Vintage grinder advice

[can20]

I wad
Hoping for some opinions and input. I have been offered a great deal of 130 for a 1hp jet grinder on a basic little stand. But also for the same price could acquire this really cool vintage grinder—it had a motor mounted to the base and a belt that goes up to a drive shaft and on that shade has three different size options for a second belt that goes to power the grinder, similar to the belt changing on a drill press for different speed/torque. The motor seems strong but has no marking other than being an old craftsman. It works well but I can decide which one to get, I have many nice grinders but like having a bunch of them in line like a production line. Anyone hav opinions or know about this grinder? I don’t exactly need a new grinder but I’m wanting to get one or the other. What would you do?

 

[RTM]

. Anyone hav opinions or know about this grinder?

Holy cow, that's from the town I grew up in. Never heard of the company before. Research time!


Well, I lied. I heard about them in another forum, where we were trying to decide what this saw arbor looking thing was.

This reminded me of that conversation

Poly Products - History | VintageMachinery.org

 

[Shiftless]

I don’t exactly need a new grinder but I’m wanting to get one or the other. What would you do?

GJ is not the right place to find someone to convince you NOT to grab a great tool at a great price. Go ahead and buy both.

 

[Cruzan80]

For most places, the stand is worth quite a bit of the asking price, not counting the grinder portion.

 

[can20]

GJ is not the right place to find someone to convince you NOT to grab a great tool at a great price. Go ahead and buy both.

I understand what you’re saying. I wish I could get both. I am actually a bum without current work and have exactly $131 so I could get one or the other and then likely will lose the opportunity to get the other product. Of course, for the jet grinder I could always just pay more and buy the same product again in the future but for the vintage piece I may never see that same thing again. I am not very knowledgeable in tools yet, so I don’t really know if belt driven stuff is as good as newer machines—I could definitely change out the motor with like a 5hp Baldor eventually in the future but I don’t know if belt driven stuff has major power loss across the machanical parts. Also, I am wondering about grinders, they seem to all advertise with a HP rating but I know from my truck that HP may not be as important as torque because the big problem with grinders is them
Starting to bog down when pressure is applied. I saw a video where a jet grinder seemingly had 6x the torque compared to a different grinder of similar specifications. Is HP really that important on bench grinders and is there a way to know if a unit will have good torque? But thank you for engaging with my post, I am learning and I find that knowledge from experienced people on here has helped me more than just reading and trying to understand written information that I have no background training in.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Shiftless]

Forgive me if I’m being too personal, but it seems to me that if you already have a bunch of other grinders and are currently unemployed, that your $131 should stay in your pocket for things like food and rent. If you are only temporarily unemployed with good prospects for future income and have many months of reserve money in the bank, you should buy the vintage grinder.

 

[M635_Guy]

Unless the Jet grinder does something one of your others doesn't, I'd get the vintage one.

 

[can20]

Forgive me if I’m being too personal, but it seems to me that if you already have a bunch of other grinders and are currently unemployed, that your $131 should stay in your pocket for things like food and rent. If you are only temporarily unemployed with good prospects for future income and have many months of reserve money in the bank, you should buy the vintage grinder.

Not at all offensive, it’s a very reasonable comment to make. I am a licensed pharmacist and I have two homes that are paid off but the cash flow from that goes directly into an account that can be accessed by my Property manager for emergency repair etc or if I have a sudden vacancy. My power bill of typically negative because of my solar system that feeds energy back into the grid. Also My home orchard produces almost 100 thousand pounds of fruit each year so I have a lot of food trading arrangements with others in my area. So my current income sources is something I made a commitment to not touch. All of the tool type work is hobby and learning for me, so I am committed to only spending money that is designated for that type of spending. I don’t actually need to worry about food or rent because of some other personal situations, but I currently have limited access to cash that can be responsibly spent on my hobby stuff. I am trying to go through a process of recruitment right now to become a US Army pharmacist. But because I can’t access any cash without feeling irresponsible or potentially upsetting my wife, I am limited to the cash that I save up from odd jobs or other assorted things. I actually recently told my wife that I wish I went to welding school instead of pharmacy school but regardless I will be working as a pharmacist again fairly soon. Until then, I have very little cash that I’m allowed to spend without betraying certain agreements that I made with my wife

 

[can20]

Unless the Jet grinder does something one of your others doesn't, I'd get the vintage one.

