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what brand grinder do you like......Edit......bought one

We use entirely Milwaukee grinders at the factory with no problems. A supplier cut us a deal on a 6" Metabo? and its probably the most used one in the shop and most liked. Not sure the price of these things first one I had ever saw or heard of.
 
I have makitas.. same at school ( the more expensive heavier amp version of the 4 1/2 incher)... I havent burned one out yet and I USE them and I have dropped tme many many times.. thats a sign of a good tool.. when they still work after getting repeatedly dropped on concrete floors,,, some of them are approaching 16 years old... Ive never maintained them,,, even my big 9 inchers have needed magnets


I like the way the switch sits on them,,, I dont like the flip switch of the dewalt and some others (although most of my power tools are dewalt)
 
I love my dewalt. I've beat the living piss out of it and it keeps on chuggin' along.

Whatever you do, don't by a Ryobi. I got one from homodepot on sale one time. One day I was cutting off my exhaust behind the muffler and the blade bound up just a little bit. It really wasn't that bad... similar bind happens with my Dewalt all the time with no issues. At any rate, the entire "head" of the grinder got torn off. The metal housing that is behind the spindle thingy (where you attach the wheels) just snapped and the whole end of the grinder fell on the ground. I'll never use one of the those POS things again. Lucky I didn't get seriously injured.

j
 
I used a snap on once and hated it, it had the paddle type trigger and no lock feature for the trigger. you had to hold it on the entire time of use. my hands were killing me after a few hours of use. for that reason I dont like paddle type triggers.

the Makita switch is easy to use and lock in the on possition. I DO NOT recomend getting rid of the guard like alot of guys do. I cut my guard to just about 2 inches wide so it gives me protection but gains me clearence to grind.


I used a buds grinder that had the guard removed and choked up on it for better control, instead of hitting the guard like Im used on mine, I hit the wheel, ground right through the top of my knuckle almost into the tendon, it hurt but good.
 
rjfguitar said:
Milwaukie, Dewault, and Makita are likely the top three in that order.

I use Dewault and Milwaukie myself.
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Exactly, we have a makita cold saw and grinder and they are great quality, but most of our stuff is dewalt and milwaukee when you can afford the difference.

For instance we have both the dewalt and milwaukee chop saw and the milwaukee unit is much better. Less blade movement, better vise, better quick release angle, etc

Jesse
 
oh yeah, I do have one complaint about my Dewalt... and that is that the switch is slowly but surely going to crap and the grinder will turn off on occassion if I don't hold the slider all the way forward with a thumb. If you use a grinder for several hours, this gets very very old after a while. lol!

I'm going to get a HF $12 grinder next time they are on sale... maybe two of them. I use grinder wheels, cut off wheels and flappers... it'd be nice to not have to bust out the wrench and waste the time changing wheels.

j
 
Brians89K5 said:
I spent 20 bucks on my 4 inch grinder from Harbor freight. I figured for 20 bucks I cant go wrong. That was 3 years ago and I cant get the damned thing to die...

~Brian
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Me as well. I have a Dewalt 7" and just bought the Harbor Freight thing for tight spaces. I'm on my 2nd set of brushes but the stupid thing keeps going. It's noisy, rumbles like it's out of balance and just grinds away.

However, harbor freight grinding wheels leave ALOT to be desired.
 
i agree.... harbor freight cutting and grinding disks blow..... not worth the money or aggravation of changing out every 2 min :)
 
I have used my Milwaukee 4-1/2" grinder for over 10 years now. I let the smoke out of it (literally) a few times, but it kept coming back for more. It finally developed an issue (haven't diagnosed it yet--probably a cord, but might be the switch) so I bought a few Harbor Freight 4-1/2" grinders so I wouldn't have to keep changing wheels. They actually work better than I thought they would, but obviously nowhere near the quality of Milwaukee.

One side note to all who use HF grinders: The plastic the grinder is made of it FLAMMABLE!!!!! I found this out the hard way when a piece of slag got under my welding blanket and found the HF grinder and lit it up. Being under the blanket, I didn't notice it burning. It ended up burning into oblivion and taking the floor covering it was sitting on with it. My Milwaukee grinder has several chunks of slag melted into the housing, but never lit up the housing.

If I was to buy another Milwaukee grinder I would get one with the removable cord.

Milwaukee = "little more money" = worth every penny
 
We have a dewalt at work whichs gets used and abuse daily, goin on 4 years strong. Dad has a Skill is probably 15 or 20 years old. Still works great, I used it to clean up my 14FF the other weekend actually
 
We use Makitas and are getting Bosch's to replace them at work. I hate Makitas. Seems the bearings go really fast. Bosch 12 amp 4.5" kick mucho ass!
 
I getting a 10 amp 4.5" dewalt. I ordered it through my friends hardware store, gotta support the local guy. Its there but I won't have a chance to pick it up for a couple of days. and probably won't use it for a couple days after that. I got a lot of use out of my old Dewalt so this one should last.

Thanks for everyones input.
 
i have used dewalts since I remember, I have killed all three, killed a ryobe too real quick, so far my favorit is the black and decker firestorm, it is longer and very well balanced. it makes the cheap 30.00 black and decker look like crap when compared. I love it more than my old dewalts. the last firestorm I just replaced had been in service for maybe a year, it got dropped a zillion times, killed the cord a bunch, left on the buggy and rained on multiple times and I even backed over it. I cant say a bad thing about it:D
 
I just bought a $10.00 Toolshop brand 4 1/2 inch. Ill let you guys know if it survives friday or not. It came with extra brushes to replace with the ones it in wear out:haha:
 
I used the el cheapo grinder friday with a wire wheel to clean up my Dana 44. Works great so far no complaints.
 
UPDATE DONT BUY THAT CHEAP GRINDER

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when I got the new grinder home I looked on the old one and realized it was only a 5 amp.

So far the new 10 amp Dewalt is great. tons of power and the wheels are really easy to change.
 
well not saying any cheap-o brand is fine...... but some brands of cheap-o are ok and last. the reason i have put in my $.02 about harbor freights
 
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