Central Machinery 8" Bench Grinder

I read a lot of reviews on just about every brand made today and I ended ,once again, here with the Harbor Freight model. Their website says the motor is a 6 to 8 amp, which may be a starting amperage draw. But the actual box it comes in states that it is a 5 amp motor which is probably the continuous amperage draw. It most certainly has more power than my 3.2 amp 6 inch grinder. It in fact has plenty of power. If you do your own search you'll notice that many of the China made brands use the exact same motor and base, so most of these are made by the same manufacturer. It really doesn't matter what China made brand you purchase, they will often shake or vibrate a little, which is due to the wheels being out of balance. So you will have to get a decent diamond dressing wheel and true up the sides and face of the wheels. Once this is done you should have a pretty smooth running grinder. I worked on this one for 5 or 10 minutes to achieve this. These actually have a pretty decent rating on the Harbor Freight site,even in one business that has mulitple ones in heavy use. And like any ratings you read you have to allow for the negative reviews some products get because the users aren't willing to due a little work to true up or tune a tool for use, and for those who just don't know how to use a tool properly etc., etc. The tool rests on these are pretty much crap so I threw mine out. I use a really nice Veritas grinder tool rest( see review on this site) that I mounted in front of one of the wheels, but you could certainly make a decent rest easily enough from some angle iron. The clear plastic guards work , but I find that they get in the way more often than not when grinding larger pieces so, I just wear safety glasses or a face shield. If you really have to do your own research then be my guest , but you won't find a better value on an 8 inch grinder than this ,especially when you apply their 20 or 25 % coupon toward the purchase. For example compare this grinder to the popular selling Dewalt. It sells for $127.00 and all it has over the CM one is a better tool rest, or the JEt model that sells for over two hundred dollars. It has better tools rests , a better switch and dust collection ports on the shrouds, which in my opinion aren't necessary. But as far as power goes they are virtually the same. If you really have to have the best bench grinder, then buy all means ,get a Baldor , but start saving today, cause you'll pay 10 times the price or more, for a new one, of equal horse power. And to me that just doesn't make a whole lot of good sense, since I could use that money for a good hand plane or other woodworking tool .