Well, I ended up buying the 8" Palmgren grinder from Amazon; with Amazon Prime free shipping, it was just $189. Here are my impressions so far:
I've never owned or used a bench grinder before, so I can't compare this with other grinders. I'm a relative newbie at machining, so value the following opinions accordingly.
It came well packaged: no signs of rust or corrosion or any shipping damage. The "Made in China" label is quite prominent on the box. The box is pretty hefty, so be careful of your back (shipping weight 55.5 lbs).
Fit and finish appeared good. No paint flaws, nor any obvious casting or fabrication flaws. The entire grinder appears well built and solid.
There is some minimal assembly to be done. You must install the tool rests, the spark guards, and the eye shields. The spark guards and eye shields go together easily, and are installed as one unit on each side.
The tool rests were a bit of a problem. The bolts that mount the tool rests to the grinder were too short. The spacers that were listed in the parts list and shown on the assembly diagrams were missing. So, there was no way to install the tool rests correctly with the fittings that came in the box.
As I said, the bolts that were provided were too short to actually install the tool rests correctly. I had to run down to the local hardware store and buy longer length bolts and a bunch of washers to use in place of the missing spacers. Be careful here; the assembly instruction text is written for the smaller grinders, and refer to smaller nuts and bolts than this 8" grinder uses. You can guess how I found this out. However, the assembly diagram and parts list for the 8" grinder that are in the manual are correct.
Removing the short bolts for the tool rest mounts required removing the outer sides of the wheel guards, and removing the grinding wheels themselves, in order to get the short bolts out.
While I had the wheels off, I lightly tapped each one with a small hex key and got the proper "ping" indicating a sound wheel, instead of a "clunk", which would indicate a cracked wheel. I only "pinged" each wheel once. I later found that the correct procedure is to tap all around the wheel at 45 degree increments; a "clunk" anywhere means the wheel is unsafe.
I pulled out the provided too short bolts, slid in my store bought longer bolts, and put on enough washers to space out the tool rest mount and center the tool rest in relation to the wheel. This had to be done on both wheels. I needed 2 10-packs of 1/4" washers to have enough to properly center the 2 tool rests.
I reinstalled the wheels, and then reinstalled the side guards. These are made out of heavy gauge steel sheet, and are painted inside and out. The screw holes in the side guards went back on easily; all the screw holes lined up perfectly with out needing to force the sheet metal into place.
Installing the Dust Collection system was a bit of a hassle, but patience is the key. At least there were no missing or ill-sized parts.
Once I finally got the grinder assembled, I mounted it to a builtin wooden workbench in the garage. I noticed during assembly that the wheels needed a bit of truing, so I bought the Palmgren small wheel dresser to use as my first test of the grinder. I donned my safety glasses for the first power up.
I plugged it in, turned it on, careful to not be in line with the wheels, just in case something went wrong. I let it run for 2 minutes, listening for any problems, alert for excess or variable vibration, or strange noises.
It spins up to full speed very fast, and frankly, it's rather intimidating. This is not a tool to treat with disrepect. Bench grinders are one of the more dangerous tools in a shop, and are responsible for more injuries to amateurs than any other powered shop tool.
After 2 minutes I turned it off; for a few seconds I thought the switch didn't work, because I couldn't detect any change in speed or sound at first. It's obviously got a lot of inertia. In a few seconds though, it was starting to slow. It took more than a minute (untimed) to finally stop. During the coast down phase, it sounds like a centrifugal brake actuates toward the end. At least, you hear a clank, and then a soft squealing sound. Nothing sounded wrong, and since this happens each time I shut it off, I assume it is normal.
There was some vibration, and maybe that was due to the wheels needing a bit of truing. It didn't seem excessive, and the grinder when running at full speed is not noisy. It has a solid authoritative hum, and sounds powerful. There was some vibration in the workbench top, but nothing was jumping around or shaking, so I think it's ok. Perhaps the wheels could use some balancing. I forgot to note what brand of wheels were installed.
I hooked up the shop wet/dry vac to the dust collection system. I poured enough water into the shop vac canister to put about 1" of water in it. This was to take care of any sparks that made it through the dust collection system into the vac canister. However, that won't take care of any sparks that hit the paper filter, so make sure you clean the filter of swarf, sawdust, hair, dust, leaves, grass, or anything else that might be flammable.
To try out the wheel dresser and hopefully true the wheels and reduce vibration, I donned my safety glasses, and this time, a dust mask. Powered on, waited for it to reach full speed (just a matter of seconds), and applied the dresser. Definitely I need spark resistant long sleeved protection when doing any kind of grinding!
I have yet to do any actual tool grinding; for that, I am waiting on some ear protection. I also will be getting a leather apron, and possibly a welder's shirt.
The tool rests are barely usable (like all consumer grade grinders out of the box). They must be tightened with a wrench to keep them from moving, and there is no way to tilt them side to side. They can be moved up or down, in or out, or tilted toward or away from the wheel. Movement on any one of these axes affects the others, and tightening with the wrench invariably moves the tool rest a bit. One of the first things I will be doing is making or buying some better tool rests.
My verdict: This is a good grinder. Mine required me to purchase parts at the local hardware store (total cost less than $10) in order to assemble it completely. These kind of oversights leave a bad first impression.
However, I think the grinder is basically sound, with plenty of power, and is well constructed. I think it is more than enough grinder for my needs. For the price, it's a very good value, and I can recommend it to any one who needs a good solid grinder with plenty of power.
