That sound fine to me. What about height adjusting? Or maybe its a non issue if you can tilt the grinder with the new hole arrangement?

Gerald is this what you had in mind? This way a person, depending on their skill could either weld a nut in place or do the mods and weld the bearing. Believe it or not the nut can be either a 12mm or .5" they are exactly the same outer measurement.

That's the type of thing I was thinking of! But not as clever as that! :)

Gerald I saved it as Autocad 2000.

okay....that's just darn elegant. Kudo's JR.

Nice.

Thanks JR, that file read fine this time. (What CAD program are you using).

I would be happy to incorporate a mod like that into the skate parts.

Before changing that, I would like to ask all the folk who have used the skate; what problems did you have and what improvements can be made? I recall someone had a mod to change wheels after assembly. Then there is the issue of guarding the hand. Handles, etc. What needs to be done? Let's catch all the mods now.

I think we need to take another look at the position and spacers used on the side bearings as shown in Gerald sketch in post #8. This might efect the distance that the grinding disc is away from the rail.
I must say that people on this forum works very well together in solving problems. It is part of my job to work with project teams to solve design concepts and problems. One only need one dominating person to destroy that fine sharing balance in a team. I have seen it happen so many times. Nothing like that here.:cool:

Thanks Sean.

Gerald I use Turbocad ver 15

Johan you are right we are a good team, one I'm proud to be a part of.

I didn'y make any mods to be able to change the disc but i sure wish you could have when i was doing my grinding. Also definately think a safety guard should be incorporated somehow. Sorry, don't have any solutions, just confirming a couple of items on the 'wishlist' Gerald started.

The mods I made to my beta version of the skate had the back removed for disk change. I'll try to find it out in the shop and photo it later today.
I had an idea if I was to do it again, I would make the laser part tabbed - like the cable chain supports - so you can still bend the part, then trim the tab off with a cutting disk.

See my idea below.

Sean

Attachment 4953

After having used a skate myself, I realised that "back bridge" (the part that Sean shows as tabbed in for cutting out) is not needed for strength. Thus that bridge can be permanently removed, leaving a wide open space for disk changing. However then the disk is even more exposed to the hands. Maybe the "bridge" must be moved further away, leaving a bigger hole, but being protective of the hands?

I have one more thing to add. The holes to attach my grinder were a bit different (and i assume there are heaps of variants around the world). Can we remove the sloted holes and just have the round cutout for the grinder head. Maybe then have laser engraved lines so people can drill the holes where they need them.
Attachment 4954
I had to drill holes in the tiny bit left between the slot and the outer edge which meant the skate need a bit of re-work. It would have been fine if the slots weren't there. I don't think its too much work to expect every to drill their own 4 holes.

Matt this is the original plate you received.

Matt may I suggest downloading the file in post #94 then print it out and see if it would fit your grinder. The original plate did not fit my grinder either but this one does.

Opps, yep, was doing it from memory at work. My holes near the edge were closer together which meant the thin section had to be removed. Which caused a few issues when i tightended the screws. I had to put an off cut in there so the screw head was supported on both sides. Will take a photo tonight to better explain.
Still, my comment stays the same. I suggest getting rid of the small holes and just leave the large bore. Use laser engraving to show default holes locations to make it easy for people with the normal hole configuration.

ok, will do tonight. i'll let you know

Is it? I'm visualizing that as all on the underside, and the risk appears to be more at the sides of the disk, assuming you are operating the skate from above. I wouldn't be reaching blindly under there bridge or not.

Even the old bridge wouldn't protect from hands sliding down the handle of the grinder. I think the key here, and a missing point, is someplace to attach handles in the area of the new bearings. In the old design, you could screw them onto the tops of the height adjustment bolts, or (in my case) wear welding gloves and just grab the bolts themshelves. There isn't any nice attachment or grab point anymore.

Actually, on further reflection, maybe the answer is to attach to the handles to the top of an extra long bolt through each of the outer bearing stacks.

Brad, the current design has lots of options for attaching any design of handle you may think of, but I reckon a large percentage of guys are not bothering to attach extra handles and that's where the risk of getting the hands to the disk lies. Snag is, the current design requires one to remove a guard from standard grinder, but doesn't offer a way of compensating for it. Imagine the fun a lawyer can have with that . . . . . (hope that my disclaimers for this website hold!)

JR, I am not happy to move this line upwards - there is every chance that less grinders will fit to the plate:

Brad, maybe your skate version was before I added extra metal & holes for screwing/welding on handles? :

The magenta part is what I meant by "moving the bridge" and forming a disk guard of sorts. Leaves a big hole for disk changing:

That should make it a lot safer.

For those wanting to attatch a handle, see here, this gave very good control and kept the hands far enough away from the disk to be safe, but with the addition of Geralds mod above, it would be even better.

This is what they look like cut.

J.R.

What is with the bicycles?

That's a laser company's handouts - looks like JR is getting close to new supplier near him . . . . :)

Is that cool or what. How can they do that?

J.R,

How about a blow up of the bicycle?

Use this to blow up the bicycle

Gerald: Always the comedian.:) ...but you better not quit your day job.:D

Gerald,

You need to find another business to start, you have too much time on your hands.!!!!

Sorry JR, this thread has drifted a bit off, but you can only blame yourself! :D