel OFTEN...and it's a hassle. Also after dressing you end up with loose grit in the pores that affects finish...usually grinding a bit of Popsicle stick for a second or two will dislodge the grit.

the technology of belts has spoiled us all! they're cheap to experiment with and the choices are amazing.

I would hate to see you give up on a good machine. With a belt conversion that thing will be amazing. Having a machine for surfacing that is dedicated (no dialing in an attachment)...with that small a foot-print...is a big plus in a shop.
 
Ok Boys Here's the deal. I had an older gentleman come by today to look at the surface grinder. I had second thoughts on selling it and had taken the ad down earlier in the day. When he arrived I told him I had taken the ad down but if he wanted it after seeing it I would honor the sale and let him have it. He was a retired machinist and had been buying and selling equipment for years. We went over the machine and I showed him the finish I was getting and he agreed it should be a lot better than I was getting. He made several suggestions that might help. He was a knife collector too so we talked an hour about knives and the surface grinder. In the end he passed on the machine but told me if I ever decided to sell it to double my price. I was way too low. So basically he passed up a chance to double his money by buying my surface grinder. Pretty solid guy. After he left I took the chuck and table off. Lightly sanded some rough spots underneath the table. Cleaned and lubed everything. (These were some of his suggestions). The finish is so much better. Not perfect but at least the grooves are gone and its something I can live with. I surfaced a knife and it holds .001 over the length of an 8 inch knife. Good enough for me. I'm still going to buy a surface grinder attachment for my KMG but I'm keeping this one too.

Here's some pics after working on it. Kinda hard to see but trust me. It's a lot better

sg1_e.jpg
sg2_e.jpg
 
Randy Lucius said:
Not really sure. It was on it when I bought the machine. Label is faded and hard to read. Have any suggestions on a good wheel?
Click to expand...
You might try getting a new wheel. It could be that the wheel you currently have isn’t really the proper wheel or there’s some sort of other issue with it. Finish does look way better though
 
Randy Lucius said:
Ok Boys Here's the deal. I had an older gentleman come by today to look at the surface grinder. I had second thoughts on selling it and had taken the ad down earlier in the day. When he arrived I told him I had taken the ad down but if he wanted it after seeing it I would honor the sale and let him have it. He was a retired machinist and had been buying and selling equipment for years. We went over the machine and I showed him the finish I was getting and he agreed it should be a lot better than I was getting. He made several suggestions that might help. He was a knife collector too so we talked an hour about knives and the surface grinder. In the end he passed on the machine but told me if I ever decided to sell it to double my price. I was way too low. So basically he passed up a chance to double his money by buying my surface grinder. Pretty solid guy. After he left I took the chuck and table off. Lightly sanded some rough spots underneath the table. Cleaned and lubed everything. (These were some of his suggestions). The finish is so much better. Not perfect but at least the grooves are gone and its something I can live with. I surfaced a knife and it holds .001 over the length of an 8 inch knife. Good enough for me. I'm still going to buy a surface grinder attachment for my KMG but I'm keeping this one too.

Here's some pics after working on it. Kinda hard to see but trust me. It's a lot better

View attachment 78405
View attachment 78406
Click to expand...
Excellent! So glad it worked out well!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top