Motor Grinder Riser Casting

I want to make a tool & cutter grinding set up. I have bought a compound table from ARC ( surprisingly cheaply I might add) & although I have built a Tinker I am not totally happy. I want something better. To do a quorn would be an expensive risk & the work to the vertical post may be a bit beyond my abilities. My Tinker was made from a limited set of details no dimensions or instructions & no castings, so I was on the back foot from the start

I want a grinder & motor on a rise & fall post like the quorn but with a smooth post & a screw thread to do the adjusting.

What I need would be a casting to fit the post, carry the grinder spindle & the motor backplate

Does anyone know of anything out there? Or are there any drawings for something that I can fabricate? I feel quite capable but really need detailed drawings. Plus, of course, a casting would be preferable to a welded assembly, But not impossible.

Blackgates do the stent castings.

Sam

Back around 2005 or thereabouts I planned to make a tool & cutter grinder and did a fairly comprehensive literature survey to find something combining a decent range of capabilities with a reasonably short build time.

Ruling out the Quorn before even starting the list due to its notoriously long build time combined with some, in my eyes, seriously infelicitous design choices given its target market and likely duties.

The Bonelle is a Quorn re-worked to be made form stock materials and is said to be a much faster build with some advantages in use. It carries the wheel head on a simple column with an elevating screw alongside, a much easier build than the Quorn column. Soemthing you could easily copy.

I considered the Stent and other casting kits but decided the cost of the castings was more than I was prepared to pay. The Stent also sprawls taking up a fair bit of bench space. I felt the Worden was too limited as were a variety of simple one trick pony end mill and similar sharpeners.

I eventually settled on a design by Derek Brooks published in the April / May and June/July issues of MEW for 1993 as offering a decent balance of build effort and capabilities. In particular it combines a simple column to carry the wheel head with an elegantly simple way of building the X-Y table and a decently simple set of work holders. Its capabilities are basically that of a small Clarkson albeit without the extra versatility given by the rotating table carrier on the real thing. Derek also provided a decent guide to using it.

As Sam already has his X-Y table he can save much effort and simply copy the other parts of the design. The X (long) axis feed needs to be converted to lever action. Derek used a chain which is simple and effective.

One thing I've never understood about published designs is why no one seems to have copied the Clarkson layout. The simple see-saw motor and wheel-head support used on the Clarkson makes it far easier to achieve decent mechanical stability than the usual column. If a self contained wheel head (small bench grinder) is desired a single sided pivot arm makes a straightforward change. Much to be said for the Clarkson rotating table mount which makes a lot of set-ups easier than rotating a wheel head around a column. The rotating table mout is of course made essential by the Clarksons fixed wheel head carrier.

In the end a Clarkson appeared at a "wallet came out smoking" price so I never built a T & C grinder.

Clive

Hi Guys,

These are pictures of my modified Brooks TCG that I finished earlier in the year. I've ground several end mill cutters and made some specialised tools with it.

All told its taken quite a while to build in fits and starts.

From experience whilst using it there are one or two things that I would do differently.

John

Useful Pictures to get the grey cells going. Thankyou

Sam L

The universal end of project comment!

A very nice build John. Really shows off how compact the Brooks design is. I'm impressed that you managed to fit a belt drive wheel head set up. I'd have put money on it not being possible to get a satisfactory installation as the Brooks was designed to use the wheel directly mounted on the motor shaft to make things more compact.

Sam

Do remember that the important thing is the holders that present the tools to the wheel. Although the overall machine layout and design is the sexy part its the holders that define how well and accurately the tooling is sharpened.

From a home user perspective the general run of T & C designs are unnecessarily versatile. We deal with very few varieties of tools and correspondingly few angles so it may well be better to sort out individual fixed angle holders rather than faff around with graduated dials et al to set up "any" job.

I have to look up the angles most times because the Clarksonisn't an everyday tool!

Its worth looking at Howard Halls designs for effective ways of simplifying sharpening set ups with easily made components. But even Howard is, in my opinion, overly concerned with versatility rather than accepting that his target audience will have sufficiently modest sharpening needs that only a few fixed angle holders will suffice.

Clive

PS The Bonelle head mount and column set up is very similar to Johns but a bit huskier. Plans can be found on the Internet.

