New grinder platen design

Gotta share this with you guys. Got it up and running tonight after my wheels came in. 2 and 4 inch wheels.
Quick change removable platen.
Clearance on both sides of platen for tang work.

 

Nice set up. Can wait to see what comes from it.

 

nice setup i have one platen with 2 inch on top and another that has a 5 inch for the top wheel (when grinding razors i use 10 5 and 2 inch wheels) settign up my platen arms this way lets me keep the same working hight but also gives me a arm with flat platen one with 48inch platen and one with a slack section that in can put a 3rd platen on that has 2 layers of denim to act as a soft platen. i think i have 5 arms right now and am thinking about building another but might build a 2nd grinder or tool arm holder first

 

That is pretty interesting Butch. Would you recommend I put the 4 inch up top? I want to do razors at some point, but really need to do my research.
4 inch not going to work? Should I got to a 5?
Would you rather have so many arms with tooling, or the quick change one I pictured? I get that you have different wheels on each, so a few seems reasonable. But 5? That is a lot of tool arms to wrangle.

 

FYI, I'm working on a second design, now that I've learned a bit about the challenges and seeing how it all fits.
Thinking about it, it wouldn't be hard to have mounts for a 2" and 5" up top. But you'd have to change wheels, which is a bit of pain.

 

the size weheel on a razor is varible depending on maker blade hight and amount of hollow you want to grind really i could seee me also adding a 14 inch 7 and 4. tool change really does not take much time. swapping platens or wheels sucks thats why i have so many arms i will have to do a quick video of mu grinding area. i also have my arms marked as to where they need to be in the grinder for rproper belt tension

 

Good info Butch. I never really paid too much attention to belt tension. But it makes sense. It would be great to see your setup. Mine is fairly meager, with 3 tool arms total.
Small wheel, rotary, and standard. Until now at least.

I worked up this new platen design based on your thoughts. It allows for 2, 4, and 5, inch wheels on top or bottom in any combo.
The only limiting factor will be belt length. Some grinders might allow more combinations than others.

 

I made this quick video of the new design.
I am really liking the potential for attaching work rests of various sorts to the platen frame itself.
As you can see in the video, I can just drop the lower mounted workrest away quickly and easily, and bring it back when I need it.
That along is going to save me hours a month.

Working on all my tooling has kept me from knife work the last few weeks, but I hope to be back at it shortly and really road testing this new platen frame.

 

This is what the finished product looks like. I should have this in my hands by the weekend. I really can't wait to give it a try. I've been using my cobbled together version for a while now, and while I really like it, it needs the kind of polish that a real machinist can give it. Brett of Esteem grinders has this project now and he's done it justice and then some. His first batch is about done and I get the first one. OK, the second one. Someone swooped in on his display model at the OR knife show I guess.