4 آ½ in grinder

[Scishopguy]

4 آ½ in grinder

I have an old Skil that I bought about 25 years ago and have used the heck out of. It is on it's second cord and I don't know how many discs but it still runs great and has a lot of power. I bought a cheap Cummins to use as a mini cut off grinder. It is a cheap piece of junk but has worked in limited use. The first thing I did was open up the gear case and wash that "water buffalo poo" that they use for grease out of there. I put in a glob of salt water proof wheel bearing grease, from the motorcycle shop, and it has been doing fine since. I recently bought an orange body HF grinder so I would have a backup. It has been a good machine and has the same feel and balance as the skil. There are many different grades among these tools. I try to stay some where in the middle, between cheapo and rolls royce.

[JPR]

Just about any of the name brand grinders will work, big thing is to check and make sure you like the style switch on that model, ie paddle vs slide.

Having several grinders will speed up things if you start welding a lot. Put a grinding wheel on one, a wire cup on the second and a flap disk on the third.

[Fasttrack]

"paddle vs slide" - Absolutely! thats one other thing i dont like about mine is the switch...

"These are the better made of the orange ones. Seems there are several different colors that are of differing quality, and at least 2 different orange 4-1/2†grinders." Yup...HF sells these red ones for like 8bucks and they suck, mine was an "industrial needle bearing 4.5" angle grinder" and was orange with a cast aluminum gear housing.

Thier abrasives are so-so at best. I find that thier 1/4 wheels get loaded pretty fast. Thier dinky cut-off ones are nice though for making a nice thin cut in something.

[BadDog]

They make the full size cut-offs too, don't recall the thickness, and they work well for my needs.

On the 1/4 stone wheels, sure, I've seen better. But not to justify the price. I've used Dewalt and many other "name brands" that I picked up here or there when it was convenient. Some work a bit better, and some don't seem to work any better in my use. But I can get 10 of the HF wheels for the cost of one of the name brands (sometimes less!), and I would rate them within about 75% of the best wheels I've used. What I found really surprising is that the HF wheels actually seem to stand up to abuse better than the high dollar versions, though they certainly do cut slower and hotter. And I guess it's a "feature" of the loading up and cutting hot, but they seem to last a very long time compared to others that "shed" faster. And frankly, I rank Dewalt among the worst. They cut ok, but don't let it skip or bind a bit or it's spit out a chunk!

This is totally anecdotal, but that's been my experience.

[HTRN]

I bought a Hitachi on sale at Home Depot, works great. If it was a "daily use" tool like in a pro shop, I would have sprang for a Dewalt - That's all I ever see in Welding shops, along with Metabo's(to a much lesser extent).


HTRN

[Fasttrack]

ditto on the dewalt cutting/grinding wheels...