Cheap bench grinders?

How cheap do want it?

Some of those £25 ones look as good! Weaker motors though. Is Rexon a good make? Never used them before ...

Dunno? I bought an Aldi brand just before Xmas at £12, hell I might only use it a few times it was bought just for exactly what you want it for, sharpening chisles and blades.

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

Axminster do a yellow Perform one for 20 quid. For 30 quid they even do one with a geared-down 10" wet wheel, which is far more useful for woodworking tools.

I bought a Lidl one for £9.99 just for sharpening things. At that price it is almost disposable ;o)

Lidl and Aldi have them on sale quite a lot. In fact I think my local in Glasgow still have loads left.

Hmmm! I was under the impression Lidl was slighty more expensive than Aldi?

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

Shh! So did I. Goes well when I don't want to use the yellow jobbie.

Hmmm ... interesting. So hard with cheap tools not to be blinded with "features". They all scream out for marketing stamps they can use to go one up on the next cheapo maker (18V battery ... WOW! ... pity it lasts 37 seconds on idle eh?!, etc. etc.). Now the wetstone does look in theory like it could be quite useful. I've really buggered a few chisels and a plane blade by hitting hidden nails and could do with grinding a new face completely, followed by honing in a nice sharp edge. The latter I would have normally done manually on a wetstone (and not very well angle wise - I don't use a rest tool!), but it would be nice to set an angle accurately and quickly/evenly get a good edge.

Do you think such a tool would live up to my expectations in that manner? The description on the website's a bit vague on tool resting and sounds a bit DIY rather than accurate to 0.1 degrees!

Screw it (so to speak ...!) ... I've gone for it and a few little woodworking bits & bobs I've half-needed for a while to bring it up to the £45 level for free P&P (just can't ignore an offer eh?).

Thanks for all the advice - hopefully it won't blow up on me, especially now there's water involved!! ;o)

Empty it out at night in this weather. I was using Dad's over Christmas and the stone froze into the pond! Had to take it indoors and poor the kettle in there to get it going again.

The blade guide is rubbish - that plastic bucket is just too flexible. It's a coarse stone though, so it will do its work quickly. Not a bad bit of kit for HSS woodturning gouges held freehand (which isn't as hard as people make out) but it's much coarser than I'd ever use for a good woodworking bench tool. OTOH, my last sharpening stone (of the several dozen I use) cost me over a hundred just for the stone. I'm a bit picky on sharpening....

My chisels are rubbish anyway - a cheap kit. They work well when sharp for a while but blunt quickly. Fine for small amounts of work and I've always managed a good edge with a fine dry stone. Just get a bit reckless with them sometimes and hit stuff I shouldn't ;o)

|What does anyone think of items such as: | |

Mine is even cheaper from Lidl. Works fine for the uses you suggest, = but I must always keep the motor speed high and can not lean hard on the chisel.=20

--=20 Dave Fawthrop