Im not sure that the jet grinder does do anything that the other one can’t. They are both grinders. I just don’t know if a belt driven system is as good as a newer style grinder. The vintage one has a much better base and is much cooler, I would love to clean it up a bit and grease it and change the belts, a mini restoration if you will. I truly have limited knowledge on tools and craftsman type work, but I am learning quickly and enjoying it as a hobby. I have been restoring and collecting old American made vises.

 

[RTM]

Here is more info on Poly, looks like active from 1955 to 1958. Unfortunately all snippet views.

"poly" "monrovia" grinder - Google Search

 

[GeoBruin]

Here is more info on Poly, looks like active from 1955 to 1958. Unfortunately all snippet views.

"poly" "monrovia" grinder - Google Search

I see those poly belt driven machines pop up from time to time. I think they were sold as lapidary polishers. No idea how they would function as a grinder, but they sure look cool.

 

[slowtwitch73]

Jet grinders are dime a dozen.. you can always get one down the road.

That other grinder... not so much.

 

[1982fxr]

Jet grinders are dim a dozen.. you can always get one down the road.

That other grinder... not so much.

Doubtful hell ever see another Poly.

Also Doubtful most of us live where JET 1 HP grinders are a dime a dozen. Or even $130.

 

[seber]

The Poly arbor is purpose built for lapidary work. They function well as buffers but the belt drive will cause too much vibration for use with stones. I've never seen one mounted on a base before. That may make a difference.

 

[RMERR]

Tough choice if it's one or the other. For immediate use, the Jet is usable right now. For myself in your situation I might lean towards the Jet. While the Poly has a definite vintage "coolness" factor, it will need stuff, like a new motor, belt guard for starters. Like most of these arbor based setups the wheels are a bit close together for my preference, but then since I don't use grinding stones (use belt sanders) I'd be envisioning wire, deburring, buffing wheels with a bit more room around it.

All that being said, snagging both would be a first choice of mine. Maybe "negotiate" a one-time exception to your "agreement" with wifey? If things get tight down the road, these will still be worth $130 each for resale, you won't actually lose any money.

 

[can20]

Thank you everyone for the input, and I did take the advice of everyone here and I ended up just getting both. And I talked the one guy down to $100 for the jet grinder—it was at an auto mechanic shop and he told me that he bought it and never ended up mounting it or using it and now has more industrial equipment and doesn’t need it. It seems to be is great working condition.

And I got the poly grinder, it is really cool and works great, but I will eventually change the belts and will take apart and clean and grease all moving parts like the gear shafts etc, and one day even put a monster motor on there.

I also ended up finding a really cool vintage machine that was previously owned by the US government and I am unbelievably shocked at how much power it has. It is a brown brockmeyer 10 inch grinder. This machine says that it is 1hp but it is way more powerful than my newer 10inch grinder that claims to be 1.5hp. I literally can not get it to bog down at all or even slow down when I put all of my weight against a rebar on the wheel, the torque it produces is unbelievable and the unit weighs close to 200 pounds—no exaggeration.

For each unit I paid 100. I don’t know how fair the price is on that, but I am happy with what I got. The jet and the brown brockmeyer perform so wonderfully and the Poly is also strong and simple to work on and just super cool.

I also got an older Baldor 6inch 1/2hp for only $40 because the power cord had been cut off and it had surface rust—I just finished replacing the cord and cleaning off all the rust and doing some general maintenance. This Baldor unit is substantially more powerful than other grinders I own that claim to be 1/2hp. It is 5.8 amps, and I have other grinders at 5amps that claim to be 3/4hp so idk how these ratings work honestly.

