footlongcuban
11-11-2003, 10:08 AM
Well, I bought the Dremel router table and it works nice. But it takes a long time to cut the excess off these bent-metal blanks. and those little reinforced cut-off wheels are expensive.
Soooooo I improvised a little.
I kept looking at my 4-1/2" angle grinder with its big, $2.00 INOX reinforced cutoff wheel and figured, hey, that would do the job a whole lot faster.
I just drilled a hole in a section of 2x4 and ran a bolt through it and into the side of the grinder where the handle was screwed into. This made a nice sturdy base for the grinder. Then I took a 2" galvanized metal pipe strap, flattened the ends and screwed it down over the grinder. I had to shim the grinder a little because the side is not level due to the design of the housing.
Then I screwed the 2x4 base into the front of my wooden work bench. Now I just needed to adjust the height. I simply shimmed the space between the cutoff wheel and my bentmetal blank with something the right thickness to leave me 5mm of material. In my case a stainless steel ruler with a cork backing.
I tested it out on the front of the blank for depth as this section gets cutoff anyway, and once had the height I wanted started cutting.
Man! These angle grinders ($50) zip through the 1mm steel 100 times faster than the dremel. To do both sides of one blank took about 2 minutes. The cutoff wheel went through three receiver shells with minor loss of wheel diameter.
Remember, the wheels are like $2.00 at Home Depot.
Much faster, much cheaper, and very effecient.
I used safety glasses, ear muffs, and I put a box in between the grinder and myself just in case bad things happend as I had to remove the gaurd from the grinder to get it to fit correctly onto my 2x4 base.
Pictures coming.
Soooooo I improvised a little.
I kept looking at my 4-1/2" angle grinder with its big, $2.00 INOX reinforced cutoff wheel and figured, hey, that would do the job a whole lot faster.
I just drilled a hole in a section of 2x4 and ran a bolt through it and into the side of the grinder where the handle was screwed into. This made a nice sturdy base for the grinder. Then I took a 2" galvanized metal pipe strap, flattened the ends and screwed it down over the grinder. I had to shim the grinder a little because the side is not level due to the design of the housing.
Then I screwed the 2x4 base into the front of my wooden work bench. Now I just needed to adjust the height. I simply shimmed the space between the cutoff wheel and my bentmetal blank with something the right thickness to leave me 5mm of material. In my case a stainless steel ruler with a cork backing.
I tested it out on the front of the blank for depth as this section gets cutoff anyway, and once had the height I wanted started cutting.
Man! These angle grinders ($50) zip through the 1mm steel 100 times faster than the dremel. To do both sides of one blank took about 2 minutes. The cutoff wheel went through three receiver shells with minor loss of wheel diameter.
Remember, the wheels are like $2.00 at Home Depot.
Much faster, much cheaper, and very effecient.
I used safety glasses, ear muffs, and I put a box in between the grinder and myself just in case bad things happend as I had to remove the gaurd from the grinder to get it to fit correctly onto my 2x4 base.
Pictures coming.