Homemade surface grinder

[mudnducs]

That is a really slick setup! How do you keep the grinding dust out of the mill?

[tonyfoale]

Great idea. I was planning on turning a small mill (see my recent post) into a surface grinder but it would have been very small. I have a spare motor from a chop saw and I have appropriate grinding wheels so this could be a very simple conversion to put on my Bridgeport. It should also be easier to source a regular size mag. chuck than the small one that I would need for the small mill as per my original plan.
Many thanks, I am now off downstairs to my workshop to start work on it.

PS. Maybe a better bet for me might be to mount my Tool Post grinder in similar fashion to yours. The TP grinder has a more rigid spindle/bearing arrangement than a stock chop saw.

[bimmer1980]

Nicely done!!

I'm keeping this on in my potential future builds. I have thought about buying a surface grinder, but it is hard to justify the floor space. I have a Bridgeport, so this would be a nice fit and would store easier when it's not being used...

[JRock]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[willyb]

Great idea. This would really work well on a cnc Mill or a Mill with a powered X axis which would make it easier moving the table back and forth.

Good job.

[tonyfoale]

Great idea. This would really work well on a cnc Mill or a Mill with a powered X axis which would make it easier moving the table back and forth.

Inspired by the original post here I went ahead and enabled my mill to take a toolpost grinder that I had made. That is described here DIY surface grinder
My mill is CNC and as you suggest it works a treat. Last week I got a Walker electro magnetic chuck, which will help a lot.

[desbromilow]

seen something similar done with an abandoned radial arm saw - retained the rise/fall and slide of the RAS, nd simply changed out the wheel/blade, and affixed a X-Y table to the base with a magchuck on it. - bit rough and ready, but actuall quite cheap, and a good reuse of quality (but obsolecent?) tools