Now I would like to initiate a little discussion to help me learn—I didn’t grow up with tools and was never taught about general maintenance stuff, my father (a truly great man) always just paid for someone to do that sort of stuff for us. So I am hoping to learn a bit from everyone here. I own a truck and I know that when it comes to performance and capability, torque is more important than HP in some regards and the truck manufacturers advertise both ratings. On grinders, I have had issue with putting pressure against the wire wheel and the motor starts to bog down or slow down and stop entirely before starting up again when I remove the resistance. So therefore, I speculate that in a grinder, torque is probably more important than HP but all my grinders advertise based on HP and amps, with no marketing of the torque ratings at all. Is there a reason for that? Is there a way for me to know comparatively or pseudo-quantitatively how much torque each grinder has relative to the other ones. Am I way off base here about the torque thing? I don’t really have any specific question it’s just a thought that I would love to here someone with experience discuss a little bit more.

As always, thank you for engaging in my post and giving me your opinions, thoughts, knowledge, and wisdom.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[RMERR]

From "I've only got $131 for one machine" to buying three machines. That my friend, is the "GJ way". We're all very proud of you. You did good.

 

[can20]

Hi everyone I’m back to ask for some ideas again. I’m working on that Baldor grinder that I got for $40. After cleaning it up inside and putting a power cord and strain relief bushing, I had to basically strip down all the paint while removing surface rust and dirt. So now I need to paint this grinder and I have some questions.

1. First thing I notice is that on the back of the Baldor grinders there is like a slit in the metal, in the shape of a squiggly line running across the back (first picture attached). It is on my other Baldor as well. What is this for? Is it for air cooling maybe? And if so, do I need to avoid getting any spray can paint in/on that part?

2. Then I also would like to know what might be a recommended product for paint and maybe primer? Something that will really adhere and provide good protection for a long time.

3. And for the wheel guards, I imagine it is best to paint them on the outside surface and also the inside surface but I have noticed that my other used grinders are only painted on the outside surface of the wheel guards. Is there a reason for that or is it just laziness?

I haven’t decided if I want to keep this grinder or try to sell/trade to get a good buffer polisher instead. So I just want this thing to come out looking very presentable and I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m struggling with confidence in my decisions.

 

[seber]

That line is where the sheet metal is joined after rolling it into a cylinder. I use Rustoleum for bench grinders. Proper color would be smoke gray but I prefer the look of dark gray. I also paint both sides of the wheel guards but I have no idea how they are done from the factory. Whatever you do, do not use water based paint. IE Krylon.

 

[can20]

That line is where the sheet metal is joined after rolling it into a cylinder. I use Rustoleum for bench grinders. Proper color would be smoke gray but I prefer the look of dark gray. I also paint both sides of the wheel guards but I have no idea how they are done from the factory. Whatever you do, do not use water based paint. IE Krylon.

Thanks for the response. So I guess that means I don’t need to worry about masking that line on the back of the grinder, I’ll just paint the whole thing.

 

[B_Bimmer]

That baldor for $40 is you **** worthy.

 

[isb cornbinder]

Hi everyone I’m back to ask for some ideas again. I’m working on that Baldor grinder that I got for $40. After cleaning it up inside and putting a power cord and strain relief bushing, I had to basically strip down all the paint while removing surface rust and dirt. So now I need to paint this grinder and I have some questions.

1. First thing I notice is that on the back of the Baldor grinders there is like a slit in the metal, in the shape of a squiggly line running across the back (first picture attached). It is on my other Baldor as well. What is this for? Is it for air cooling maybe? And if so, do I need to avoid getting any spray can paint in/on that part?

2. Then I also would like to know what might be a recommended product for paint and maybe primer? Something that will really adhere and provide good protection for a long time.

3. And for the wheel guards, I imagine it is best to paint them on the outside surface and also the inside surface but I have noticed that my other used grinders are only painted on the outside surface of the wheel guards. Is there a reason for that or is it just laziness?

I haven’t decided if I want to keep this grinder or try to sell/trade to get a good buffer polisher instead. So I just want this thing to come out looking very presentable and I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m struggling with confidence in my decisions.

That BALDOR grinder/polisher is over $900 cdn here. I bought one of these, used, and I had to pay $520cdn.I built the stand.

 

[tombell572]

The grinders were most likely spray painted after assembly and no attempt was made to paint the inside of the guards. That area wasn't really visible after wheels were installed and although Baldor is top quality, an automotive grade finish probably wasn't considered important.

Tom B.