Grindhouse: the Home Version
February 2nd, 2009Little Killer on Your Workbench
A while back I complained that my 6″ bench grinder was not big enough, and I wrote about getting a different machine. I considered buying another bench grinder, but I am now dead-set against it, and here’s why: those things are extremely dangerous.
I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. The wheels come apart, and guess where the pieces can end up? Inside your skull. Or where your teeth used to be.
Here’s more wonderful information: angle grinders are dangerous too. If you Google, you’ll find a story about one that came apart. The wheel fragments entered a man’s TORSO. You can wear a face shield to protect your head. How do you protect the rest of you? Think of all the things you’re exposing to the grinder when you work. That list contains a lot of stuff you really don’t want to have mutilated by flying debris.
You really have to be careful to keep the guard between you and the wheel. If not, you’re inviting truly hideous injuries.
The more I think about it, the more I think belt grinders are better. They’re faster. They’re a hundred times as versatile. They don’t get hot. They use cheaper, faster motors. And they are a lot less likely to maim you.
In fact, I’m even thinking I may get a little pneumatic belt grinder to replace my angle grinder. Why risk being perforated if you don’t have to? And a little grinder like that would probably do much better work.
Bench grinders are weird, because they seem so much safer than they are. It’s very obvious that a table saw can mess you up. Nobody with any brains would take chances with a lit torch or a nail gun. But grinders look perfectly harmless. Most people wear no safety equipment at all when they use them.
Glad I learned this before splurging on a big Death Grinder.
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 PM
I like my Death Grinder (8″ Baldor, 3/4 HP). I can’t think of any at the moment, but I’m sure there are situations where the belt grinder just won’t supplant a Death Grinder. Best to have both.
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 PM
I don’t think you have much to worry about as long as you stick with a high quality wheel (Norton) that hasn’t been abused (dropped, or used as a hockey puck). I shy away from the ones with the happy reptile on the package. The key to safety with this, as with so many other related things, lies between your ears.
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Professional welding operators that do it all day for a living in a shop often wear leather “smocks” and chaps similar to the ones you wear riding a motorcycle or a horse. For one thing the radiation from the arc will penetrate regular clothes just like the sun will on a fishing boat, so even if you wear a long sleeve shirt you’ll get a sunburn from the light off the arc.
Of course you haven’t lived till you wear tennis shoes and thin socks (or no socks) and you get weld spatter or grinder bb’s down in your shoes with your feet. I used to have an assortment of socks with holes in the TOP from such events when I was a neophite engineer and couldn’t stay away from the shop floor.
Any way, the leathers are there to also keep the grinder flack and glowing acetylene slag off the guys that are forced to work on things overhead or while laying on their back in the floor underneath the workpiece.
I know leather will be about as comfortable as armor in Miami most of the year but it is a consideration if you’ve ever been around the shrapnel that can come off an exploding grinder disk.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:08 PM
Well, one could wear an apron (as Virgil says).
Or just follow the advice I was given by my old shop mentor – don’t stand in front of the wheel.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:53 PM
I have a baldor ten and a 12″ angle grinder. You have to be careful, just like anything else. An angle grinder’s wheel, if it breaks, will fly, but the liklihood of breakage diminishes in inverse proportion to it’s time at speed- in other words, once it comes to speed and stays there a few seconds, it’s pretty safe.
I use a face shield while grinding AND safety glasses, but if I’m using an angle grinder I usually wear a full length horsehide blacksmith’s apron or at least a farrier’s apron (which looks like knee-length chaps). I’ve had wheels blow on me, and it hurts like hell, but if you’re wearing the right protective clothing it’s not often fatal. A belt sander IS a far safer option, and it’s good that you’ve decided to build rather than buy. Get your belts FIRST, so you know what length is easy to get, and build the grinder around that.
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 PM
Heck, you could imagine losing a carbide tip off a table saw blade given that scenario. Or have a carbide piece fling off a router bit (that possibility would scare me much worse given the 20,000rpm of some routers). Meh. Buy good wheels.
.
I also “discovered” a benefit about the really low power 1/6HP 6 inch grinders (of which I own a cheapie HF, and that I mostly use for setting the initial angle on chisels and hand-plane knives) that’s kind of counter-intuitive about the “more power is better” school of tool philosophy in general.
.
Those 1/6HP’ers are really weak (duh). You press a bit hard, and you’ll bog the tiny little motor’s down. Turns out this is a *good* thing though. You’d have to work at it to heat the developing blade edge. Essentially, ou have “variable speed” (as it were) and low rpm on demand. Lots of nice things (well, when it comes to sharpening small hand tools).
.
I use the little underpowered thing much more often than the 8 inch.
.
Just sayin’.
.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:49 PM
“This fully armed and operational Death Grinder is now the most powerful tool in the galaxy…”
February 4th, 2009 at 10:47 PM
A belt sander belt can’t fly apart, but it can not only grind your knuckles/fingertips, if you brush against the edge of the belt it WILL cut you.
And depending on belt & speed, sometimes you can get a combination of grind and burn; hurts like hell and takes a while to heal.