I have a 4.5" Makita, which is lovely. I have a new 4.5" Dewalt, which has some weird modern motor that starts slowly and has a longer, skinnier body than I am used to. It works just fine. I have a Powerfist 7", which would be the Harbor Freight unit cast in yellow plastic to be sold at Princess Auto in Canada. It is used with a thin cutting disc, and has cut a lot of stuff just fine.
Two bits of advice- Don't buy a 4" grinder, because they are built with a smaller body and a slide switch, generally. Hate the slide switch and no handle. Second, if you do buy a HF unit, set it upside down on the bench, and run it under no load for an hour or two to break in the brushes and wear the high spots off the gears. Dunno if it actually does anything, but they seem quieter and longer lasting if you do this.
I have a Bosch 1380 slim. Had it for 10 years. Nothing ever broke on it. Lots of power. I'd buy another one if this one breaks.
I use a Milwaukee M12 cut off tool at work occasionally. Swivel head and reversible, works great for small, quick jobs in tight places.
I've had the $10 HF angle grinder for nearing 20 years and it's......perfectly acceptable. I guess I don't use it much compared with some of you but it sits there on the shelf for months at a time and when I need to grind metal it does it without issue.
If I was earning a living with it I'd probably spend more but for me it's fine. I have another on the shelf cause it was on sale for $10 and I figured it'd be a good backup plan but haven't needed it yet.
Had a Dewalt angle grinder for a decade or more, then one day it just quit working. Wouldn't come on.
Replaced it with a Milwaukee M18 cordless one, but man that thing chews through batteries. Also, it has a current protection so if you really are working it, it shuts it off.
So I bought a coded Chicago Pneumatic (HF) mid-level one, has a nice switch and worked great for about a year, then it failed exactly the same as the DeWalt- just quit turning on.
So I'm back to the M18 and making sure I keep the batteries topped off. The cordless deal is really nice when you have to go behind the back barn and grab a piece of pipe out of the scrap pile and slice off just what you need, without dragging the whole piece back to the shop or running 100' of extension cord.
I'm still using the Makita corded I bought >30 years ago for almost all tasks. I also have a cheap HF unit that I put a brush cup on, and "the big honkin'" HF angle grinder for when "it gets real."
I'm partial to the Milwaukee grinders, we had the paddle switch Milwaukee grinders in my high school shop class so that's what I've been using since I starting learning fabrication. I have two of the Milwaukee M18 cordless grinders and a corded Milwaukee. The cordless grinders go through batteries fast but if you have a couple batteries to run in rotation it's not an issue. The use-anywhere-ness of the cordless grinders is amazing.
Instead of Starting a new thread... Maybe the hive can help me with this here..
I have a large Bosch 15amp grinder. It uses switch part number 1607000704. I took it apart because it would fire up sometimes every squeeze and sometimes it would take 10-12 tries. The contacts were clearing in need of a cleaning. Now I can't figure out how it goes back together.
Just one of those days I guess. I don't know if I dropped a part or what. Somebody wouldn't have an exploded view of the switch around.. All the diagrams I have found show it as a unit for a replacement part.
Variable speed will change you life.
* this claim is solely related to the life you live while using a grinder
mad_machine said:
how are the battery powered ones?
I use my Rigid cordless all the time. Its a total powerhouse and with only a 4.0(4000mah) battery it will last for over 3 hours of constant grinding/sanding/cutting. I use it more than my Ryobi corded version.
californiamilleghia said:
30 Years ago Makita was the one to have ,
I have one of these. I "borrowed" it from my father when I moved out and have been using it for close to 20 years. What a beast. It lives with a flapper wheel on it. I got a dewalt corded for christmas a few years ago and that's always got a cutoff disc. I've been thinking about getting another for a wire wheel. When I was building the hotside piping for my turbo trans am I burned up a rotozip with a cutoff wheel to the point the grip was bubbling. I should probably go easier on my tools.
Curtis said:
ebonyandivory said:
Buy three Harbor Freight versions!
Actually I came here to say NOT the HF versions 
They don't suck for a few projects here and there, but they have either plastic or pot metal gears (pneumatic and corded, respectively) and they don't last. Having said that, my pneumatic 1/4" angle grinder lasted about a year, and my corded 4" angle grinder lasted almost two before giving up the ghost.
Normally I would say HF all the way, but these are two areas where they just don't seem to shine for me. YMMV
Yeah but there is a coupon in the latest magazine to get them for about $10 .....
and I had one last less than a day.........
californiamilleghia said:
Curtis said:
ebonyandivory said:
Buy three Harbor Freight versions!
Actually I came here to say NOT the HF versions
They don't suck for a few projects here and there, but they have either plastic or pot metal gears (pneumatic and corded, respectively) and they don't last. Having said that, my pneumatic 1/4" angle grinder lasted about a year, and my corded 4" angle grinder lasted almost two before giving up the ghost.
Normally I would say HF all the way, but these are two areas where they just don't seem to shine for me. YMMV
Yeah but there is a coupon in the latest magazine to get them for about $10 .....
and I had one last less than a day.........
My biggest complaint about the HF grinders is the ungodly noise the gears make. Grinders are noisy enough as it is without adding poorly meshed gears turning 14k rpms.
One of my Canadian Tire "Mastercraft" grinders bit the green weiner, so I replaced it with the cheapest corded 4.5" Milwaukee. I'll certainly buy another of those.
And dudes - wear ear protection, eh?
In reply to Robbie :
I concur with Robbie here in the Ryobi cordless.
Due to limited power in my garage. All my power tools except the welder are Ryobi 18v cordless. And the angle grinder is okay but not great. I can make ~4-5 cuts on 16-gauge mild per 4ah battery. Or I can strip maybe a third of a fender on a battery. Fortunately, I have four batteries and two chargers.
Edit: Also seriously guys - PPE! Ears, Eyes, Mouth. Mine hang right here above the respirator on my 'Helhook' (I was wearing them I shot this pic!).
