JET 6-Inch Bench Grinder, 3450 RPM, 1/4 HP, 115V 1Ph (Model JBG-6A)

My old grinder just died so knowing about this industrial duty Jet grinder from my toolroom days, decided to get it even at a higher price because I was often frustrated with the cheap ones not having much power. This grinder is so smooth and quiet, built like a tank, much heavier with no vibration. Do not go on just the advertised amperage of all the non industrial ones sold to the masses. This 5 amp one seems 2X the torque or more than the older cheaper grinder I had and another I have used. From what I have seen, many / most Industrial made products usually do not overrate their power. There's a lot of copper in this motor. I choose the 6 " over the 8" size standard ones because of the surface speed is not too fast and the you also get a 1/3 more torque with the smaller wheels. Also the industrial motor is smaller in diameter than the wheels; this is important so that you can sharpen mower blades holding them either way off from the wheels. You will not be disappointed with this grinder. The only odd thing was the tool rests surfaces were not ground smooth but left as raw castings. I put them on my belt sander and they cleaned up well before I installed them.

Good value. Easy assembly. Nice heavy cast iron wheel guard and tool rest. The motor accelerates to speed very quickly and is very powerful for just a 6" grinder. I'd buy again.

After reading all the horror stories about under-powered grinders that vibrate tools off the workbench I was a little hesitant to purchase the Jet 6" grinder since there were no reviews. Given the Jet 8" grinder had a lot of good reviews I decided to take a chance. The grinder arrived well packed, in perfect condition, no missing parts and assembly was easy. Once assembled I was ready for the power-on test and was prepared to deal with some vibration. Upon hitting the power button the grinder came up to speed quickly and ran smooth. When I say smooth, I mean GLASS smooth. I'm not kidding, it ran so smooth and quiet that you almost could not tell it was running. I did some test grinding on pieces of scrap that I had laying around and the grinder seems very powerful. This grinder should be perfect for my home workshop.

