My next project

I picked up this homemade grinder for less than £70. It is quite well made and feels very rigid. The dials have excellent graduations all round. There is no play at all in any axis on the swivels. The lead screw has almost imperceptible backlash.. The motor feels ok but does rumble a tiny bit so I will change the bearings at both ends. The tool holder is a bit strange in that it is just a 8mm slot with 3 socket head cap screws to fix the tool in place. I will modify & change it to an ER3 collett holder. The biggest draw back is that it has no tilt to the head so will not do compound angles. I need to have a good look at it and see if is possible to alter the parts below the head to get it to hinge up & down to a good degree of accuracy. Maybe I have to remake the compound completely. The unit is 20" long x 12" deep x !6" high & weighs in at almost 20Kg

regards

Edited By Oldiron on 05/01/2022 13:49:45

That's a bargain and what a great basis to do your upgrades. I've been looking for something similar at a sensible price for ages. Well done!

Thanks Henry. Yes I saw it and put in a bid for £150 what a shock when I won it for under £70. Gives me some spare £'s for er32 holder. cup wheels & bearings. I will take my time and work out the best way to go about it.

regards

As a quick and dirty solution, could you build the angle into the holder?

Yes it would be easy to make a new block to sit under the holder ( or fit a shim under one side) but would limit me to a fixed angle. I would rather the block under the holder could be tilted to different angles accurately.ie primary & rake angles. Hope fully not too much of a job. Making models to test a few things before I machine the parts up.

regards

I reckon you've done very well there!

Regarding making the head tilt, I think it's halfway there. My suggestion for what's it worth:

Let the top parts working upwards = table, block, [collet-]body

Remove the block.

Establish how much - or little - you can cut into the flanks of the table and body (or design a new, rectangular-section body - I'll go with the existing for now).

Machine two flat flanks on the body, to which suitable stub pins can be secured as pivots.

A pair of trunnions that screw to the flanks of the table and whose inner faces are a close sliding fit on the body flanks.

Arrange some suitable clamps for the trunnion pins, so the body can be locked into place. Simplest may be to extend them outside of the trunnions, the extensions threaded for locking hand-wheels or levers. Alternatively, make the trunnion-tops be partial-split clamps with locking screws.

The arrangement would be slightly like that on many telescope mountings.

Thanks for the feedback Nigel. I was thinking along those lines as well. I would like to have it so it will tilt using a screw mechanism of some kind. So making the block hinge as you suggest and adding some form of scale to measure degrees is probably where I am heading.

I have been in contact with Cutwell with regards to a long shank ER32 Collett holder. They say the shanks are machinable with carbide so I will think about ordering one.

regards

Hi Henry,

I actually have a T&C grinder I'm getting rid of, it's a European made machine similar to the Deckel S0, needs a tidy up but if you're interested it's £180, I actually paid £200 and spent £20 in fuel collecting it but I need space in my workshop so if you're interested let me know, I'll stick it in the classifieds if not.

Sorry for interruption of your thread OldIron.

I've added a photo to my for sale folder if you want to see it.

Hi Pete, can't seem to find your for sale folder so have messaged you...

Allow me, Henry : **LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/albums/member_album.asp?a=56605

MichaelG.

Looks a great starting point. I want to improve my homebrew T&C grinder some time. Some bad pictures...

Neil, The protractor in your picture above or something very similar is on my to do list ( steal idea) for the cutter head tilt.

A little update. I machined the spindle of the head down and made a sleeve for it to enable me to try my Stevenson ER32 block as a temporary measure. I was going to use a Cutwell long shank ER32 holder but it has a 10mm hole up the centre. This brings some difficulties when trying to fit the dial and handle to it. So thats on the back burner for now. When I need to do flute sharpening I will revisit this part.

The rectangular mounting block for the head on the compound overhung each side of the swivel by 0.040" so milled it down so there was only 0.005" overhang. This will make it easier to fix the hinge plates when I get them done.

Am now working out the dimensions for the hinge plates that will be fitted to the sides of the block and be swivelled from the compound. I will try to incorporate some kind of protractor similar to one in Neils post.

The compound is not quite as well made as it first appeared. Nothing was square and looked if it had been sawcut and filed to shape. The block on the top was out by about 3 degrees so I had to sort that out. Now it is all square I can get on. I mounted the head to make sure I had enough clearance to sharpen cutters up to 16mm.

A few pictures follow.

regards

You have a good machine as the foundation for increased versatility with little modifications.

The thought in my mind was to radius the bottom of the block carrying the tool holder, and drill and tap it on the centre line of the long , now radiused, axis.

Make a pair of side cheeks to fix to the base so that the toolholder base can pivot about, and be locked by screws through the cheeks into the radiused block

You would need to use an angle gauge of some sort, (Like a Wixey? ) to set the angle, but you would then be able to adjust the holder in four axes. as required.

The icing on the cake would be to fit graduated dials to all the movements.

Howard