Building anything can always be a fun project. Our advice though is the following: if you want a fun project to kill some time with, build your own belt grinder. If you want to get into knife making, buy a belt grinder. Why? Because there are several pitfalls when it comes to making a seemingly simple machine:

• The majority of “build-it-yourself” machines out there are ‘designed’ by social media Content Creators (ie. badly copy most concepts from reputable companies). Their aim is not to properly design & engineer a quality project, all they are interested in is gaining followers for their social media platforms, so that they can earn money from these social media companies. Have a look, they all follow the same recipe: cool videos, cool logos, zero design common sense.
• These machines are almost exclusively designed around steel tubing construction. Why is that a bad idea? First of all, steel tubing comes in a very wide range of tolerances. So getting rid of slop is almost impossible. Secondly, steel rubbing on steel, such as sliding a steel tooling arm into a steel tubing receptacle makes the application of rust preventative coatings such as powder coating pointless. So even if you could powder coat or even spray paint inside the tubing receptacles, it’s a waste of time, since the paint will be scratched off in no time, then rust follows shortly thereafter. (One company even offers a spray mister to cool blades, imagine the rust when you start adding water into the internals of these contraptions!)
• The way these machines are put together makes it impossible to apply paint or powder coating properly. As mentioned above it’s futile trying to paint inside the tubing receptacles, then there are several areas which you just cannot get into with any coating. Think: RUST
• Some of the other design concepts are just so atrocious that you wonder how these folk can consider themselves as having any engineering acumen at all? We have clamping knobs tapped into the sides of the tubing receptacles to hold clamp the tooling arms down. Think about this: a 5/16″ diameter clamping bolt, tapped into material that’s 1/4″ thick…. exactly how long will that last before it strips? Ok so then you just weld a nut on. Oh wait, you’ve painted your prized creation!
• Then there’s the question of cost. Folk are lured in by the seemingly low cost of a home made machine, then when they get halfway though they realize that the money spent far exceeds what they thought it would be. Sure you will save labor costs if you do all the work yourself. Do this though: envisage the finished project that you would want sitting on your bench. You want a top quality product which isn’t going to rust & will last a long time right? So price out that end result product & see where the costs run, you will be astonished. Even if you do scrounge bits & pieces here & there, it’s still going to cost far more than you think. This does not even begin to factor in the costs of buying the parts from these Content Creators! Holy cow, some of them charge upwards of $200 JUST FOR THE WHEELS (the exact same wheels are available from us at under $130).
• Accessories. Again, most of the Content Creators are only after gaining followers so that they can get money from social media companies. So they make a machine, yet have no accessories for it. SO, having zero shame, they push accessories which are made overseas in countries like China & Turkey, once again so that they earn money from affiliate incentives offered by big business.

Think carefully about the end result before you get lured into a building-it-yourself project. Think about how that machine is going to look & perform. Think of the hassle involved in getting it working. Think of the costs vs. the cost of a quality built machine such as ours. Think of what that machine is going to look like after a year of use. Think of what a customer is going to think of the equipment in your shop.

YOU CAN WELD ANYTHING TOGETHER & CALL IT “BELT GRINDER”, AT THE END OF THE DAY IT SCREAMS “HOME MADE” & PERFORMS AS SUCH!