In article ,
Ignoramus17693 wrote:

Someone near me is advertising a 14" pedestal grinder. It is similar
....
Also do you think that they are much more dangerous than regular
1/2-1HP grinders.

As far as the size-related hazards, don't take the guards off. Even
small stones can kill when they fail - big ones are better at it. And
watch that loose clothing - you might stall a 1 hp grinder and get your
hand dragged into a 5hp unit from the same sleeve snag.

You can obviously spin any size stone up with as small a motor as you
like, if you don't manage to fry the motor while bringing the stone up
to speed from inertia - but the point of a grinder is to remove
material, and being able to shove material into the stone and have it
ground away is what they are for - not needing a long-ramp VFD to start
the thing is a side benefit of using a "large enough" motor. That said,
plenty of home shops would likely be fine with 1-1.5 hp driving (but
that's hard to do on a grinder of that design, rather than one with a
belt drive where swapping the motor is easy) since one rarely reefs on
the equipment as hard as in a production shop. You'd still get the
benefit of a larger radius on the grind, and the downside of how much
the stones cost, but the upside of how far you can grind them down
without being too small.

Of course, less inertia, less hazard from failure and less media cost
(for home-type use) with large (or no) radius can be had with a belt
sander, where you can use the contact wheel the same as a grinder, or
the flat platen. Cue horrified gasps, since there are slight differences
between grinding on a belt sander and grinding on a stone, but with a
properly tensioned belt sander they are pretty minor. I'll let someone
else dissect them at length.

--
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