Grizzly Model T10010 10" Wet Grinder
A good quality grinder for the hobby woodworker.
Front view
I bought this wet grinder in February 2008. Before I decided upon the Grizzly model, I evaluated both the Tormek and Jet 10" wet grinders. The Tormek would have been my 1st choice, but due to the high price, I went with the Grizzly (if I were a professional woodworker using the sharpener every day I would have bought the Tormek T7). And since I could get all the accessory kits with the Grizzly T10010 for a decent price, it was an easy choice for me.
Main Specifications
- 1/4" HP, 110V
- 10" x 2" Aluminum Oxide grinding wheel, leather honing wheel.
- 90 RPM speed
- Adjustable tool rest
Rear view
My experiences with this wet grinder:
- A good quality grinder that will do its job for both high speed steel turning tools and carbon steel hand tools
- If you push the tool you are grinding hard against the wheel you can stall the motor. From what I understand, this is hard to do on a Tormek, but should not cause problems. You should never force a power tool to do its job anyway.
- Tormek and Jet accessories can be used on the Grizzly - with some limitations.
- I did not like the angle guide that came with the Grizzly, so I replaced it with the Tormek AngleMaster WM-200. This guide also has magnets so it can be attached (stored) on the grinder housing.
- Instructions on how to use the grinder and its accessories are not so great, here Tormek has done a much better job. If you can get hold of their manuals, they are your best guides.
- The most useful parts in the accessory kits are the knife jigs, stone grader/dresser (like on the Tormek you can change the grading on your stone), universal sharpening jig and chisel jig (for both beveled and hollow chisels). Though the jigs will do their jobs, some are not of the greatest quality. The grinder itself is made in Germany, but I believe the accessory kits are made in China or Taiwan.
- If you grind a lot of knives, the knife kit might be worth it. It takes some training though to get it right.
- The aluminum oxide grinding wheel will need frequent dressing when grinding high speed steel tools as it clogs easily and you can easily wear gouges in it. I have not tried other 10" grinders, so I don't know how good e.g the Tormek or Jet grinding wheels are. However, I use a 6" bench grinder to do most turning tool sharpening, and then moves to the Grizzly when I need a finer edge or for honing on the leather wheels.
- Overall, I am very satisfied with this grinder. It does not have all the bells and whistles of the latest Tormek (like fine adjustment of the tool rest), but I don't need those. All I wanted was a good quality basic wet grinder for a decent price. And that is what I got!
Grinder with Tormek LA-120 Profiled Leather Honing Wheel attached.
Grizzly do not offer a lot of great accessories for their grinder. However, since the grinder is German made and uses metric screws, there are fixes you can apply so you can use Tormek accessories on the Grizzly. You could even skip all the Grizzly accessories, and only buy the high quality Tormek accessories you really need...
I wanted a profiled, leather honing wheel for my grinder. I bought the Tormek LA-120 honing wheel. The Tormek has an M8 axle, the Grizzly has an M6, so I bought a pack of M6 to M8 inserts and a M8 screw on wheel from McMaster Carr (the Grizzly screw on hand wheel is also M6). Then I inserted the M6 to M8 insert to the screw mount on the fixture for the wheels, ground it flush with the surface and mounted the honing wheel to the M6 axle on the large leather wheel.
I put a cafeteria tray underneath the grinder to catch water that will spill during grinding.