Grinding And Tools Grinding

Hello to all members

I am new to this forum and relatively new to machining.

I have been working as a design and development engineer for over 20 years and have developed a passion for machining.

I have a CNC machine and Wabeco manual lathe and would like to learn grinding / tool grinding to make precision parts. Is there someone who is able to help me with this? I live in North London.

Thank you

SMEE - The Society of Model and Experimental Engineers, is running its annual tool grinding course on October 15 - located in S London and easy to get to by train.

Many Thanks for the information Norman.

Unfortunately this course is for members only and I am not a member, I have also noticed the course is for free hand grinding method for lathe tools only. I would like to purchase a surface grinder\tool grinder with some fixtures to be able to grind tools and plates, if it is possible.

Do you grinde your own tools or plates?

Roni

You can free-hand HSS lathe tools well enough with an ordinary bench-grinder to get started (and for many of us, to continue!).

That won't give very accurate tool geometry so will limit such operations as screw-cutting, but is usually enough for most plain turning of most common materials to good work accuracy and finish.

I suggest you buy Harold Hall's Tool & Cutter Sharpening. Look in TEE Publishing's on-line catalogue for it.

This not only give all the information on angles etc; but also gives designs for simple adjustable tool-rests that essentially turn the ordinary bench-grinder into a decent lathe-tool sharpener, capable of handling for example screw-thread cutting.

The SMEE course is "members only" for insurance reasons as it's a "hands on" course. It's not expensive to join SMEE and you get the Journal, access to the library and the monthly lecture programme and access to the workshops. We have a surface grinder and a collection of various tool and cutter grinders accessible to members, subject to safety checks.

It's not too difficult to grind lathe tools freehand to correct angles and the course shows how. Surface grinding is a different thing altogether.

If books are your thing, have a look at 'Toolroom Grinding' by Norton, from:

http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/detail.aspx?id=6637

If you browse the manufacturer's index, there is a lot of stuff available. One that caught my eye was on centreless grinding from the Cincinatti Grinding Co.

There is a lot of older stuff at the Internet Archive for reading.

Link below should keep you busy:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=grinding&sin=&and[]=mediatype%3A%22texts%22&and[]=lending___status%3A%22is_readable%22

A good, paper book 'The grinding of steel' by Eric Simons.

If you like videos, Stefan Gotteswinter and Rob Renz on YouTube do some tasty stuff.

Edited By DC31k on 26/09/2022 19:53:07

I'm sure as a 20 year engineering veteran you have the brainpower to work out a bit of tool grinding without much hand holding. There have been plenty of articles in ME over the years and a few websites now cover the basics. If you don't find the advanced topics covered, when you have worked tehm out, write and article for ME

Many thanks for all your comments.

DC31k - I have watched many of Stefan Gotteswinter's videos on YouTube he is the guy that inspire me to try and learn how to grind tools and surface grinding plates.

Theoretically I understand the grinding subject very well, I now need to prentice it hence, I now need to find a small tool grinder machine.