Building the Worden Grinder - the unexpurgated version

Hi All

When I made my own custom non sheet metal version of a Worden I used a turned reverse taper collet to hold the grinding wheel. It was turned outside, bored inside and parted off in one setting on the lathe. I made it a light press fit on the motor shaft.

When I bought the Asian electric motor it had a shoulder for the collet to bear against on the motor shaft which also had a screwed hole in the end of the shaft, I use this to clamp the tapered bore wheel holder against the taper with a clamp washer. Look towards the end of section 6 this MEW thread **LINK** If you are interested the rest of the build is posted.

I have fitted a decent Diamond cup wheel and it runs true. Remarkably the motor shaft still has negligible axial or radial play. I must be lucky, When I bought it (new) I expected to have to replace the bearings and shim it. But no problem at all. I did buy the motor from an industrial supplier, It looks like they have done their homework and picked a professional supplier in China.

The grinder itself is rock solid and there is very little vibration, Apart from a litre or so of epoxy and the motor the rest of the grinder came from steel the stock found in the workshop. I mainly use it for touching up tungsten and HSS lathe tools, I get a see your face in it mirror finish.

Regards
John

On my Worden, I reamed the wheel arbor when drilled/machined, and as such it is a very tight fit on the main motor spindle.

I have not had any issues with the wheel coming loose.

I have not had any issues with end float, etc. - maybe because cuts are light.

I can see issues if the arbor is slightly too large, but that's not how I machined mine.

I really like it - certainly I do wish that I did NOT have to use it, but somehow tools in my workshop do not magically sharpen themselves, unless an expensive UPS or FexEX package arrives at the takes-two-hours-to-drive-round-trip courier depot. The Worden ends up being both cheaper, *and* faster!

Is it a perfect design? Nope, but then, nothing in my workshop is, including me.

Off to finish my ER25 holder for it -

Another JohnS.

Tony:

As per your web writeup: the arc slot on the table; all I did was spend 5 minutes knocking off any high spots in the with a file, and just left it as is. The locking nut and pin seem to just float along just fine as is - so your idea of telling Kirk Burwell to get the tables laser cut is not necessary, in my (unasked for) opinion.

Another JohnS.

I may have mentioned this before but a nice finish on the Worden top plate can be done with an oscillating sander.

Regards the wheel becoming loose in use, I tighten it up correctly and later find the screws have loosened and then I can move the wheel on the shaft. Re-tighten and its fine,

I am going to re-do the fixings and use another 2 screws at 45 deg. to the center line. Its the obvious answer.

Clive

I thought perhaps my next comments should be in a new, seperate thread but I will let you guys decide:

Is there any good reason you could not take a variable speed lathe, cut most of the bed off it and use the crosslide, saddle and compound slide to manouvre the position of the cutter - which you could mount in an adjustable toolholder - and mount a grinding wheel to the spindle instead of a chuck?

Would this work as a tool and cutter grinder?

graham.

Hi Graham,

Your main problems (aside from and excess of rigidity at the expense of flexibility) could be:

• No facility to tilt the angle of the tool in the vertical plane.
• Some sort of indexed facility to rotate the tool.
• Allowing the part of the tool to be ground to be kept at the right level on the wheel when tilted (tilting raises or lowers the tool tip a surprising amount, probably more than any adjustable tool holder would compensate for).

That said you could address any or all of these with ingenuity.

Neil

Thank you for that Neil. I have just recently aquired a small lathe with a badly damaged bed but everything at the head end intact so I am looking to turn it into something useful

graham.