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Oliver 585 combo grinder. Worth it for knife making?


Kette

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So i've found a nice old grinder in my area, and I can't decide if it's worth it for me. It's an Oliver 585 combo tool grinder. It has 3 stones ranging from regular grinding to a fine honing wheel. These were used mostly for woodworking shops to rehone hand tools. I was wondering if I could repurpose it for knife making or even swords? It would also serve general use as it's got a wire whe as well. He's asking $350 and it runs well. Any opinions would be appreciated. 

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It's not $ 350, it's about $ 800 --remember, pretty much all of those stones have to be replaced with something more suitable to knife edge honing and some of those options can get a bit spendy.  Cheap grinding wheels give cheap results. You might be able to get by for less so that $ 800 was just to make the point.

By the time you get to the higher number and the time involved to do the "fixits", could you buy something more suitable and better?  For knifemaking, probably.  As a good sharpening station for general tooling like it's original use, maybe not.

It's a lot more tempting at $ 100 less...but I have use for it as the generalized tool sharpener.  The $ 350 is not ridiculous either...just not as tempting.  Knife and sword making....meh...for the money I still think you could do something more useful and better suited to the process.

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Yeah it seems to be edging into the pricing of a lower tier belt grinder, so I might as well get something new. I couldn't even find replacement wheels with a quick google search, though if a new set costs as much as the machine I wouldn't be surprised. Thanks for your input Kozzy. Maybe I just have a thing for old shop tools!

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  • 6 years later...

No it's easy; go over there;  about 100 miles and start looking for used electrical equipment stores.

Most of my workshop motors will run 110 or 220 with a simple rewiring, the instructions are often printed inside the cover to where the wires hook up. PAY ATTENTION to how wires are labeled; swapping the #2 and the #8 wire is a LOT harder if you un-hooked all of them and didn't label them!!!!!!!

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