I have a home built handle grinder that a friend helped me build many years ago and I recently modified. It was a 3" wide wet sander originally that I modified to run Bader small wheels and 2x36" belts (or 1x30 or 1.5x30). 1/2 HP 1750 RPM motor stepped down with a pulley to around 900 RPM. I use 2x36" belts normally and found Combat Abrasives sells J Flex belts in that size, so I get the 40 grit shredders for profiling and bulk handle removal, and then use 80 grit to refine and then J Flex 120, 220 and 400. I have a 1/2, 1 and 2" Bader small wheel I use on it. Works great, but the 1/2 HP motor I am using isn't TEFC, so I will be upgrading at least the motor. Since it was set up for a 3" wide belt, the tracking and stuff sucks and the tension adjustment is a pain and with the aluminum frame, I am not sure how long the tension screw hole will hold up before it strips out. With the wider wheels, everything sticks out from the frame, so its not super solid, but it has been working well. I may look at making something like this just for handle shaping, but at that point, I may as well get a real 2x72 for belt versatility and more add ons available. Or I may try to replace the 3" wide wheels with better 2" wide drive/tension wheels.
I was able to do some blade convexing/thinning on a hardened blank in the slack belt area with it recently, but it's not the best. Currently I do most handles on premade knife blanks, so this works really well for that, but I want to get a better belt sander to run small contact wheels for handle profiling and also work on grinding blades again.
I took a solid tire from the hardware store (and some caster wheels, too)and tried to make it into a contact wheel, but the wheel wasn't very true and the bearing ID was sloppy. I tried to true it up using my Drill press as a lathe, but it's a cheap wheel that is really unbalanced. Plus having the wider tracking wheels means that the wheel is fairly far away from the arm bar, so it gets wobbly, so that may be the next project with the motor.
Here is a video with the small wheels and the 8" tire I tried.
drive.google.com
drive.google.com
I got the idea from the Jiffy Conversion for a 4x36, so I drilled 2 holes to do the bolt and plate to clamp an arm to the side of the frame. I have a 4x36, but the frame is very flimsy and vibrates way too much, so I decided to modify the 3" wide one. Some of the 2x42 sanders out there may be able to accommodate a Jiffy Converson type setup better to run small wheels and slack belt for handle shaping, but most have 3450 RPM motors. I have this one running around 900 RPM for the small wheels and so I don't burn handle material with finer belts.
Don't laugh, it actually works very well for handles, but the motor issue, the 3" wide wheels, concern over the tensioner system, etc have me looking for a better setup, like the Origin Blade maker, Wilmont LB1000, etc and using the 2 speed drive wheel to reduce the speed down to where it is now until I get a VFD setup. Its a pain changing belts, tensioning, tracking, etc and I want to use a bigger contact wheel to rough out the handles and also have a flat platen to grind blades again, too.
Oh, I was able to make a Puukko from a Lauri PT95 blank this weekend and was able to shape brass, damagrip, leather and canvas micarta in the handle up to 400 grit j flex belt without burning the leather, so the 900 rpm speed works pretty well for me. With good ceramic belts, it removes Micarta and G10 pretty quickly at the slower speed.
