RIKON 80-805 Professional 8-Inch Low Speed Bench Grinder, 1/2 HP, 1750 RPM

This is the second grinder of this model I have purchased. I bought my first when they were first introduced and it has performed flawlessly and continues to perform flawlessly. Wheels are of very good quality, were perfectly balanced and have sharpened many tools over the years. The grinder runs smoothly and quietly and has all the power I have ever needed. I use my grinder principally for grinding lathe tools, so it gets a lot of use. I have other Rikon tools and have been very pleased with all of them. I have had failures a couple of times, and I'm not at all certain that they weren't my fault. When I contacted Rikon's support the response has been immediate and more than satisfactory. In my experience Rikon's customer support has been second to none and is one reason I now favor Rikon tools over those of perhaps better known brands.

I am a wood turner and don't use the supplied tool rests as I use the Wolverine system for sharpening my tools. As i use 1 1 1/2" D-way CBN wheels I also don't keep the wheel covers or the "eye guards". My previous grinder was a Delta VS 8", but it died after about 4 years. I bought a replacement "off the shelf" at a local Lowes, but it was faulty (motor noise). I then researched the web and came up with the Wen and the Rikon. The specs and the reviews on Amazon are similar but I chose the Rikon for a bit more money as one of my correspondents (Dave Schweizer of D-way) had good experience with Rikon. First a comment on VS versus slow speed. I think the part of my Delta that died was the rheostat for varying the speed - were I younger and in a larger shop I might have taken it apart and replaced the rheostat. It was nice to be able to go to 3600 rpm and use my coarser CBN wheel to make major regrinds on tools, but if it shortened the life of my grinder it wasn't worth it. I can go to my belt sander and rough shape the tool by hand. At 1725 my 80 grit CBN allows me to make any radical reshaping I want of a tool in about a half hour, and minor reshapings in 10 minutes. I think the slow speed is the better choice for wood turning tools as the electronics are less complicated and should last longer. Now which slow speed? The CBN wheels are heavier than the composite "stone" wheels so one might think they need more power. This 1/2 HP Rikon brings them up to speed in about six seconds with no motor noise that might indicate strain (that was the fault in my faulty Delta VS). I lose no wheel speed and hear no motor strain when grinding heavily on my course wheel in reshaping with the half horse, I think the 1 horse is an unnecessary expense for my application. May I add that a couple of days ago I had been touching up a tool and then went to test it on the piece I was turning without turning off the Rikon. I was distracted and left my bedroom shop to take care of other things. I came back about three hours later and found the grinder still spinning. I felt the motor cover and the heat wasn't excessive, it had been running the heavy wheels but wasn't straining. BTW, I neglected to turn it off as the free running sound from the grinder is zero (and I have good ears). One caveat, obey the instructions to remove the rubber feet if you are bolting it down. I spent hours setting it up to duplicate the exact height of the wheels above my Wolverine base that I had with the Delta so I could use my home made gauges for my gouges. I made shims under the feet, but it never came out right. OOPS, I made one little error, I forgot that when I tightened down the grinder on the base platform the rubber feet would compress and change the height unevenly. I can't tell you how long this grinder will last, but I can give a pretty good guess that it will be a long time as the lack of motor noise, or change in motor noise under load, suggests a long life. It may not be the best for general grinding, given the negative reviews on the tool rests and such, but it is excellent for my purpose - which is regular use to touch up or regrind wood turning tools. The 1 1/2 CBN wheels fit the arbor, although witn no room to spare. The bolts holding my wheels aren't fully used, but it only about 1/16" shy which is plenty of grip on the wheel. Best, Jon

This slow speed grinder is perfect for sharpening shop tools. I modified this grinder to suit my needs by removing the coarse wheel and moving the fine wheel to the right side. This was done to use the flat tool rest instead of the tool rest designed for drill bits. The fine wheel works well for chisels and plane blades and the 8" diameter works best for the concave needed on the blade bevel. A 10" hard buffing wheel was added to this grinder to add to it's versatility. The buffer is invaluable for finishing the edge on the tools, knives and for polishing my shop tools. If you get the buffing wheel you will also need an adaptor for the arbour, get the metal one. This grinder runs with very little vibration even after adding the buffing wheel. The motor runs cool even after prolonged use. The 1/2hp is more than enough power for my use.

Its speed is consistent enough and the motor doesn't vibrate. I checked by removing both wheels and turning it one for bit. But, when I put the wheels on that came with this grinder, it wants to almost jump on my table. They are cheep and even after dressing them carefully they just don't want to balance. Going to buy some CBN wheels. I wish i could have just bought the grinder with no wheels. Not sure what I am going to use these crappy ones for.

