Hand Cranked Grinder Refurbishment Continued

I posted a quick video a week ago about a few hand cranked grinders that have come into my shop. I has one of them almost ready to go back to work sharpening chisels and hand planes. It was already working quite well, but I took apart the crankcase and cleaned and oiled all the parts so now it glides smoothly along. It is much quieter too; a perfect fit in a hand tool woodworking shop.

I added a 6″ Norton 3x 60 grit wheel and had very little balancing to do before it was turning true. It still amazes me how fast I can get this little thing turning. I have the space to go to an 8″ wheel and I may do that later on, but I do find the slightly more pronounced hollow grind I get from this 6″ wheel is nice.

I got my grinding wheel from Tools For Working Wood and picked up a 1/4 stone as well to shape and use for my moulding planes.  I still have a bunch of them that need to be refurbished.  Unfortunately the nut that is holding the wheel in place on my other hand cranked grinder is frozen so I have some work to do break it loose and clean it up.  More on that as I get to it.

So now I need to mess with the sharpening platform. I have always liked a wider surface and I think I can rig something up with the existing angle bracket that came with this grinder.   A wider and deeper platform would be best because the only time I will really use this is for straight edged woodworking tools.  I’ll update here once I have something working and post another video of the grinder in action.

What do you prefer: an 8″ or 6″ wheel for the hollow grind effect?  How about the tool platform?  Do you have a fancy jig set up or a simple flat board?