Check your grinder

[fluxcored]

I recently bought a cheap Ryobi grinder - about $15 or so and noticed that it sounded a bit rough.

I opened it and altho it was packed with grease none were on the gears itself. So i repacked it and it sounds much better now.

You can get away with cheap grinders if you treat them well. With the beating we give grinders I regard them as consumables but treat them respectfully and they'll last you a lifetime. I've got another Ryobi going for 8 years and it gets used a lot.

Same is true of any power tool, I guess.

 

[Kaptain Krunch]

Good tip, im sure the grease moves away from the gears really quickly though. The previous owner of my drill ( i only payed 5 bucks, and its a nice old one) didnt take care of it at all, the chuck bearing is dead.

 

[jr dragster T]

Some of those cheap grinders only have a service life of 50 hours. In the machine shop at school we go threw tons of them.

 

[eesakiwi]

I have found, thru total randomness, that the way to get a good long life from your grinder, is to 'hang' it up when not in use.

I had made a bracket that goes on the wall for the grinder.

It was a simple backplate with two bits of angle iron in a 'Vee' shape that the grinders guard sits in, the rest hangs out the bottom of the 'Vee'.
Whenever I was cleaning up or not using the grinders I would place them in their 'holster'.

The grinders lasted for years & I never thought about it.

Then when I went to a different place where we had a large bench & the tools were just dumped on it flatwise, they lasted about 9 months.
So I took apart the grinders 'head' & found there was NO GREASE on any of the gears or other moving parts!

Thats when I relised that by hanging up the grinders when they were still warm, the grease would drop down onto the gears meshing parts & the top armature bearing.

That gave it the nessary lubrication & kept everything nice & tight & the only thing that wore out was the brushes...

 

[rhytonen]

I recently bought a cheap Ryobi grinder - about $15 or so and noticed that it sounded a bit rough.

I opened it and altho it was packed with grease none were on the gears itself. So i repacked it and it sounds much better now.

You can get away with cheap grinders if you treat them well. With the beating we give grinders I regard them as consumables but treat them respectfully and they'll last you a lifetime. I've got another Ryobi going for 8 years and it gets used a lot.

Same is true of any power tool, I guess.

Knock Knock - I've also had good luck with my $39 HD Ryobi.
(I restore and race vintage karts as my retirement hobby.)

A weldor/machinist friend swears by them, though with the volume of pro work he does, he keeps a number of them around, with different blades on, and treats them as consumables, LOL.

We amateur and shadetree types tend to religiously maintain a single tool we can afford, and the Ryobi has filled my bill on that.
THANKS for the maintenance tips, guys !!

 

[oscaryu1]

Is the $15 grinder the same as the $39.99 ones?

If so... d'oh...

 

[rhytonen]

Is the $15 grinder the same as the $39.99 ones?

If so... d'oh...

Where were Ryobi's $15 ?

(not that assuming the Chinese crap that looks exactly the same might not be...)

 

[robin]

makita is a nice make ive got a grinder and its never went wrong

 

[TerryOlson]

My cheapie Makita grinds a bit (hahaha) and sure enough when I pulled it apart the grease was everywhere except on the gears. They look brand new and I'm sure the bearings are what I'm feeling / hearing - but I added more grease and hit the bearings with a quick shot of WD40 while I was in there. I know the WD won't last long - but it sounds much better and I'm hoping that hanging it up after use will allow the grease to sag into the bearings as was suggested.

 

[rhytonen]

My cheapie Makita grinds a bit (hahaha) and sure enough when I pulled it apart the grease was everywhere except on the gears. They look brand new and I'm sure the bearings are what I'm feeling / hearing - but I added more grease and hit the bearings with a quick shot of WD40 while I was in there. I know the WD won't last long - but it sounds much better and I'm hoping that hanging it up after use will allow the grease to sag into the bearings as was suggested.

I find Tri-Flow is better than WD40 for augmenting grease.
-just and old kart racer's trick. We take the shields off rear axle brgs, flush out the grease, replace with Tri-Flow (OFTEN from then on,) and replace the shields. Bearings roll a lot faster but must be maintained more often.