I originally went with the Jet 6" bench grinder instead of cheaper options because of the positive reviews about smoothness and adequate power posted earlier. When I received mine and tried it out for the first time, there was a considerable wobble/vibration in one of the wheels. The fine wheel on the left had a slight wobble, but was o.k., however the course wheel on the right had a good 1/8" wobble at the outer circumference. This caused the whole machine to have an annoying noise / vibration at full speed and to "shudder" briefly at about 1/3 speed upon wind-up and slow-down.I must say, at this point though, that aside from the wobble issue, the whole grinder seems very well built and is incredibly "Beefy." I was very impressed with the cast iron wheel housings and tool rests, ... much better than the stamped sheet metal on cheaper models. The unit was nice and heavy and did not budge during normal use just sitting on its rubber feet on my workbench. The motor seemed very powerful and did not bog down at all under any normal usage.I sent the machine back to Amazon for a return (which went very smoothly), in hopes that the second machine would live up to earlier reviews in regards to smoothness. The second machine was much better, but there was still a slight wobble, maybe 1/16" visible upon slow rotation of the wheels by hand. The noise and vibration during operation was much less noticeable than the earlier machine.Looking more closely at the construction and possible culprits, it appeared to me that the stamped "cup" flanges on either side of the wheels may not have been stamped perfectly flat/true from one surface to the other. There is a larger diameter flat surface on the inside (against the wheel) and a smaller diameter flat surface on the outside (against the nut or shaft shoulder) with about 1/8" offset. If the two surfaces aren't parallel, even a little bit, in that 1" radius, it will introduce quite a wobble by the time you get out to 6 inches. This time I called Jet customer service and they agreed to send me 4 new stamped flange washers.Upon the arrival of the new flange washers, they did look a lot better than the originals. I installed them and they did help some. Finally, thinking that the stock supplied wheels may not be perfectly flat/round either, I used a diamond wheel dresser to lightly dress the sides and face of the wheels. This also helped considerably. It is currently running quite smoothly, ... probably 98%, well within acceptable levels.Another "Tweak" for anyone wanting to run a wire brush:When I got the machine, I was pleased because it looked like the wheel housings had adequate space to run a wide face wire brush on one side, so I went out and bought a nice Forney wire wheel. However, when I went to install it, I realized that the space was just marginally enough, and that you could not install a wire wheel using the original supplied flanges. My "work-around" was to go to the hardware store and get a couple of the thinnest grade-8 7/16" flat washers that I could find. I actually ended up going to 2 places because the ones that Aubuchon Hardware carried were just a hair thinner than the ones at Ace, which actually did make a difference, ... the wide face wheel has to be perfectly centered or the wires will rub on the inside of the housing. A 7/16" (made to go on a 7/16" bolt) flat washer is "supposed to be" 1/2" inside dia., however, because a washer is not a precision fit, the stamping will often leave slightly less clearance. A 1/2" washer (made for use with a 1/2" bolt) will have too much "slop," so the best bet is to get 7/16" washer and just smooth up the inside with a Dremmel tool and a small sanding drum. This will allow you to get a perfect fit on the 1/2" shaft. If you want to run a narrow face wire wheel, using a "stack" of washers on either side of the wheel would probably work well. Make sure to look through the bin at the hardware store to find the flattest / thinnest (for the wide face wheel) ones in the bunch as there is more variation than I expected.Another thing you might run into is that the nut/shaft-threads on one side that holds the wheel on is right-hand thread and the other side is left-hand thread. This is great for keeping the wheels from loosening up during operation, but makes it really tough for loosening and tightening down the nuts when changing wheels, especially if you end up with them both loose/off at the same time. Tightening one wheel will loosen the other. However, if you look at the end of the shaft on the left side, there is a slot that fits a 5/16" flat screwdriver perfectly.Having a flat somewhere on the shaft for a wrench, or even a detent button to lock the shaft (like on an angle grinder or Dremmel tool) might have worked a lot better, but I have never seen a bench grinder with this feature. The instruction booklet just tells you to hold firmly onto the other wheel, but if that one is not tight already, or if it is not quite as tight as the one you're working on, you're kind of screwed. Using the 5/16" screwdriver is adequate, but it's difficult to get the nuts good and tight working against a screwdriver with a wrench. As soon as I have time, I'm going to get a long handled 5/16" flat screwdriver to dedicate to the bench grinder. I'll heat up the shaft of the screwdriver about 2" behind the end and bend it at a 90 in the vise. This way I'll be able stick the end in the slot and rest the handle on the bench and have a positive hold while tightening down the wheel nuts.One last thing that might have been thought out slightly better is the adjustment mechanism for the eye guards. There is a nice little hand knob on one side of each adjustment, which is great, but the other side of the fastener is a #3 Phillips screw. So, even though you have a handy-dandy adjustable knob, you still need a screw driver to complete the adjustment. Next time I'm in the hardware store, I'm going to search the little drawers for some kind of 1/4-20 (1/2" -3/4" long threaded portion) male wing-nut or knob to make this completely hand-adjustable.Hope this helps, Mike

good product great price product arrived quickly and works great no out of balance vibrations.

Really a shame that you can't get one made in USA.

This is the second JET grinder I've gotten in the last year. The first one replaced a 50yr old, worn out 6" JW Tool grinder my Dad had. I bought the larger 8" JET #578008. This second one is to use with the 6" wire and polishing wheels so I don't have to keep swapping wheels on the 8" one. I already had new wheels off of the old JW Tools grinder. Bothe of these grinders are heavy for their size. I've used them simply sitting on my bench. Both are extremely smooth and nearly zero vibration using both grinding wheels and wire wheels, right out of the box. I do quite a bit of metal work. I certainly would recommend either of these JET grinders.

Grinder arrived this week, very quick shipping. Came well packaged (in Jet box, not a reboxed Amazon box), with all parts present. Does require some assembly for tool rests and eye guards, but that was easily and quickly done.Grinder spun up quickly when first turned on, no wobble or shake at all, remained perfectly still on the bench when at full speed. Have only done cursory grinds so far on an old knife just to test it, may add some more comments once I get to some heavier loads with axes and larger blades this weekend. So far, so good, happy with the quality for the cost and investment.