Angle grinder

[Brian Gaff]

These were never about when I was young, they sort of appeared out of nowhere. Did someone invent them with a task in mind or was it just an evolutionary process from fixed grinding wheels? Brian

[Weatherlawyer]

They have been in use for finishing bodywork in coach-building ever since e lectrical appliances were invented. I should imagine they were an absolute necessity on air bases during WW2 and from there they would have spread to every garage in the country upon cessation of hostilities.

I imagine that they were steam powered versions early in the industrial rev olution and it's likely that "portability" came with tractor PTOs.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I don't think so. More likely to be air powered. Small high power motors - like in a drill or angle grinder - didn't tend to be common in the early days. And those that were around nothing like as reliable as you'd take as the norm these days. And very expensive. First electric drill I bought in the '60s cost getting on for a week's wages.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote on 29/04/2015 :

Best I could find....

The electric grinder was invented by the Hobart Manufacturing Company. It was invented in the year of 1898 in Troy, Ohio.

[Graham.]

Wonkypedia has it that: "The angle grinder was invented in 1954 by German company Ackermann + Schmitt (FLEX-Elektrowerkzeuge GmbH) in Steinheim an der Murr."

I wonder why they are called angle-grinders, which sort of implies to mw they can be set up like a mitre saw.

[Dave Liquorice]

Isn't it beacuse the drive turns through an angle? The axis of rotation of the motor is 90 deg to the axis of rotation of the disc,

[dennis]

They can be. Lidl often has the stands and the grinders to match.

[Simon Brown]

Yeah, according to this they were invented in 1954

they sort of appeared out of

I think it was more that someone worked out how to do a disk/wheel that would survive the 10K rpm and it then took off when that happened.

[Simon Brown]

Because the shaft the disc/wheel attaches to is at an angle to the motor shaft, via a gearbox.

which sort of implies to

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But is that a bench grinder or angle grinder as we know it? Bench grinders were certainly common enough when I were a lad - but I never saw an angle grinder until very much later.

[F Murtz]

I seem to remember big ones were about but the proliferation of little ones came later.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dave Plowman (News) formulated on Thursday :

It was a response to when was the angle grinder invented, but I do agree - I never saw an angle grinder until the past few decades.

[newshound]

Bought my first one about 1974, B&D, nearly £40 (two weeks' wages), and it is still going strong on its second or third set of brushes.

[tabbypurr]

NT