Wayne Posted March 23, 2012 Posted March 23, 2012 Sitting on a shelf gathering dust I have two or three hand cranked grind stones that clamp to the edge of a bench. They are geared and have a cast iron body and are probably for sharpening knives or small tools but you need someone to turn the crank while you work. I often see them come up on E-bay and at car boots. Looking at these the other day I came to wondering that if I were to drop off the stone and the guard, replace the small handle with a longer one with a counter weight to give a bit of umff. After which replace the the stone with a set of fan blades made from some sheet then fabricate a new housing if they would be servisable as a cheap/lightweight forge blower. Has anyone tried this? Quote
Robert Yates Posted March 23, 2012 Posted March 23, 2012 Pic's please I may do some trading with ya . Same Quote
pkrankow Posted March 23, 2012 Posted March 23, 2012 I have thought about it, but I don't think you are going to spin a blade the size of a blower uses. The gears in a hand crank blower are much larger than in the grinder, so they won't tolerate the same load. My Lancaster blower is about 50:1 My hand crank grinder is about 12:1 I think it would work, but not nearly as good as a blower. Phil PS Lincolnshire UK, or Lincolnshire, IL, USA? Quote
Francis Trez Cole Posted March 24, 2012 Posted March 24, 2012 maybe you can rig some kind of a foot treadle Quote
DanBrassaw Posted March 24, 2012 Posted March 24, 2012 I've been using my hand crank ginder holding tools one handed for quick touchups - cold chisels and center punches pretty much. It works pretty well, but mine is situated such that I can rest my arm on the workbench and experience reasonable control. I certainly wouldn't do any super accurate work with it. Quote
Tim McCoy Posted March 24, 2012 Posted March 24, 2012 Sounds like a great project for a slow day - and if you really want to make a truly Rube Goldberg piece get an old sewing machine treadle for your power source :lol: Quote
Wayne Posted March 24, 2012 Author Posted March 24, 2012 Hi Phil, Its Lincolnshire UK. Samcro I will get a photo burned off - you are welcome to one but shipping may be a killer. I have a small French cranked blower, really light weight almost tin plate which is what gave me the idea. Another option that came up is if you already have the fan with a smallish pulley on the side the stone could be replaced by a pulley wheel or short of that put a thin disc of tin or ply wood either side of the stone to mock up a pulley and put a belt between. With the gearing on the mechanism 6-1 ( I would have to check this) and a large pulley driving a small pulley? Quote
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