Back to the Grindstone.

The dry grinding wheel still works fine.

I broke my grindstone.  I spent the morning working on an book review that I'd planned to wrap up in December and then in the afternoon I moved into the workshop to tackle a few copper pressure flakers for a friend in New York.  Of course, just as I was about to finish up in the workshop I broke a gear in my wet/dry grinder because I tried to rush thawing the block of ice in the wet grinder reservoir to get the wheel spinning again.  Now it looks like it won't ever spin again.

There's still lots of snow in
the yard, even after the rain
and warm temperatures
yesterday.

There is a nylon gear inside the grinder that runs the wet wheel and it is designed to fail in order to save the motor from burning out when there is too much resistance on the grinding wheel.  Its like blowing a fuse.  Unfortunately the machine is over 15 years old and apparently that replacement part is no longer produced, so it looks like I'm in the market for a new wet grinder.  I spent the last half of the afternoon looking around St. John's for a new one, but aside from some much smaller wet/dry grinders at Canadian Tire, I haven't had any luck finding a replacement, yet.  Even online it looks like it could be a challenge finding an upgrade.  I'll keep hunting.

The pressure flakers turned out fine.  I should be able to get the kits assembled and ready to ship tomorrow.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast