Advice on polishers/buffers

[Gerhard Gerber]

Hi Everybody

I was planning on buying a bench grinder to use it as a polisher/buffer, went to another shop yesterday, best price so far and 350W rather than the 150W's I found so far.
Problem being they have a dedicated 2 wheel polisher as well. 
Unfortunately the dedicated tool is exactly double the price.

I'm unsure about the rpm of both.

I do know from my current setup that the 350W is more than enough, what I would like to know is how important is speed (rpm) for the performance of a polisher/buffer?

At double the price I would have to wait and save, but it would be better to only buy once as I've proven to myself by buying the biggest press drill I could afford.

Problem in this case is polishing is not that high on my list of priorities

[Sparky415]

Problem in this case is polishing is not that high on my list of priorities

I had a 150w grinder that I put mops on, the grinder got very hot when run for a time
Can you get your hands on a single phase secondhand motor?
My polisher is driven with a motor from a hot tub pump

[Sparky415]

When I started this madness I was using a Dremel
I upgraded to an hand held electric drill and mop held in a workmate
Then I got 150w grinder and put two mops on it, as I say it was getting very hot, ok for little stuff

I then got the beginnings of my present set up
It was from ebay, I run it for a while but the bearing got smoking hot  so I replaced them with the present 'pillow block' (?) bearings
and I'm on my third motor, this one is sealed the others didn't like metal dust for some reason 

(Replacing a poorly fitting pully)

[Gerhard Gerber]

Thanks for the suggestions Tony, but best I could do for a motor is buying a new one at the same shop........stronger, but the same price.

Think I've made my mind up, found out the purpose-built polisher runs at the same rpm as the bench grinder, 2950, and for half the additional money my buddy with the engineering shop will make 2 extensions for the shafts to give me more room.

I'm in a bit of a challenging situation, my baby belt grinders and press drill reside on my porch, my living/tv room is my workshop for "clean" jobs......which explains why no wife/gf 
There's also somebody else's garage with a workbench and a vice that I use on occasion, but it's not my space to do with as I please.

Also, I rent, so one day I'll need to pack all that in and take it smurf-knows where.

I thought 40+ bonsai were tough to move, the forge, anvil and assorted tools has taken me into a new dimension of trouble when that day arrives 

Long story short, nowhere to build a setup like that.  If I could, a DIY belt grinder would be first on the list 

[Sparky415]

I did have it on a board that then clamped to my workmate at one point (with a bag of sand across the bottom to stop it walking around  )
I would have to remove it to clamp on my bench vice, chop saw etc
So it is doable but it gets annoying very quickly

Oh and I still call mine  'The Spork polisher' which is what I first needed a polisher for 

But it sounds like you have a good plan Gerhard