The item arrived sooner than I expected. The original packaging was shipped in an Amazon box with ample insulation. Attaching the tool rests and eyeshields was easy. When I turned it on, the right wheel was quiet but there was significant vibration and noise in the left wheel. The owner's manual had instructions on how to adjust the wheel. It's basically a systematic trial and error and after about 30 minutes I was able to get the wobble down to an acceptable (for me) level. At this point it's pretty quiet. The left tool rest is slotted for drill bit sharpening. I found that V-groove to be a little wide and thus allowed the drill bit to have a little horizontal movement. I made my own V-grooved tool rest from a piece of oak. I used a routed to cut the V-shaped groove and used my table saw fence and miter gauge to guide the router at a 31 degree angle. We hen compared to the angle in the tool rest supplied by Rikon, it appeared to be identical. I primarily bought this tool to sharpen drill bits but can use it for other purposes. For the price it was better than getting a tool specifically designed to sharpen drill bits (like the drill doctor). I'm unable to comment on the durability. I notice many reviews commenting on the vibration and wheel wobbled but the manual addresses this. I am currently unwilling to buy CBN wheels for the time being as my current needs are met. It's quite heavy and I've bolted it down to a scrap piece of corian.

I rarely write the review, but this worth mention it. I started sharpening my own tools (normally sent out) and I got Rikon, because of its slow speed and good price for my use. When I received the grinder, which has been opened and lost some of parts. the internal packing material has been damaged and I was not sure of what else has been damaged. So I sent email via Amazon to Yellowhammer Tool Works. Very next day, they replied by sending out a replacement unit, no question asked. Two days later, I received the replacement (the original order tool a week for shipment). Everything is in order. Assembled and test ran. There were a lot of comments relating wobbly wheel. The left wheel has a light wobble, which is acceptable for my use. however, the right wheel wobbles noticeably. I cleaned and sand-papered the flange faces, which reduced wobble, but I was not concern. I replaced it with a CBN wheel, but without the flanges or washer, I ran out of thread. So I purchase a machined washer and self -aligning spherical washer. With those washers, the wheel runs straight, no vibration, noice, wobbles. I am very happy with that. very quiet. Highly recommend this grinder.

I was worried after reading some negative reviews. My grinder showed up with a little damage to the packaging but no damage to the grinder. Put this thing together, checked that the wheels were tight and turned it not. it had a small amount of vibration but nothing to worry about. The wheels ran true so I got after sharpening my turning tools. It never bogged down or made any strange sounds. It just did exactly what I wanted it to do.After sharpening a half dozen or so tools I shut it off and just smiled.

This grinder is an excellent value, but you have to understand its limitations. The motor and mount are excellent. The shaft is precisely machined and well balanced. The sheet metal guards are good. A good Diamond dresser is included. What’s less good is the quality of the grinding wheels supplied. While better than the typical grey wheels supplied with cheap grinders, the samples supplied with my grinder and those I’ve seen on others show a wide variation in how well they’re drilled and balanced. One of the wheels supplied with my grinder was drilled at an angle, and was completely unusable. I was able to align and balance the other after a lot of work using shims. I replaced the bad wheel with a Spartan CBN (cubic boron nitride) wheel, something I strongly suggest for sharpening high speed steel lathe tools, and I plan to replace the other soon. I’d suggest you do that, or at a minimum use pink Norton wheels and machined steel inserts. I’ve also added a Oneway Wolverine sharpening jig. The cheapest CBN wheels will cost you almost as much as the grinder, but they last much longer than friable wheels, and require no dressing. A good sharpening jig will cost as much as the grinder, but will make sharpening much easier and do a better job than freehand grinding, and allow you to create profiles that are extremely difficult to do freehand.

The item was missing a tool support. I sent an email to Rikon about a month ago and haven't heard from them yet. Other then that I am very satisfied with the grinder. It is very quiet and does the job.

Combined with the wolverine jig this is a great deal on a quality bench grinder to keep your woodturning tools sharp.

So far so good. A little slow starting up and runs quiet and smooth one it gets up to speed. Much easier when shapening my turning tools.

I bought this grinder in March 2016 and use it for sharpening woodturning tools (bowl gouges, hollowing tools etc.). It now works very well but it required a lot of adjustment to take out vibration and wobble. Of course it was bolted down to a heavy grinding station or it would have danced around the shop. Thankfully I got the wheels running true and balanced and there is almost no vibration now. I'm happy.

i got this one to replace POWERTEC BGSS801. It's like the powetech is class B version of the same product. No vibration, and overall much better quality, but its essentially the same machine/manufacture