A Grinding Stone By Any Other Name...

Whether it is a grinding stone, antique grinding stone, pedal powered grinding wheel...  It's still cool... at least to me.  According to the website http://www.ehow.com/about_5117137_history-grinding-wheel.html the 'modern' wheel was created in 1873 in Mass by Sven Pulson using a fired mixture of clay, emery particles and water.  Anywhooo...  Bryan and I found a wheel in 1996 at our first house in Maple Valley, WA - just the wheel without the stand.  I placed it here and there in flower beds and made Bryan move it first from Maple Valley to Monroe, WA and on to New Mexico.  There, while out to lunch with friends, I saw one (larger than mine) on a stand. I had my friend Melissa take a photo of it & email it to me.   I sent the photo to my amazing Dad (who can build anything) and asked him to make me a stand.

On one of his trips to visit, he took the stone home with him and a few months later - voila!  I have a pedal-powered grinder.  It's TERRIFIC and works like a charm (if I were a bit more coordinated).  I was able to get it home this past week.  Dad took bits & pieces from various farm implements around the ranch and even created square headed screws to make it more 'authentic'.  He's very good at what he does.

Here's some photos of the finished product and Dad demonstrating how to use it.  I've used it to ruin one of Dad's screw drivers (who knew they didn't need to be sharpened?), sharpened one of his chisel's and once I was home I sharpened one of my hand-held mattock - worked great!!

Dad demonstrating the wheel