Which Grinder Should I Buy? | Owning a Grinder: Episode 1

hello there i'm tom griffin welcome to

episode one of owning a grinder

we're going to talk about the different

types of grinders the results that come

from the different types of grinders and

when and where to use each of these

different types of grinders

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to start let's talk about the different

types of grinders that are available on

market

to my knowledge excluding hand grinders

there's four types you have direct

grinds past the planetary active

planetary and counter rotational

national in our line of grinders offers

three types but our helix is actually

two different types in one and it's one

of the only ones on the market or the

only one on the market that i know that

can do that

so we'll start over here we'll talk

about

direct grind and passive planetary

direct grind is great when you are going

to be removing a coating off of the

concrete or the floor and you have to

use tools that are directional meaning

they have to move in a specific way in

order to be effective

past the planetary is great for prepping

concrete the tooling on the bottom of

the grinder is going to follow the path

of least resistance it's still going to

leave a really

nice even scratch pattern

but it's got a lot less moving parts and

a lot less potential maintenance for you

active planetary so

that's going to be any machine that's

planetary where your main hub spins in

one direction and your satellites spin

in the opposite

and they're either gear driven or belt

driven

ours is a kevlar belt driven on the

8274-4

it's really great for an even scratch

pattern so we're talking about polishing

or something where really having an even

perfectly even surface profile

you're going to want to go with a

profile

or a counter rotational on a counter

rotational you've got different heads

that interlock and the tools will

actually as they move

kind of interlock you've got two heads

or more that spin in opposite directions

of each other

so that kind of combines the best of

both worlds they're gear driven

but you can use your

omnidirectional tools so your diamonds

but you can also put directional tools

on there for removing coatings and

prepping the floor in a specific way so

now that i've explained the different

types of grinders let's talk about the

different environments where i as you

know tom's concrete prep might use these

different machines

so the direct grind or the passive

planetary

we're talking about the occasional user

or the entry level user

small spaces commercial offices where

it's harder to get a big grinder in

homes garages because this is a 110 volt

machine

so as long as you've got you know a 20

amp breaker then you're all set you're

good to go

this machine isn't really used for

polishing so we're really talking about

surface prep with this we're talking

about removing coatings removing paint

and making sure that your profile on the

concrete is good for your next

application

the 8274-4

great small polishing machine it can do

the same prep

that the helix can do but it can also

polish up to a 3000 mirror finish

so this has a lot more versatility on

there

and you could still use this in small

commercial you can still use this in

homes

but it is a little bit bigger so you

know here in colorado where i'm at the

helix is a lot easier to get down into a

basement uh for um quote-unquote man

cave uh then you know trying to get the

8274-4 down there or any of our bigger

grinders

gp 500 our gp 700 are bigger counter

rotational grinders

those are going to be great for larger

open spaces you can still do a garage

with them they're going to prep a lot

faster

than the 110 volt machines but we're

talking about 220

single phase or 220 three-phase power

not as readily available in commercial

spaces you can still get some of that at

home or if you're running out for

generators

but i would use these maybe in a smaller

warehouse like we have here at our

training facility

or you know a bigger garage or patio

outside

that would be where i would use some of

these bigger machines

one that we don't have featured here are

gp 3000 that's what we're talking about

larger warehouses larger open spaces

because you just need some room to

maneuver the actual machine around

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here's a great demonstration of the

different types of scratch patterns that

our machines will make

starting here

both of these are with the helix

one here on my right

is the passive planetary so a lot of

people think that even though it's

passive planetary that it follows a path

of least resistance that it's going to

be a really uneven scratch pattern but

what you can see here

as i came to the end of this row it's a

really even scratch pattern and even

going back we've got a lot of highs and

lows our concrete here is pretty poor as

far as

levelness goes but you can really see

that it leaves a very even scratch

pattern and that it really does profile

across the full working width of the

head

directly below me

is also the helix but this is the direct

drive

so you can actually see the full circles

that the diamonds made as they went

so

that's where when you're using a

directional tooling like a carbide chip

or a pcd it's really going to force the

tools in that direction and it's really

going to help

work across the full width and make it

very even nice profile

beautiful star pattern

is reminiscent of anyone that's ever

seen a

active planetary machine so any

planetary machine out there on the

market is going to leave a scratch

pattern in the star shape similar to

this because literally your diamond

tools are following that sort of pattern

so it really forces the tools around it

leaves a very even profile

across the full working width

and then last but not least is our

counter rotational grinder so you can

actually see there's kind of two

competing circles here they slightly

overlap but not really and as you move

on the

counter rotational machine as i walked

you're actually kind of grinding like

this so you're overlapping each of those

so you don't end up with cornrows um and

then also when you would make your next

pass you're just gonna barely do it on

the outside

uh so just a quick note the concrete

that i did this demo on we have hardener

densified it probably about eight or

nine times it's been polished multiple

times

this is about as hard of concrete as you

can get and doing a really quick pass

with our machines on here was able to

produce this so just imagine what would

happen if you were actually on a job

site and taking your time

these machines would be able to open

this up beautifully whichever one you

choose

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you