I built a belt grinder about seven years ago and it very quickly became the most frequently used machine in my shop.
As a starting point I used the ”grinder in a box” from Polar Bear Forge (think it was about $250 or so) it is 1/2 steel plates that are waterjet cut and you bolt together. I have mills a lathe and access to a local metal supplier so I made most everything else. I used a 3hp 3 phase motor and a VFD to make it variable speed which I highly recommend. Also, I machined a three inch and a five inch drive pulley for the motor to give even more RPM range than the VFD. I made four grinder attachments, flat platen, an 8” to 2” slack belt, a 12” wheel (to hollow grind) and a grinder arm with replaceable wheels from 3/8” to 2.5” to grind a specific size radius.
I used 6x6 steel tube for the base upright and 2x6 tube for the feet. It is a little heavy to roll around a lot but not bad. It will eat up steel more than 10x faster than a grinder and with variable speed it is highly controllable.
Just guessing but I probably have $1,000 in parts and about 100 hours of labor in it, that said, it was an invaluable addition to my shop.
Keith
