Angle Grinder Advice

Make sure you get good eye protection and also a breathing mask. It would also be a good idea to wear clothing that can keep the dust off the rest of the property - I'd suggest one of those cheap one-piece affairs you can buy in any shed.

Angle grinders chuck stuff into the atmosphere which you don't want to be getting in your eye or into your lungs.

Andrew

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At £10 it's worth buying the Screwfix one to see how you get on with it. If it burns out within a year, you get a replacement under warranty (IME Screwfix are good about replacing things). If it burns out after a year or it just isn't up to the jobs you want to use it for, you can treat it as disposable and use the experience to specify a better/more expensive one with the confidence that you now know what you need.

As it happens I have the £10 Screwfix jobbie and the diamond blade, but only for two weeks so I have no way to know how it'll stand up to hard use. Even if it lasts longer than I do, that tells you nothing - the failure rate could be 90 per cent in the first year and I could have one of the other 10 per cent. At the rate Screfix shifts stuff, even the quality is brilll, there's still going to be somebody out there whose grinder went nova on the first outing. That can happen with any brand, just some are more likely to do it than others.

FWIW, mine feels solid enough and the quality quite adequate, but that's only a superficial judgement and I haven't used any other brands so I don't know how it compares.

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I was forewarned so I taped up both kitchen doors and climbed out through the window. I don't think anyone can be told what it's like, you just have to experience it yourself or you won't believe it. Not being able to see your hand a few inches in front of your face in a lit room is a strange feeling.

John Rumm wrote in news:Jb%Oa.48032$ snipped-for-privacy@stones.force.net:

Nice not to be follically differently abled

Mike R

I did this and thought i would only have the one room to clean , but after cleaning up and then removing the tape it was all over the house , it took ages to clean . definatly would have been quicker to do it with a bolster and a mash hammer!!! Ive just bought a few months ago the 9" grinder from Makro cant remember the name but a cheapo yellow one and with a diamond sisc from Ebay ive cut hundreds of cuts in paving slabs seems to be standing up well.

Rob

Can't imagine how anyone manages without.

Don't remove the guard. It's there to protect you if the grinder kicks upwards.

Grinder quality is somewhat unpredictable, and not especially brand-dependent. Switches are the favourite failure point, and windings a close second. It's not work that kills them, it's dust - particularly conductive dust. Some switches jam on if filled with dust. This is hazardous, and even "good" brands like AEG do it. Cheap grinders work as well as good ones, but they don't do it for so long.

Get a grinder with a pushbutton spindle lock, not two spanners. It's worth getting a quick-release nut that doesn't need spanners - some grinders include them.

Get lots of disks, and lots of different sorts. I find little use for metal grinding disks these days and do nearly everything with flap disks instead. Good quality flap disks are better than cheap ones - I pay the extra for blue Hermes and their special coatings. Screwfix's new flexi disks are handy for not putting flats onto curved pieces, but they cut very slowly.

Paint cleaning disks (loose-weave scouring pad) work well on some paint finishes, poorly on others, and they'll disintegrate rapidly if touched to a metal edge.

Wire brushes are useful and powerful, but use good-quality twisted ones, not loosely crimped ones, or else wear a thick shirt !

Hi,

I'm midway through laying my patio, and due to my cack handedness with using a hammer and chisel to cut the slabs, I need an angle grinder to cut around half a dozen slabs that will fit round the dwarf wall of my conservatory. Can the regulars suggest the cheapest way of doing this? I don't currently have an angle grinder, and would like to go for a cheap as chips model (with diamond wheel) so I won't care too much if it dies straight after the job.

Only problem is the slabs are real stone, and the thickness varies between 20mm and 35mm.

Any suggestions for something that will do the job that I can pick up from one of the sheds?

Thanks

In message , mike. buckley writes

Just pick up whatever cheapy angle grinder is available in your local sheds - these things are changing all the time Or from Screwfix, Toolstation etc.. A 4 1/2 inch grinder will be cheapest and will do. But probably won't cut right through all the slabs (not really necessary though). Having used one for cutting paving though I'd probably go for a 9 inch one.

Watch the price of disks in the sheds. For half a dozen flags then just plain cutting disks would probably be fine.,

Hi Mike

I bought a 9" jobby from Wickes for under £40 and found a pack of two diamond discs in B&Q on clearance for a tenner.

Cut all my slabs and I've still got it for the next job - at less cost than hiring one for the weekend.

I'd zoom around all the local sheds/mail order guys to see who has what on offer. Makro has some cheapies if you have a card.

Dave

cheapest 4.x" dangle grinder and a diamond disc will do that. screwfix ferm grinder =A315 toolstation diamond blades 3 for =A311 you might get them cheaper if you hunt, have heard of grinders as low as =A37 and diamond discs =A31.

NT

I got my grinder from toolstation (or was it screwfix?) for 6 quid, plus 8 quid for a disc (not their cheapest diamond, either). Goes right through

Christian.

In message , Christian McArdle writes

It ain't sandstone! It's bloody hard, although it's not granite or marble either. I guess it's imported and it's marketed as "Old Black", guess it's similar to Yorkstone.

Thanks all for the replies, I was wondering whether a 4.x grinder would do it, and as I only have a few slabs, that's probably what I'll get.

I'm hardly one to jump on the safety aspect, but you do have suitable gloves and eye protection?

Lee

Personally, angle grinders terrify me.

I've used an el cheapo Plasplugs electric tile cutter on york stone. Just take it slowly and don't run it continuously. No more than about a 50% duty cycle.

Yes. I tend to use the full face shield, ear defenders and even a proper respirator, depending on what I'm cutting, or if it is a relatively confined space.

Christian.

I don't see why, they are not particularly nasty to my mind.

Any fixed saw in a saw bench type of thing gives me much more of the heeby jeebies than portable tools like angle grinders.

Having said that the only serious damage I've done to myself with a power tool was with an angle grinder. Sheer carelessness and nearly any other sort of tool would have done *far* more damage, as it was the basic bluntness of an angle grinder wheel meant that I just lost a bit of thumb. The local casualty department made an excellent job of getting the missing bit to grow back again and it's as good as new now.

Goggles will be bought. I have glasses and been lucky in the past when grinding metal - but am older and wiser now...

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I think they're great!

Some of the slabs are 900mmx600mm, my plasplugs tile cutter would probably collapse under the weight (like me!)

Hi Chris

Mate of mine told me once why 9" angle grinders have two handles. Not so much so you can hold on, more so you know where both hands are all the time. I've used this advice (don't let go with either hand till blade stops) ever since a minor mishap - let the grinder drop to my side where the blade became tangled in my jogging bottoms, pulled it into my leg whilst still moving a bit.

Fortunately the joggers slowed it down enough and it only left a scratch on my leg. Full whack and it would probably have taken it off.

Dave