Edited By Clive Foster on 22/12/2021 10:46:51

I went through a similar exercise as you did Clive.

I looked at what was available but ruled out the clarkson as too big for my workshop and a lot that you see for sale don't have any essential kit that you need to get the most out of them unless you're lucky.

I built the simple Harold Hall grinder and I found it very frustrating to use, perhaps the advanced grinder is better.

However a year ago the chance to get the Quorn castings came up and although this machine can be awkward to use, I have always wanted to build one since as an apprentice in the mid 1970's I read the construction articles by Prof Chaddock.

Tell you the truth I am building the Quorn for the challenge more than anything and if it can sharpen the tooling in my workshop then I will be happy!

I built the drill grinding attachment designed by Ian Bradely many years ago in the ME and it's a fantastic piece of kit.

I ruled out the Worden due to thel fan of the motor directing air and grinding dust into my face.

Horses for courses though !

Kind regards

Derek

Ps I had to look up the word "infelicitous" in your post.....never heard of that word before, you learn something everyday... even though I dont agree with it!

Hemingway kits offer the Quorn Mk3. about £700.00. The "un-machined" kit does include a fully complete column, quick start thread & axial keyway finished.

Trouble with that is that if I do find that I have bitten off more than I can chew it is a lot of dosh down the drain. I feel that by following the host of youtube items & the book (will buy that shortly) I would be in with a chance. The column did worry me though &I did not realise it came machined. If that is really the case then i reckon that i am in with a shout.

It would be handy If Hemmingway would sell parts in stages so that one could see how one was getting on & if one should proceed further. Do they do that?

Try this by David Haythornthwaite

**LINK**

it's on my 'to-do' list, but not near the top!

Interesting link. I shall read with interest. It is amazing what is out there if only one can find it

Thanks.

As DHC emphasises in his book, the "quick start thread" on the Quorn column is purely optional.

So far as the ball handles are concerned, I agree that the modern adjustable handles would be quick and convenient but cannot say that my conventional ones are a problem. I notice that Hemingway are sticking to the old style with their Mk3 machine despite claiming many other improvements.

One disadvantage of the Mk2 is its fixed motor speed and this does not seem to have been addressed by them.

Sam

Although a well made screw adjustment on a column system is the most attractive way of carrying an adjustable wheel head the Clarkson style seesaw pivot is much easier to make and functionally more than equivalent for our purposes. I'm unsure as to whether the wheel head actually needs to be rotatable in a horizontal plane for the things we do. If so it would not be too difficult to make a base that allowed the whole thing to rotate through a suitable (smallish) angle.

The column and (accurate) screw feed layout stems primarily from needing to handle surface grinder style duties which can be necessary on serious industrial toolroom cutter making jobs. Far as I'm aware pure vertical movement is never essential for straight forward tool and standard cutter sharpening.

Clive

Apart from the column thread, which is for coarse adjustment of the wheelhead and motor, the Quorn has a fine adjustment via a rocking arrangement. This could be helpful when sharpening the flutes of taps, etc.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the nice comments !

Clive: The timing belt drive allows me to change the small pulley for a larger one to alter the wheel speed. As shown in the picture, the wheel runs at 5k rpm, the wheel being rated for a maximum of 5.2K. The larger pulley drops the wheel speed down to 3K.

The head is moved by the threaded rod and can be raised or lowered 1.25 mm per turn of the M10 thread. Not easy to see in the picture, but the head is locked in any desired position by a split collet tightened by a thumbscrew. The complete motor head unit can be rotated 360 degrees, allowing the machine to be used as a surface grinder with a 170 mm travel. The table feeds are by M6 left and right hand threaded screws, both control knobs being calibrated in 1 thou increments.

Designed to minimise size and weight, I used ball races instead of the precision ground rods that Brooks used. This nicely gets around grinding dust on the rod used as slides.

This is actually one of the things that I would change, since there is no facility to lock the ways as it stands. Fitting Teflon pads and table locks would be an advantage.

A Clarkson will occupy about 2' X 2' and I picked up 3, non more than £400 and all with the standard attachments, one almost new. £700 for the castings, I would be patient and wait for a Clarkson. Noel.