An experiment

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Some years ago someone bought me one of those little 6" bench grinders from B & Q.

For ages it sat in its box unused as the plastic base was next to useless, and the guards pressed tin, and as I already had 8" grinders in the shop I really couldn't see a use for it.

However, right in the middle of my current project I realised that my little toolpost grinder was not going to be big enough to grind some crankshaft journals.

Then, a small spark of an idea formed, would it work? unknown, but for the want of a little whittling it was worth a try.

First of all the plastic base was not required and the grinder was stripped to basic parts to reveal a reasonable motor and smooth bearings.

Now to make a new base that will fit in place of a Warco GH1330 topslide.

Take a chunk of 5" diameter hard ally bar and face, then reduce the diameter to match the topslide mounting.

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Then to cut off the excess - calculated by working out the required centre height, and leaving a little spare for facing off

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Face off to allow for the curvature of the motor.

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The next part was to reduce the sides to a rectangle, initially to allow room for the topslide mounting bolts.

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Leaving me with this result.

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Now had to 'bore' the base, bit like a smokebox saddle really, to match the curvature of the motor, and you can just see the reference line which equates to the center height distance.

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The next job was to match the motor mounts to the base, the large 1" hole in the middle of the base is for the topslide locating spigot.

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So the motor now sits down like so.

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At this point I realised I needed to open up the base to accommodate the start capacitor.

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And now to make the locating spigot as shown.

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Trial fit on the lathe.

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Check for squareness

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I wanted to try this out, I know its bad form, but it had to be done, Oppenheimer probably said a similar sort of thing just before the button was pressed.

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First attempt.

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OK, I'm off to sort the guards out and add a small cooling fan to the spare end, back later