Rotating Bayonet Receiver Hitch Type Grinder Stand

I picked up this grinder stand with a couple of wore out grinders a few years ago. As I have a small shop with no room to mount all my grinders I've often wished I had different grinders mounted on this stand. I've also wished the top would rotate as it is often backed into a corner with the wrong one facing out.



1st I cut off the upright stem at the base of my stand then cut the 14" dia. x 5/8" top plate off. The upright stem turned out to be 1/4" walled pipe and not a solid axel as I'd thought. The boys at Smith Foundry Machine Works were kind enough to donate a 2' section of pipe with a 2" ID. I had to turn down my original 2" OD pipe stem down 1/16" so it would slide inside the new piece of pipe. The new outer pipe was ugly as hell with remnants of scabs of previously welded on bits sticking off it and a combo of rust and old paint so I sanded it down to bare steel and cut it to length. I drilled and tapped a thread about 8" down from the top then welded a nut over top of that to serve as a mount for a lock bolt that I could screw against the inner pipe to stop the top plate from turning on it's own.



I levelled the base on my uneven asphault floor with set up wedges, tacked the upright stem in place, levelled it and welded it in place.



The inner pipe fits smoothly inside the outer pipe with no slop and it turns freely. I thought of grinding a spiral grease groove into the inner pipe and tapping a grease ****** in the outer pipe but didn't want to weaken the inner pipe any more since I've turned it down the 1/16" already. I can always do something like that in the future but it will be easy enough to pull the top off and squirt some grease in there. I didn't want to install a bearing in it but needed some way to make the top plate rotate more freely as my uneven weld under the top plate would be sitting on top of the outer pipe and it wasn't going to allow a smooth rotation. I welded a 1" piece of the wider pipe to the bottom of the plate. This worked so good I was tempted to make a roulette table out of it. Picture shows the top plate upside down.



A bit of background on my choice of Telestrut for the bayonet system:

I purchased some left over aluminum and steel on CL a while back and after talking to the seller about some square tubing that would slide into the next size tightly the guy said "hang on a sec" and returned with about 12' of 2" square outer and 30' of 1 3/4" inner perforated square tubing (telestrut), all free. http://www.unistrutohio.com/telescoping-square-tube.html



A buddy donated some steel for the tool mounts. Yeah, it's ugly but free!




The tool mounts consist of 1/4" - 1/2" steel plates large enough to accommodate the tools' mount points welded to a length of telestrut (thinner inner pieces) with 8" protruding out.





The big curse I have with this material is I only have about 3' of the outer 2" size left over from my bike stand project and it's about $10 per foot locally. After working with telestrut I liked the feel of at least 8" contact area so I welded 16" to the top plate of the grinder stand so I could mount 2 tools on opposite sides. I couldn't wait to try it out once I had the 1st tool mounted, my 1/3 hp baldor grinder.



It's so tight yet easy to slide in and out of the bayonet I don't think I'll need to bolt or pin it in place. I had planned on buying or making some taper pins and tapering some of the holes in the male and female telespar so I could quickly lock the tools rigidly in place but now I'll wait and see if it's necessary. I know this system is not real heavy duty for really big grinders, vices etc but I have big vices permanently mounted to all my benches so this is going to work well with many of my smaller buffers, grinders and small vices used for light holding applications etc.

More to come.

So I got all the adapters made for everything I could find that suits this type of mount.



I was actually able to get rid of an ugly wart off one of my benches, the small pipe vice was bolted to one corner but now it has a bayonet mount freeing up that corner of the bench. I need to add the receiver mounts to a few benches and maybe my lathe stand too. I hadn't even finished this project before needing to hot swap some tools on the stand. I'm going to like this set up. I permanently mounted the 10" grinder in the middle and left slots where I can add more receiver struts at 90' in the future allowing 4 hot swap tools but since I only have enough material for 2 receivers I didn't want to commit them to the stand just yet. (and I said my buddy was cheap, I should have just sprung for the new material and did it). As my work space is so small I don't see wanting tools sticking out the sides because of the extra room it will occupy. Maybe some day I may roll it out to the driveway and want to mount more tools on the sides but I'll cross that bridge in the future. With a 6", 8" and 10" grinder mounted it is 34" long.



Here's the whole family:



Now I need a place to store the ones not in use.

I'm going to want to follow through with my plan to make taper pins to secure the tools more rigidly, add a water quench tub, mount wheels and lock pins at the base and get rid of the dolly I'm using now. The other thing I've done is grind about 25 or 30 1/4" wide flat spots around the radius of the centre pin where my lock bolt makes contact as it was slipping and scraping up the surface before. It seems to lock very well now but we'll see over time.

Dude, this is cool as hell. A couple of questions:
What was that big round base originally and does the whole thing feel stable and sturdy enough when you are using it?

Hi, the bottom base was off a tandem axle truck and is what I originally bought with a 6" and 8" grinder mounted. I have since set the base in a barrel dolly and it rolls around easily. I use the 10" grinder a lot and have to wedge the bottom, roll up a rag and jam the wheels into that to stabilize it or just push it up against something solid but then you can lean into it. I've buffed tons of stuff with the 8" with nothing holding it steady, just the weight. My main goal was to be able to wheel it outside and do the dirty work that makes all the dust and debris as well as the space saving benefit.

This post is 3 years old and I've added a lot of extras to it now. With over a dozen tools on hot swap mounts I needed a way to efficiently store tools not in use to free up the pedestal. I made this wall rack to occupy some dead space behind a door. 1" tubing spans the uprights with sliding collars to hold up to 8 mounted tools.



2 of these cross bars are holding all the tools above my little welding station in this photo. This little welding station below it has 2 receivers built into it also.



There are 5 or 6 receivers built into a 2' x 4' shelving unit, mostly for storage of the tools but I use the lower ones for various things as well. In this photo you can see the bottoms of 2 small work tables which are priceless for holding stuff near the grinders, buffer or lathe when you need more space to hold parts you're working on.



The lathe stand has 2 receivers added to the ends, my big T-slot table has a receiver where a vise is usually mounted and my 3 work benches either have them or will be getting some soon. The motorcycle lift has 4 receivers for when it has no bike on it and it becomes a work bench.



Receivers are 2", tool mounts are 1 3/4" and I've made 1 1/2" accessories such as these quenching tanks that slide inside the grinder mounts to cool stuff as you're grinding. They have stainless tanks that come out for cleaning and magnets on the mounts to hold the lids open when you're working. Lids close when you're moving the pedasal around.