There's an ongoing interest in tool rests for bench grinders. I've played round with this one for a while, and people might find some of the details useful.
I use this to grind the blades of woodworking planes and HSS steel engine lathe tools except for acme thread tools.
The base cradle is a short piece of 5" channel iron with a large portion milled out of one end leaving just 2 prongs to support the pivots which are 1/2" shoulder bolts through reamed holes in the base into counter bored holes in the steel table.
The angle of the table is set by a simple, eccentric half turn cam. Turning the cam 180 degrees pivots the table through an arc of 30 degrees. The adjustment lever passes through an oversized hole in a shaft collar, so tightening the knurled knob locks the camshaft in place to hold the angle. By moving the base in or out and sometimes adding a shim to raise it, I can grind a tool angle from 0 degrees to 30 degrees.
The single carriage bolt and thumbscrew that holds the tool rest to the bench lets me pivot the rest slightly when I don't want to use the full width of the grinding wheel. I like to do this for the last passes close to the edge when I'm sharpening older plane blades of thick, very hard carbon steel to avoid burning the edge.
The miter gauge pivots 45 degrees left and right.
There's an aluminum barrier and drip edge on the bottom of the aluminum slide set close to the steel table to keep coolant and grit from getting between them. Most of it collects in the cut out quart oil bottle.
I had the brass cabinet pull lying around, so I screwed it on. It's very comfortable and secure in my hand.
