The essential bench grinder setup

Sharpening and grinding are common tasks in most sign shops, so it makes sense to do that as quickly and easily as possible. I bought a Multitool MT236 Grinder with the primary intentions of using it to sharpen my chisels, but quickly realized that it would be a real asset for about any shop. As you can see in the video on their site, a Multitool can do so much more than just sharpen.

The Multitool has four grinding surfaces: A 3.5-in. Contact Wheel, a Flat Platen, a Slack Belt, a 7-in. Disc. I use all of them, but the flat platen is the one I use for sharpening chisels. Once mounted to a bench grinder, the Multitool can be rotated to many angles, making it perfect for matching a chisel’s bevel.

On most benchtop stationary belt sanders, the belt feeds towards the user. But for sharpening chisels, the feed should ideally be away from the user. I don’t know of any that have a “reverse direction of motor” feature. So I mounted my bench grinder to a base, then work from the back side. This corrects the feed direction and allows me to press the chisel against the flat platen.