2 x 72 Grinder Build

[bjansen]

I have a woodworking shop, thus selected 6061 aluminium for ease of working. I found a new 1.5HP surplus motor from **** and purchase a new KBAC 27-D VFD from Wholesale Electric Motors. Nuts/bolts/wire/gas spring were from McMaster-Carr. I purchased pre-cut aluminium from MetalsOnline and I bought the tracking wheel, drive wheel and platen.

IHere is the start. Most of the components to get started.

To start, I thought I would make the tool rest. Something simple to get the hang of drilling/tapping. I used layout fluid and some woodworking scribes to get the layout.

Worked pretty well.

It was evident that I needed to square up the rough cut pieces. No mill, but I used my 6x80 sander with a 36 grit zirc. belt and that worked well. I used a bolted down miter guage and an extra piece of aluminium for the 90 degree fence.

 

[bjansen]

Next the tracking adjustment and tracking arm.

$100 drill press, $250 drill press vise (borrowed from my buddy Mark). Could not have done this good of a job without that drill press vise. Precision where you need it I suppose.

For the arm holder, instead of using a solid piece of aluminium (and having to mill it), I used 3 seperate pieces bolted together. This worked well and I am certain that the spacing and tolerance is far better than I could have achieved trying to cut a solid piece.

 

[bjansen]

I used a piece of ¾” round stock for the handle

On to the main piece

Drilling the initial holes

 

[bjansen]

Lining it up to drill through the bottom (to ensure a precise line up)....my measuring/layout/marking would never be as precise as a cheater method. I marked all the inside surfaces with fluid and marked front/back/top bottom to make sure I would not misplace a piece.

Drill one at a time, tap, bolt, line up and drill another.

 

[bjansen]

Once you get at least 2 or 3 bolts in, then do the rest.

 

[bjansen]

Now for the side supports. I used masking tape on each side of the tooling arm to provide for adequate spacing.

 

[bjansen]

Feet and base plate:

Tooling arm:

 

[bjansen]

Check square one more time:

Gas spring:

 

[bjansen]

Now for a base....a piece of LVL beam

Quick dry fit:

Dado that in a bit:

 

[bjansen]

Time to get filthy polishing alumimum. I basically scuffed everything with 220 first, then polished with whit rouge on a sewn wheel. I intended to polish up the moving surfaces

And got a little carried away

And then might as well jewel it

 

[bjansen]

And ended up polishing all moving pieces, and jewelling everything else

 

[bjansen]

Made a aluminium mounting plate for the VFD

And then final assembly I used .020 washers as a spacers to allow adequate room for tooling arm movement. Worked well and you can’t hardly tell they are there.

 

[Don Nguyen]

That is wicked awesome, thanks for sharing!

 

[machinistbutler]

Looks like a great job!

 

[Widerstand]

Wow man that looks great!

 

[leifjl]

You missed a spot with that jeweling.
Looks nicely done with minimal tooling and machinery.
Good job!

 

[Shawn fu]

Nice bro... what a jewel! (sorry couldn't resist) thanks for taking the time to post this.

 

[talf904]

Very nice. Thanks for the time you put into taking and posting the photos.

 

[PT Doc]

Nice build and great documentation for others.

 

[lunar4772]

Very nice. Thanks for showing it. I have to ask. How long did the jeweling take? It really adds something to it.