Benchmark Abrasives Grinder Rack

After the plasma water table build, I decided to rethink where I keep my tools. Especially my grinders and discs. I had a lot of fun building the plasma water table, but things would have went a lot smoother with more tool organization. It seems this is my nemesis lately. Shop tool organization makes all the difference in the world with efficiency and workflow. So I will start with my grinders and later I will make a metal clamp rack. As usual, I used the free version of Sketchup to visualize what I wanted to make. The final concept looked something like this.

I started out taking inventory of the metal I had on hand. Believe it or not, I found three good pieces of 1 1/2″ x 1/4″ flat bar in the trash near a construction site.

I fired up the Evolution S380-CPS and cut all my pieces to size. I then took them over to my Hercules bench grinder and grinded a 45° bevel on each piece to get a good weld. I laid the pieces out to get a good visualization of what I was trying to do. I also put the grinder discs to make sure I had my measurements correct.

I also used the Evolution to cut the 1/2″ round stock that I got from a local metal shop. I was going to do 3″ pegs, but did some measurements and decided on 5″ instead. using my Hercules bench grinder, I chamfered the ends and wire brushed the other sides to prep for welding.

After cutting and prepping for welding, I fired up my Hobart IronMan 230 and used my plasma water table to vertically clamp the rack base piece. For the base I will start on the lower grinder holder rack.

I welded each end piece from the outside and inside.

Then I laid that on my welding table and used a square and some clamps to start the frame assembly. After getting the left side square, I ran a bead down the 45° grove I made.

I continued building the frame out and was careful that I made every piece square.

I needed to drill the holes to hang on the wall before I did anything else. So I measured up my wall studs and found they were 16″ on center. I drilled the holes in the frame out with my Atlas drill press.

After the holes were drilled, I started grinding all the welds. I put the front piece of the grinder holder rack and welded that last. It came out good.

Now that the frame was done, I wanted to work on the pegs. I used my magnet arrows to place each peg 90° from the frame. I started with the far outside pegs and the center peg to get a good consistency as far as spacing on each row. Then I moved to each peg in between those pegs. It worked out well.

At last, all 15 pegs were welded in a nicely spaced grid and all were checked to have good clearance for each disc.

I then cleaned up my welds and prepped for painting.

After the paint dried I used a bubble level a screwed the frame to my wall studs using Kreg HD screws.

I opened up my box that Benchmark Abrasives sent me and to my surprise it was quite a variety of discs! They even sent some wire wheels as well! I appreciate Jack for sending me these discs and will continue to use these quality products.

Well, here it is in all its glory. All the discs fit perfectly in their own category. I still have room for 2 more grinders if needed. More than enough room for more discs. But this is a great start!