Fed up with the metal particles and wheel grit strewn all over my sharpening station, I decided to house my bench grinder in a simple plywood box. The box corrals the detritus and provides a mounting place for a task light overhead for good grinding visibility. An “undercounter” fluorescent light (available at home supply stores) was easy to attach and serves the job well.
I also wanted to accommodate a variety of grinding jigs and tool rests to suit my turning tools, chisels, and plane irons. The solution: attach the grinder to a plywood panel that mounts atop two pairs of solid wood cleats centered under the grinding wheels. The resulting channels accept support arms for mounting my various jigs and tool rests. I can secure each arm in its channel at any location with a stud lock knob that threads into a T-nut attached to the underside of the panel.
